+60 Years On Stage 
BILL and SUE-ON HILLMAN: A +60-YEAR MUSICAL ODYSSEY
www.hillmanweb.com/book :: www.hillmanweb.com/book/gigs
present
THE VENTURES
www.hillmanweb.com/songs/VENTURES.html
Meet the Ventures On and Off Stage
www.hillmanweb.com/music/ventures.html
View most of the Ventures Classic Album Covers
www.hillmanweb.com/music/ventures2.html
and
Visit our Vintage Mosrite Site:
www.hillmanweb.com/hillgt14.html
and
www.hillmanweb.com/hillgv14.htmlMy fond reunion memories of Don and Nokie
50 years after our first meeting with the Ventures in the early '60s
in Brandon's Roller Rink where we were the house band.
Bill Hillman with Nokie Edwards and Don Wilson ~ Ventures' Autographs on first album
Remembering DON WILSON, co-founder and rhythm guitarist for THE VENTURES
(Feb 10, 1933 - Jan 23, 2022)Following his death in 2022, Don Wilson's family said:
“Our dad was an amazing rhythm guitar player who touched people all over the world with his band, The Ventures. He will have his place in history forever and was much loved and appreciated. He will be missed."Wilson formed The Ventures in 1958 alongside bassist Bog Bogle, when the pair were both employed as construction workers in Seattle. Two years later, their cover of Johnny Smith’s ‘Walk, Don’t Run’ reached Number Two on the Billboard Hot 100.
The band went on to sell over 100 million records and inspired the likes of The Beatles, Beach Boys and KISS, with Gene Simmons reportedly an early member of their fan club.
The Ventures are credited with helping to popularise the electric guitar in the USA and across the world, and are the best-selling instrumental band of all time.
The band were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2008. “‘Walk, Don’t Run’ started a whole new movement in rock and roll,” John Fogerty said at the ceremony. “The sound of it became ‘surf music’ and the audacity of it empowered guitarists everywhere.”
Nokie Edwards, whose virtuosic electric guitar playing helped define the surf-rock style of the Ventures, the immensely popular instrumental band that rose to prominence in the 1960s, died on March 12, 2018 in Yuma, Ariz. He was 82.
Remembering NOKIE EDWARDS: Lead Guitarist for THE VENTURES
(May 9, 1935 – March 12, 2018)"Nokie Edwards, Whose Guitar Drove the Ventures, Dies at Is Dead at 82"
New York Times March 2018His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his wife, Judy, who said he had a recurring infection after surgery for a broken hip in December.
Mr. Edwards’s seemingly effortless picking produced a palpitating sound that captured the vibe of the ocean a few years before the Beach Boys began singing about California girls. The Ventures were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.
“Although musicologists might argue that Edwards’s country-fueled and steel-guitar-influenced licks owe more to country than pop or rock,” the guitar designer Jol Dantzig wrote in an appreciation of Mr. Edwards on the Premier Guitar website, “there is no denying that Edwards’s twangy tone, wang-bar glides and staccato riffing paved the way for the California surf bands of the 1960s.”
APACHE (with Frampton) | 2 | WEB REFERENCES
BUMBLE BEE TWIST (Japan 1966)
COMIN' HOME 1984 |
DRIVING GUITARS | Alt | Nokie Edwards | Nokie alt |
GHOST RIDERS (Chicago 2008 Don Wilson) | 2008| 1984 | Nokie Edwards |
HARLEM NOCTURNE
HONKY TONK | 2 |
HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN | 1984 |
JOURNEY TO THE STARS (Nokie) |
LET'S GO
MEMPHIS | 2 with Rick Derringer |
NO TRESPASSING
PERFIDIA
PIPELINE | Japan 1965 | Nokie Edwards |
RAM-BUNK-SHUSH
SLAUGHTER ON TENTH AVENUE
SLEEPWALK (with Jeff Baxter steel) | NOKIE alt |
SULTANS OF SWING
TELSTAR
TEQUILA |
TORQUAY
WALK DON'T RUN (original)
WALK DON'T RUN (1960)
WALK DON'T RUN
WALK DON'T RUN 64 | ALT | ALTWALK DON'T RUN (Nokie) | alt |
WIPEOUT | 2 | 1965 | Live |
REUNION:
George Babbitt was the original 17-year-old drummer on the Ventures first hit: "Walk Don't Run."
This kid went on to become a USAF Four Star General.
See the reunion HERE | Alternate
