MIC
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GET
TY^ IMAGESThe VenturesN
ot many bands formed in the
late 1950s can say they’re still
touring six decades later.
Except The Ventures didn’t tour in 2020,
making the past nine months the longest
time off the road one of the hardest-working
acts in showbusiness have ever endured.
But don’t blame them, blame Covid.
“We didn’t really do anything,” opines
long-time Venture Bob Spalding over
FaceTime from his home outside Austin,
Texas. “When the year started, we had one
appearance at the Grammy Museum... and
then the whole pandemic started.”
At the start of lockdown, The Ventures
had six gigs in their native US scrapped
and a two-month tour of Japan redlined.
Although clearly disappointed, Spalding
is optimistic that 2021 will be a back-to-
normal year for the sexagenarian band.
“We’re looking forward to this year,” he
says. “We’ve rebooked the US shows and
added a couple. We’re confi dent from our
Japanese promoter that they’re re-booking
the tour for this summer. So it’s all good.”
It must be said that this current line-up
of The Ventures doesn’t actually share any
personnel with that 1958 incarnation of
the group. The history, you see, of the mostinfl uential and best-selling instrumental
band of all time is more complicated than
the Atiyah-Singer index theorem.
So, a quick history: The Ventures were
formed in 1958 in Tacoma, Washington, by
Don Wilson and Bob Bogle. The fi rst line-up
was Wilson and Bogle, plus Nokie Edwards
on bass and Skip Moore on drums. Moore
left soon after, to be replaced by George T
Babbitt Jr, who then departed to be replaced
by Howie Johnson, who then left to be
replaced, in 1962 by Mel Taylor. Edwards
left in 1968 and was replaced by GerryMcGee, who left in 1972, only to be replaced
a few years later by the man he replaced.
Mel Taylor left in 1972 to be replaced by
Joe Barile, who stayed for six years, until he
was replaced by a returning Mel Taylor. In
1980, Bob Spalding, later dubbed ‘the fi fth
Venture’ by fans, joined the band and then,
in 1996, after the death of Mel Taylor, his son
Leon became the new (and fi fth!) drummer
in The Ventures. And that’s without even
mentioning guitarists JD Hoag, Luke
Griffi n and Ian Spalding, or any of the four
keyboardists they’ve had over the past 60
years. See, we told you it wasn’t simple.
Of that classic line-up of Wilson, Bogle,
Edwards and Taylor, only Wilson is still with
us. Bogle died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in
2009, Taylor succumbed to cancer in 1996
and Edwards passed away in 2018 following
complications from hip surgery, at the age of- When Wilson hung up his guitar in 2015,
that left Bob Spalding, who was just 11 when
the band formed and 33 when he joined, as
the senior Venture. “It’s weird to think of it
like that,” he laughs. “I’ve played with all the
guys for 40 years, but I was always the kid.”
The kid he may have been, but Spalding’s
history with The Ventures spans half a
century. Leaving the army in 1969 after one
The Ventures (l-r): Don
Wilson, John Durrill, Gerry
McGee, Mel Taylor, Bob Bogle
and inset the band in 1968