One year ago: Bob Bogle of the Ventures

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Rolling Stone’s ‘Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll’ calls the Ventures ‘one of the first, best, most lasting and influential of instrumental guitar-based rock combos.’ And Bob Bogle, who died a year ago today, played a key part in the group’s success as its co-founder.

‘Any guitar player would tell you, Bob is the most unique-sounding guitar player ever,’ Don Wilson, who co-founded the Ventures with Bogle, told The Times’ Dennis McLellan.

‘The way he used to do the whammy bar -- that vibrato bar. He kept his little finger on it while he played it all the time. He’d make it sound, like at the end of a chord, Wow-wow. We were the first ones to ever get recognized for doing anything like that. When you heard him play, you knew it was him.’

The Ventures’ hits included ‘Walk Don’t Run’ and the theme from TV’s ‘Hawaii Five-o,’ which you can enjoy on the video at the top of this post.

The obituary that appeared June 17, 2009, can be found here.

--Keith Thursby