When I first began to listen to music in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I really enjoyed the instrumental songs I heard on the radio. Loved “Walk Don’t Run” by The Ventures. I couldn’t get enough of “Out of Limits” by The Marketts. And, of course, there’s the classic “Tequila” by The Champs that showed up years later in a Pee Wee Herman movie.
I have no idea why this instrumental genre faded away. Just listen to The Ventures playing the theme songs like “Hawaii Five-O” and “Secret Agent Man.” Just terrific!
Do you remember these instrumental hits? Any favorites here? GRADE: A (for both CDs)
TRACK LIST:
| 1 | Tequila – Champs |
| 2 | Rebel Rouser – Duane Eddy |
| 3 | Telstar – Tornadoes |
| 4 | Walk Don’t Run – Ventures |
| 5 | Red River Rock – Johnny, The Hurricanes |
| 6 | Pipeline – Chantays |
| 7 | Raunchy – Bill Justis |
| 8 | Out Of Limits – Marketts |
| 9 | Wipe Out – Surfaris |
| 10 | Sleep Walk – Santo, Johnny |
TRACK LIST:
| 1 | Walk – Don’t Run | |
| 2 | Perfidia | |
| 3 | Hawaii Five-O | |
| 4 | Theme From “A Summer Place” | |
| 5 | Secret Agent Man | |
| 6 | Lolita Ya-Ya | |
| 7 | Wipe Out | |
| 8 | Slaughter On Tenth Avenue | |
| 9 | Diamond Head | |
| 10 | Ram-Bunk-Shush | |
| 11 | Blue Moon | |
| 12 | Lullaby Of The Leaves |
Oh, I like all of them. I have a five-CD set of instrumentals from Rhino Records with volumes titles The 1950s, The 1960s, The 1970s, Soul, and Surf. Plenty of favorites there. Probably the CD in the collection that I play the most is the Soul volume featuring “Green Onions” and “ Soul Finger”. Oddly, another instrumental favorite, “No Matter What Shape Your Stomach’s In” (which sounds totally soul to me) is on the 1960s volume instead.
Slightly o/t, but I seem to recall a possibly apocryphal story that George Harrison was invited to join John Lennon & Paul McCartney because he knew how to play “Sleep Walk”.
You can’t go wrong with The Ventures. And Duane Eddy? Oh wow! Slightly over-hyped (IMHO) were “Wipe Out” and “Tequila.”
Jerry, I was a fan of The Ventures from the first time I heard their music. “Tequila” gained massive airplay on the radio back then.
Albums by Duane Eddy, Dick Dale, and Sandy Nelson were among the first records I ever bought.
Steve, same here! I loved those instrumental albums!
Deb, I seem to recall in 1965 that “No Matter What Shape Your Stomach’s In” motivated David Pell to the recording studio with members of The Wrecking Crew and they recorded “No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In),” a song based on music used in an Alka-Seltzer TV commercial, and several songs used in commercials.
Yes, I know them and love them. Bill Crider and I used to talk about favorite instrumentals. A thrill for me was when we saw Johnny Farina (Santo is retired) at a doo wop concert playing “Sleep Walk.” Besides “Green Onions” (mentioned by Deb), I’ve always loved Booker T> & the M.G.s’ “Time is Tight” (from the movie UP TIGHT). In the late 50s and early 60s, instrumentals were regularly among the top ten hits.
Some other favorites:
Apache by Jorgen Ingmann
Telstar (you need to see the movie about writer/producer Joe Meek)
Tequila
Because They’re Young (Duane Eddy)
Last Date (Floyd Cramer)
Wipe Out
Classical Gas (Mason Williams)
Hawaii Five-O
Jeff, nice list of classic Rock & Roll instrumentals! Yes, Bill Crider was a big fan of this music!
I just heard Telstar on SiriusXM yesterday.
I’m with Deb; I like them all.
Theme from A Summer Place takes me right back to my youth.
Beth, “Theme From A Summer Place” dominated the airwaves back in 1959 as well as the Sixties. I love the Percy Faith version best.
I liked them too. They were especially good listening for dreamers.
Patti, exactly. You could just listen to one of these instrumentals and just drift away!
While I”m not a fan of instrumentals, these were mostly ones I’ve enjoyed.
Maggie, somehow the instrumental genre pretty much disappeared after the Sixties. But, the dozens of great instruments from that time period show up on my CD player on a regular basis!
Chuck Mangione and George Benson (among some of the other poppy fusion players) and the instrumental version of the theme to BLESS THE BEASTS AND THE CHILDREN, recast as “Nadia’s Theme” and used as a soap’s theme (Y&R?) made some inroads in the ’70s (note the third decade of your set), along with T.S.O.P. and a few others…a bit rarer in the ’80s (Herbie Hancock and “Axel F” among the exceptions as charts started moving away from physical sales)..
My Cherokee ancestors would like to know why Link Wray hasn’t been mentioned as yet!
‘Shawnee on his mother’s side and claiming Cherokee heritage from his paternal grandfather, Wray and his family were considered third-class citizens in 1930s Dunn [NC], hated by whites and sometimes even other people of color. They “passed” whenever possible, listing themselves as white on censuses and effectively erasing their identity in the name of survival. Lillian Wray refused to teach her three boys the Shawnee language for fear of what would happen if they were caught speaking it. She turned out lights and put blankets over windows when the Ku Klux Klan burned crosses nearby. During KKK raids, she and local Cherokee parents would conduct the horrifying and humiliating ritual of hiding their children in barns, under beds or even in hastily dug holes in the ground. As Wray said, “The cops, the sheriff, the drugstore owner—they were all Ku Klux Klan. They put the masks on and, if you did something wrong, they’d tie you to a tree and whip you or kill you.” ‘ https://indyweek.com/music/features/link-wray-kkk-rural-north-carolina/
Todd, thanks the for the shout-out for Link Wray!
Sorry–busy day. that’s Deb’s multi-disc set—as the chiefest disco fan, she could not not love pop instrumentals…
Todd, that Rhino Records 5-CD set that Deb loves is pricy…and hard to find as a set. The individual CDs are another story.
One more favorite I forgot: Wiggle Wobble, by Les Cooper and the Soul Rockers.
Jeff, a true classic!
I’m sure that my favourite stations (AFN, Radio Luxemburg) played most of these but somehow I only remember Green Onions.
Maybe they didn’t tell us the songs’ titles? Or I just forgot them …
Wolf, sometimes the titles have little to do with the music. For example, “Tequila.”
Don’t forget “The Theme From Mondo Cane”/”More.”
The Ventures are from my town (Tacoma) and I spent time with Nokie Edwards at the last LouieFest here. I don’t recall the year. “Walk, Don’t Run” is one of the few leads I can play, which shows how easy it is.
Bob, “Walk, Don’t Run” seemed to be a standard song for most of the local bands I saw in the early Sixties. I did not know The Ventures hailed from Tacoma! I thought they were a California band. You sure know a lot of people!