The Ventures: "Walk — Don't Run"

August 29, 1960 (2 weeks)

It feels like I'm bringing this up a lot about several years I've covered so far but the CHUM chart number ones have been really bad of late. Shockingly bad in fact. After being pleasantly surprised by 1957, I was quite disappointed by the following year only to be even less impressed by '59. 1960 is somehow that much worse. Not only have there been plenty of mediocre-to-bad selections but there have been next to no highlights to rescue such a bleak year. Obviously Jim Reeves and Connie Francis managed to pull their weight but it's not as though their chart toppers were premiership level or anything.

Trying to do their part, The Ventures' signature number "Walk — Don't Run" is very likely the finest Canadian number one of 1960. It is also the best instrumental covered in this space to date (though it will be overtaken by a certain space/surf rock classic before long). It's starting to feel like the heyday of the largely vocal-free pop hit is already coming to a close which is something I'm not pleased about. The pop-rock combo specializing in instrumentals is something that livened up an otherwise murky time of ghastly novelty hits and lame pretty boys going all gooey for the ladies. Yet, they've never been present during similarly shallow periods of chart music.

It's difficult to say what did in the instrumental acts but perhaps the story of "Walk — Don't Run" offers clues as to how they came to prominence and, perhaps, what marked their fall off. We begin with jazz. The implications of the 1942 recording ban kicked off by the American Federation of Musicians were wide ranging. The US had declared war on the Axis powers the previous December which led to a shortage of manpower in many industries not the least of which being the big bands. Five-piece groups became the norm. They were unable to record so they toured like mad. Musicians who had cut their teeth in big bands started going out on their own and they no longer had limits placed upon them. Fewer people danced because who would want to get down to Charlie Parker spraying out notes? Jazz ceased to be hugely popular.

But there were great soloists — Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Milt Jackson, Thelonious Monk — and lots of first rate compositions being cranked out. But who could replicate them? The be-bop stars of the late-forties inspired many but they also left young musicians in a state of not knowing where to go from there. The solution of Miles Davis, Chet Baker and Stan Getz was to keep the complexities but slow things down considerably. But what about young musicians who lacked soloing dexterity? They made up the generation that played instrumental beat music. Cue The Ventures.

"Walk — Don't Run" had originally been written in 1954 by jazz guitarist Johnny Smith. If his recording barely resembles what The Ventures would go on to do with it some six years later, it's worth noting that he had based it off of the standard "Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise" even though they don't seem all that similar either. (Incidentally, Smith seemed to get the jump on the competition by realizing the potential of the Sigmund Romberg-Oscar Hammerstein classic: it was only after a pristine version by the Modern Jazz Quartet a year later that the likes of John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins began having their own go at it) Nothing in either "Softly" nor Smith's original suggests hard-hitting, jet-fueled surf-rock but that's what The Ventures managed to get out of it.

The group had a hit with it and then did it to death. Though they tried their hand at pretty much every instrumental they could think of — "Apache", "Raunchy", even "Telstar" — they wouldn't have another Top 10 hit until "Walk — Don't Run '64", an update that does its best to incorporate some fun Joe Meek-style studio tricks while still coming way short of the spirit of the original. Better was their rendition of holiday favourite "Sleigh Ride" on their Christmas album which did the logial thing of merging its melody with that of their biggest hit. (For god's sake, I have no ear for music and I could always tell they'd synthesize perfectly)

As is always the case, you'd better make your one shot count and The Ventures certainly managed to do so. If not quite a mind-blowing experience then "Walk — Don't Run" is at least a superb party record that put smiles on faces, light up a dancefloor and even soundtrack Finch rushing to the bathroom after his mocaccino been spiked with a laxative by Stifler. Instrumental pop continues to give a great deal but since nearly everyone wants to be a singer and get laid more than the bassist and drummer there just aren't groups out there to fill the decades-long void. I suspect the demand is still out there for instrumental bands even if audiences don't know it.

Score: 9