The Ventures: So very inventive and so very weird…
By David McGee
THE VENTURES’ CHRISTMAS ALBUM
The Ventures
Dolton (1965)
Razor & Tie (1995 reissue)
Originally released on the Dolton label in 1965, The Ventures’ Christmas Album is a true holiday treasure. The greatest of all rock ‘n’ roll instrumental groups (having sold more than 100 million records and still playing to enthusiastic audiences the world over), the Ventures were no strangers to the concept album, as their long players tended to focus songs around a single theme, starting with 1961’s The Colorful Ventures and including, by the time this Christmas outing appeared, The Ventures in Space (a collection of celestial wanderings, such as “Out of Limits,” “One Step Beyond,” “Twilight Zone,” “War of the Satellites”), The Ventures a Go-Go (dance tunes), Beach Party and Surfing (guess). Those are some great albums, showcasing the rock-solid rhythm section of Howie Johnson and, after Johnson was disabled in an auto accident, Mel Taylor on drums and Bob Bogle on bass, laying the foundation for the guitar wizardry of Don Wilson on rhythm and the virtuosic Nokie Edwards on lead.
Behold how ‘Walk Don’t Run’ segues into Leroy Anderson’s ‘Sleigh Ride’ on The Ventures’ Christmas Album
On the Christmas album, Wilson and Edwards made full use of the sonic possibilities of the Mosrite guitars they played exclusively at this time, and vividly displayed the wit common to Ventures arrangements. The particular conceit here is that every song begins with a few bars of a current or recent hit that might otherwise have made it onto another Ventures album or even have already been a hit for the group, such as its career launching 1960 million seller “Walk, Don’t Run,” the opening bars of which open this album before cleverly, and impossibly, transitioning into Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride” as Edwards ratchets up the reverb and deploys his wang bar periodically for effect. The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” sets the stage for “Snow Flakes,” a number (one of two crediting the entire band as songwriters) incorporating the melody from “Greensleeves” but periodically referencing both the ethereal atmosphere of the Zombies’ single and its melody as the tune progresses. This is a quality singular to The Ventures, because otherwise it makes little sense and explains why one reviewer would describe this album, in glowing terms, as “so very inventive and so very weird.”
‘Silver Bells,’ The Ventures, featuring the vocoder in the choruses, from The Ventures’ Christmas Album
The bluesy opening licks of Johnny Rivers’s version of “Memphis” are but prelude to a stomping rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock.” John Lennon’s arpeggiated opening riff on the Beatles’ “I Feel Fine” makes for an exciting intro to…”Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” The other band original is a little 2:06 exercise in spookiness titled “Scrooge,” which, other than its shouted greeting of “Humbug!”, has more to do with Halloween than Christmas, given its horror house melodies and effects. Then there’s the matter of the band’s embrace of what at the time was groundbreaking technology not yet common in rock ‘n’ roll, such as its introduction of the fuzz box on its 1963 recording of “2000 Lb. Bee, Parts 1 & 2.” So what do they break out in an otherwise faithful rendering of “Silver Bells”? In the choruses dig the first rock ‘n’ roll deployment of a vocoder. So inventive and so very weird, The Ventures’ Christmas Album is indeed the gift that keeps on giving and, yea verily, in a league of its own.
‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,’ in which the opening riff from the Beatles ‘I Feel Fine’ sets the stage for the Johnny Marks-penned seasonal classic on The Ventures’ Christmas Album
Note: The year 2023 has also seen the release of a long-awaited documentary chronicling The Ventures’ career, Stars on Guitars: The Ventures. Written and directed by Stacy Layne Wilson, the film features extensive interviews with the band members along with perspectives on the group’s artistry by the likes of John Fogerty, Jeff Baxter, Wayne Kramer, Billy Bob Thornton and others along with heartfelt testimonials from Japanese fans affirming the Ventures’ enormous and undiminished influence on the country’s music scene. The documentary is available on Amazon Prime and was reviewed in Deep Roots this past July. Consider it a must-see event.
