RIP Bob Bogle:

Bob Bogle, a founding member of the Ventures, the long-running guitar band whose jaunty 1960 hit “Walk — Don’t Run” became an early standard of instrumental rock ’n’ roll and taught generations of guitarists how to make their solos sparkle, died on Sunday in Vancouver, Wash., where he lived. He was 75.

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Although not the first instrumental band of the rock era, the Ventures were the most successful and enduring, applying their twangy, high-energy sound to dozens of albums. Older than the typical teenage garage band, the members of the Ventures cut wholesome figures, their guitar gymnastics coming across as good, clean sport.

Mr. Bogle and Don Wilson, two young construction workers and novice guitar enthusiasts, started the group in Tacoma, Wash., in 1958. Unable to attract a record label, they founded their own, Blue Horizon.

Their first single, “Cookies and Coke,” was a flop, but for their second they chose “Walk — Don’t Run,” a tune by the jazz guitarist Johnny Smith that Mr. Bogle had discovered on a Chet Atkins album. The Ventures transformed the gentle original with a quick tempo and bright, punchy guitars. Mr. Bogle played the lead part, punctuating the melodies with springy vibrato and various noisemaking tricks.

“They took a jazz song that had some swing to it, and they garaged it out,” Peter Blecha, author of “Sonic Boom: The History of Northwest Rock From ‘Louie Louie’ to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ ” said in an interview on Tuesday. “They stomped their way through it, ignored the niceties of the sound and made it palatable to 15-year-old tastes.”

Thank Jeebus we still have Los Straitjackets