Recommended music:
Today, from the Bond on Vinyl archives, we’re still listening to music featured in From Russia With Love!
Based out of Tacoma, Washington, The Ventures played a big role in the surf rock craze of the early 1960s and have kept their fuzzy instrumental rock sound going for more than 60 years… but I don’t want to just talk about The Ventures as a whole today, just their drummer… well, their fourth drummer.
The Ventures were officially formed in 1959 with one George T. Babbitt Jr. on the drums. Unfortunately, his tenure with the group was short-lived as Babbitt was not old enough to play in the bars and nightclubs that the fledgling band wanted to play in. Babbit did just fine for himself, later becoming a four-star general in the US Air Force.
The Ventures released a cover version of the song “Walk, Don’t Run” as a single in the spring of 1960. It hit #1 in Canada. It reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The only song that held it back from #1 was Elvis Presley’s “It’s Now or Never.” The song eventually hit gold status, selling over a million copies, but the drummer on the recording, Skip Moore, had already decided to leave the group to work at his family’s gas station.
To capitalize on the success of the single, the band recorded a full album (with the same name as the hit) and set off on a fast-paced touring schedule with a new drummer, Howie Johnson. Johnson stuck with the band through four full albums. He also played on half of their fifth and sixth albums. However, he did not enjoy spending so much time away from family and constantly traveling from Seattle to Los Angeles for recording sessions, and so, by September 1962, Johnson was also out of the band to be replaced by Mel Taylor.
Taylor spent almost 30 years as the drummer of The Ventures, only taking a few years off in the 1970s, playing until his passing in 1996, when he was replaced by his son, Leon Taylor, who continues to be the drummer of the Ventures today.
Mel was able to release an album of great surf rock covers with his own band in 1966, known as The Magics, with quite a different version of From Russia With Love.
97. Mel Taylor And The Magics – In Action!
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