The Ventures first wide-release single, "Walk, Don’t Run"
(1960), brought international fame to the group, and is
often cited as one of the top songs ever recorded for guitar.
The Ventures first wide-release single, "Walk, Don’t Run"
(1960), brought international fame to the group, and is
often cited as one of the top songs ever recorded for guitar.
TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — Don Wilson, co-founder and rhythm
guitarist of the instrumental guitar band The Ventures, has died
at 88.
Wilson died Saturday in Tacoma of natural causes, surrounded
by his four children,
The band’s hits included “Walk, Don’t Run,” and the theme song
for “Hawaii Five-O.” They were inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in 2008. Wilson was the last of the original members
of the local band.
On January 23, 1957, machines at the Wham-O toy company rolled
out the first batch of their aerodynamic plastic discs—now known
to millions of fans all over the world as Frisbees.
The story of the Frisbee began in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where
William Frisbie opened the Frisbie Pie Company in 1871. Students
from nearby universities would throw the empty pie tins to each
other, yelling “Frisbie!” as they let go. In 1948, Walter Frederick
Morrison and his partner Warren Franscioni invented a plastic
version of the disc called the “Flying Saucer” that could fly further
and more accurately than the tin pie plates. After splitting with Franscioni, Morrison made an improved model in 1955 and sold it
to the new toy company Wham-O as the “Pluto Platter”–an attempt
to cash in on the public craze over space and Unidentified Flying
Objects (UFOs).