Walk Don’t Run is one of my favorite instrumentals right along Sleep Walk, Green Onions, and a few others. When I learned to play this on guitar, I was on cloud nine. Johnny Smith wrote this song and was the first one to record it. Chet Atkins along with many artists covered this but the song is best remembered by The Ventures.
This song got a push in The Ventures native Seattle when a local radio DJ used it to lead into every newscast. The Ventures first released this song in 1960 and it peaked at #11 in the Billboard 100. After this song, it kicked their career in high gear. The band had 14 singles in the Billboard Hot 100. With over 100 million records sold, the Ventures are the best-selling instrumental band of all time.
Numerous musicians credit the Ventures with helping them learn their instrument, including Anthrax, the B-52s, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Dire Straits, Dave Edmunds, Adam Ant, Mick Fleetwood, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Johnny Ramone, Jello Biafra, Keith Moon, Gene Simmons, Jimmy Page, Toulouse Engelhardt, Jim Diamond, Chris Spedding, Insect Surfers, Black Train, Gary Pig Gold, Al Di Meola, and Max Weinberg.
In 1964, The Ventures released an updated version called “Walk Don’t Run ’64, which also made the Top 10 in the US. In addition to their 1960 and 1964 versions. They recorded completely new versions in 1968, 1977, 1986, and 2000. “Walk-Don’t Run 77 is a disco track. The 1986 one was sort of a heavy metal version, and the one in 2000 has a sax in it.
They were founded by Bob Bogle and Don Wilson in the 1950s. John Fogerty inducted the Ventures in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.
Johnny Smith Version
Walk Don’t Run 77
Walk Don’t Run 64
The Original
Walk Don’t Run
Not one lyric…Just dig on the guitar riff.
Discover more from PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I love that Johnny Smith groove. Nice soubd to wake up to on a Monday morning. Cheers buddy.
They were the only group that played just instrumental songs, which made them really different.
Classic
Love these guys. As well as being talented musicians, they put on one helluva show.
I can’t decide if doing all these versions is ‘genius’ or just milking a cash cow! (I’ve looked but can’t find the ’86 version … a ‘metal’ version? Now that sounds intriguing. 😉
Yea I couldn’t find that version either… I think it’s a little of both…by updating the song.
The ’64 version is the one that showed up on my Surf & Drag album. My dad had the original album from 1960.
I think I like the 64 version the most
I would have to concur!!!
WOW…we agree!
We agree sometimes… 😉
lol
😁
I don’t think there is a genuine metal version. I think there is a popular metal version cover. Judging by their music style, setting aside the Disco version, I don’t think they would have done a metal-type version, despite what Songfacts reflects. I’ve caught Songfacts getting much information wrong.
Wouldn’t they have had to change guitars and amps to get a metal sound?
Here it is:
https://youtu.be/Li6IHmxCuEY
No not guitars at all…just buy a distortion box and they would have it or overload the amps…that is what I do. You can get that sound on a small practice amp by turning the gain up and volume halfway… instant Ironman lol
Well…scratching head…The Ventures songs are all over YT. If they did a real metal version, someone would have posted it. I’m skeptical on this one.
It could be a live cut also…It would make sense though Vic…that is what was popular then
I’m not ruling it out… The metal cover version is interesting.
The fabulous Ventures. Wailing on their beautiful guitars blasting through Fender Bassman amps. Dick Dale and all the other surf bands idolized these guys. If you didn’t learn”Walk Don’t Run’ in the early 60s, you weren’t considered a guitar player. My band, “The American Classics” for 20 years played this tune because our lead guitar player, John Payne strapped on his “62 Gold Strat” and blew a hole in the stratosphere with his surf guitar picking. And the elusive Mosrite guitar is possibly the best playing ax ever made. The electronics weren’t great, but that neck was pure warm butter and honey under your grubby teenage fingers. I didn’t own one, few people did, but a buddy of mine adopted one and let me pick it up once in a while, usually during the holidays, as a gift of sorts. He kept it in the corner of his room, case opened, surrounded by burning Voltive candles and religious figurines. I was sent packing with my lowly every-mans Gibson 335. The Fender Strat was closest to a Mosrite but apparently not close enough. I saw one of the beauties on eBay a few years back and it was going for 5K, with no case. I have their greatest hits vinyl, so I must now give it a spin.
Great comments- this is what I love about music, every song touches us in so many memorable ways; we just don’t know it at the time.
Phil I never played a Mosrite but you are telling me what everyone else did…the neck was so damn thin is what they said…it almost played itself. I would like to play one at least at a music shop or where ever.
Glad you liked the song Phil!
I played one once, and it’s true. It felt like there were no strings!
I wonder how they got those necks so thin without bending? I have to hunt one down.
All in the truss rod, I assume.
I didn’t think I knew it until I clicked on the sound!
It’s one that some don’t know the name…but they know it.
another one of those 60s instrumentals that I recognize right away but didn’t know by name. Great guitar sound on it. Been quite awhile since there was a popular instrumental , hasn’t it?
I’m trying to think of one now…I know in the 70s there were a few like Jessica…there was a few in the 80s I believe. It’s been a while though.
seems like there were lots when we were kids in the 70s… a couple a year almost… “Popcorn”, “Frankenstein”, “TSOP”, the TV themes like “Rockford Files” and the more or less instrumentals with a word or two like “The Hustle” or “Pick up the Pieces.” by the ’80s, last one that pops into my mind is the “chariots of Fire” theme by Vengelis.
And the one in Beverly Hills Cop movie
I remember someone doing a retrospective of the 60s saying every year had a big instrumental hit- like this one. Ones that come to mind are ‘Telstar’ ‘Apache’ ‘Green Onions’ as mentioned ‘Spanish Flea”Love Is Blue’ -that orchestral/piano/so-sweet-it-coulda-been Liberace effort was HUGE here- ‘Classical Gas’ and a personal all time fave, ‘Albatross.’ There must be more, I recall the odd spaghetti western theme songs as well, but not as massive hits.
Wipe Out is one that pops up also with that crazy laugh.
Pipeline by The Chantays is another favorite of mine.
Yea I liked that one also
Any player- or in some cases, like me, wannabe players- starts here, at bedrock. (Hey, a terrible pun tossed into the mix too!)
Hey it’s true. When I started I learned Chuck Berry and a few others…
It’s not recognized as such, but I’ve always thought of the Venture’s “Walk, Don’t Run” as a precursor to the instrumental surf music of Dick Dale and company.
I do agree with that.
This is another of the first songs I went looking for when Youtube came on the scene. I wasn’t aware of any of the later versions; just the original. Wow, they sure tried some different things with it.
Yes they did! I would love to hear the “heavy metal” version of it…just to hear the Ventures playing it! I cannot find it.
That would be something to hear, I agree.
On with Dick Clark:
https://youtu.be/owq7hgzna3E
I love it…
I think this is the 1968 version. It is different from ’60 & ’64 but, nowhere close to ’77:
https://youtu.be/qWsLSn6S5cw
It’s a little more harder edge
It’s good, too.
Yes it is…I agree….AGAIN
Tee-hee!
I think this might be 1986:
https://youtu.be/hIuIIqbyEIU
If it is….it’s not as advertised….it was supposedly a heavy version
Well, no, it’s not metal but, this is definitely an 80s video.
Oh yea
The 2000 version:
https://youtu.be/s6AafxQ-wB4
I like that one…it’s not bad at all.
I love a sax but, I’m not fond of this one. It’s too “lounge lizardy” to me.
It’s different but at least it is a real instrument…I was thinking they would put a computer beat to it.
Re 2000; The sax gives it a campy feel, and the rhythm section sounds like Madness(?) to me; all in all kinda jagged, and none of the other versions are.
Cool tune, Max, I had not heard it before. The guitar tone reminds me a bit of Hank Marvin of The Shadows. Also interesting how many different versions they created. That ’77 disco version is quite funky!
Yea I like the 64 version….that surf thing is going on
That first one has just a little bit too much improv going on with it. I got a kick out of the boon-chicka-boon-chicka of the 2nd one. It took me a few notes in to recognize the tune. Old Gold!