Beach Party

Digitally remastered and expanded edition of this 1962 album. With 100 million records sold, The Ventures are easily the most commercially successful instrumental group of all time. They are an institution in both America and Japan and if their popularity in the United Kingdom is more modest, this is only because Britain had in the early 1960s its own generation of guitar combos in the Shadows and the Tornados. The song that started The Ventures phenomenon was their arrangement of 'Walk, Don't Run.' The group was in awe of Chet Atkins and were inspired to adapt his slightly baroque interpretation of the Johnny Smith composition. The hit brought The Ventures to national prominence and began a career of five decades and more, which has seen the release of over 250 albums worldwide. Their 1962 long-player, Beach Party is undoubtedly one of the finest and most coherent of all original `60s Ventures concept albums and is the centerpiece of this anthology of their early years. This edition comprises selections from each of their first nine albums and some rare single-only releases (including Part One of Mel Taylor's '2,000 Pound Bee' on which a fuzz tone / distortion box was used for the first time), all complimented by the addition of the historic Johnny Smith & Chet Atkins recordings of the seminal 'Walk, Don't Run.'