Nokie Edwards is THE Guitar God, bar none.

[Edward Lopez]

Here is a neat lil video of Nokie playing Walk Don't Run and then answering a few questions on the show TNN in 1996:
snip
Audio is a bit bad during the song but the interview comes in fine

Nokie could use a pep pill! I would have liked to have been at any occasion where Nokie was and someone cracked a joke that made him laugh. It may have been a rare event!

[ZacJM]

Yeah you can't seem to find anything that he sounds super enthused at when he talks. Theres a video where he's being interviewed about the Hitchhiker guitar and he doesn't even seem that pumped about it either.

[leonardblush]

When I was active in surf and a few rockabilly bands I would often times get reamed out for saying I liked Hendrix or Clapton. So I take no issue with either of those men.

The thing about Nokie for me is the Live in Japan '65 recordings. The studio version are great, but tha tlive record elevates him to God status. Hendrix? Was he still a backing man for the Isleys at that point? and Clapton? I think he was still in the Yardbirds and not certainly not doing anything too phenomenal. Who in rock and roll was playing like Nokie in '65? Nokie too me on that live album sounds like himself on steroids with some over the top James Burton thrown in.

[jtr654]

Jimmy Bryant was still in top form in that time and so was Joe Maphis.

[leonardblush]

Jimmy Bryant was still in top form in that time and so was Joe Maphis.

Obviously there were fantastic guitarists recording and playing at that time. But were they elevated to guitar God status at the household level? Even today Hendrix and Clapton are household names. I think a lot of the time a player is reffered to as a guitar god is by those who are more so fans of a type of music than actual players. I think guitar God has somewhat of a mainstream connotation to it. Not being alive in 1965, I can't say for sure, but just from the album out put alone I'd assume Nokie was more of a household name back in '65 than he is now.

[jtr654]

No one back then really cared ,they were the Ventures. The 1st band I remember actually pushing the name of each member is the Beatles.

[dubtrub]

No one back then really cared ,they were the Ventures. The 1st band I remember actually pushing the name of each member is the Beatles.

Ditto!
I didn't know the names of any of the Ventures until about five years ago, although I've played their music since the sixties. If the band didn't carry the name like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, B. B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, no one bothered with who the actual players were.

[Edward Lopez]

No one back then really cared ,they were the Ventures. The 1st band I remember actually pushing the name of each member is the Beatles.

Ditto!
I didn't know the names of any of the Ventures until about five years ago, although I've played their music since the sixties. If the band didn't carry the name like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, B. B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, no one bothered with who the actual players were.

I was such a THE VENTURES purist that even though I knew their names to me they were still 4 musicians that brought me joy. I resented it when they added a keyboard player and wrote them a letter to that effect. Didn't receive a reply. When my wife went to L.A. in the late '70s I begged her to drive by the address shown on the LPs and tell me what she saw. I didn't realize until I met Mel Taylor in 1980 when I delivered misdelivered mail to their office in the building which was next to the building I worked in! When I rang their doorbell I thought an office clerk or secretary would open it but my heart raced when Mel opened it! I call him Bob Bogle!

BTW, is it normal to click on the Submit button and wait for approx. 1 minute before it finally goes?

[juan_10]

hi Bob,
Yes on the Submit Button issue , see here for more posts .. viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3118

On the Nokie smiling front .. The Japanese really seem to 'get it' when he looks up and smiles slightly . He'll go 'squik squik' with the string on the 'Diamond head' intro , look up and smile really slightly and they go bananas
Hehe go figure what James Brown was up to at that period ! Instrumental music has different rules I'm figuring out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vem9z-93Lq8

[Hydra19]

i just discovered the Ventures in November 2011, just getting into surf after getting GAS for a Fender Jaguar. Listened to the stuff on youtube, and it was nice, very nice, but then I heard some fuss about Live in Japan 65' and downloaded it. Let me tell you, I'm into rock, play in a GNR cover band as Slash, have a Les Paul....that kinda stuff

...but Live in Japan really blew me away, I probably listened to it everyday for several months. When Cruel Sea starts, they all just kick in like gangbusters, and of course, Mel is the best, that kick drum! But as the album progressed I was amazed by what I was hearing on lead guitar, to me, it's like one of those really great rock solos, totally different, but Nokie's guitar occupies the same position, lead!

And he just lets it rip. On House of the Rising Sun, he really goes for it in the last 2 solos, it's something like Nightrain ending, solo just keeps going. Even a friend of mine, was impressed, and he doesn't even play guitar or listen to the Ventures type music. Even he could tell, and there is more, When you Walk in the room, he's playing the whole song, hardly stops, and the concert just keeps going. Didn't hear him make one mistake, and made a lot cool guitar tricks, playing behind the bridge in Bulldog, the creaking door, the bass/ drum solo in Caravan. I was really surprised to hear all that, what I'd give to have all that at a concert these days.

Also, his sound is amazing, who knows, maybe it was the red rhodes pedal, but all I know is that live album makes me move, I can't keep a straight face when I listen to it on the street on my Ipod. Even in Besame Mucho, when the band kick in, they kick in so hard, it's almost like 5 seconds of punk! Yeah, to me I hear some punk in this, something way beyond 1965.
I'm not sure where Nokie sits in the God kingdom, I guess everybody's got their own but yeah, to me he is is up there with James Burton and those poineers, using banjo strings to get his gauge..................................................and the whole time, Nokie stands there with a face "like he's stirring a cup of coffee" Clapton, Hendrix, Slash, they would have all have been on their knees tearing into the end of House of the Rising Son, but not Nokie, in fact, it's almost hard to tell which one of the 3 guitarists is playing the solo, because he is moving so little.

LEGEND!