mosriteer wrote: Gerry did play lead guitar on significant hits in Japan in the 70s that did not, alas, have a dent on the US market. When it came to making money, US album sales and hit singles were made with Bob and Nokie on lead and Nokie was involved in some capacity...
The H50
album had Gerry on lead and hit #11 and earned them a gold record. It was the highest charting album they had since '63 when Bob was still the lead guitarist (at least officially...Bob and Nokie were switching off and they were also using session guys a bit during that period). The Ventures last charting US single (Theme from Summer Palace) also featured Gerry. I still don't believe Nokie is on the H50 single or Josie's cockamamie story, but if you want to keep drinking Nokie Kool-Aide...bottoms up!
"Diamond Head" and Hal Blaine? Okay...I'll bite: Joe Saraceno was a prominent producer of surf/hotrod/instrumental records in the mid 60's and Hal Blaine was the first call drummer on most of those sessions. It's possible Hal is remembering a cut of "Diamond Head' he did for one of the the other Saraceno bands. Another (likely) scenero is Hal
did play on a cut of "Diamond Head" by The Ventures, just not the released version. There is a take of the song on Youtube that has been rumored to be an early take or demo but it's clearly not Bogle/Taylor/Wilson/Edwards playing. It's very possible Hal was referring to that version. I doubt he kept tabs on what made it to vinyl (I'm sure he played on hundreds of unreleased sides by various artists), but he did keep track of what he did play on.