Ventures Finally Nominated to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

After writing more than 1,000 tunes, recording some 3,000 songs, releasing more than 250 albums, and performing together for more than four and a half decades, the best-selling instrumental rock band of all time, The Ventures, finally has been nominated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Also nominated Sept. 27 are John Mellencamp, Madonna, Beastie Boys, Leonard Cohen, Donna Summer, Chic, Afrika Bambaataa, and the Dave Clark Five are the nine nominees for 2008 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Nominees are selected by a panel that includes musicologists and historians. Only five will be selected by some 500 voters and will be inducted on March 10 in a ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. The voters include performers, music industry bigs, and journalists.

Nominations to the Hall of Fame have been controversial in the past. It wasn't until this year that the first hip-hop artists--Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five--were inducted.

But the Ventures' nomination is long overdue. Consider these details, gleaned from the Venture's website, theventures.com: In 1993 Guitar Player Magazine bestowed its coveted Lifetime Achievement Award on the band and named their first album, Walk, Don't Run, as one of the 20 most essential rock albums for guitarists.

If the band's name isn't ringing a tune, think Hawaii Five-O. If overlooked in the United States, they are wildly popular in Japan, where they outsold the Beatles two-to-one in the 1960s. After surpassing 40,000,000 in record sales there, the Ventures became the first foreign members of Japan's Conservatory of Music. The Ventures are the most popular American rock group in Japan, where they continue to tour every year.

They have also placed their handprints in the Hollywood Rock Walk.
The Ventures influence has been cited by John Fogarty, Jimmy Page, Stanley Clarke, Steve Miller, George Harrison (inducted), the Ramones (inducted), Larry Carleton, Dire Straits, Aerosmith (inducted), Marshall Crenshaw, and Elton John (inducted) to name only a few.