Bob Bogle, the driving force in a band that influenced generations of guitar players, started his working life as a bricklayer. So did Don Wilson, who first met Bogle on the lot of his father's used car dealership in Seattle.

"We both hated construction work," Bogle (born Jan. 16, 1934 in Wagoner, OK) told the Washington Post in 1998.

And loved music. Shortly after their chance meeting, they put together a band called the Versatones and cut two singles that went nowhere. Finally, Wilson's mother formed a record company to promote them, and gradually they began to develop their own distinctive sound. In the process, they became the Ventures, with Bogle on lead guitar, Wilson on rhythm, Nokie Edwards on bass and Skip Moore as the dummer.

"We always liked tunes with a little more substance," Bogle said in that 1998 interview. "Most songs back then were made up of three chords, and I guess we were between that and jazz."

Finally, an instrumental piece called "Walk, Don't Run," a cover of a Chet Atkins tune, caught the ear of a Seattle disc jockey who played it incessantly. The song spread, and eventually made it to No. 2 on the Billboard charts in September of 1960.

Two years later, drummer Howie Johnson -- who had replaced Moore -- was badly injured in an automobile accident and forced to the sidelines, replaced by the more experienced Mel Taylor. Meanwhile, Edwards and Bogle decided to switch roles, with Bogle moving to bass and Edwards taking over the lead.

The Ventures were prolific studio musicians, cranking out 38 albums and selling over 110 million albums, still the most for any strictly instrumental group in pop music history. They also toured extensively, finding a huge following in Japan and outselling the Beatles in England.

The band's only other Top Five hit, however, was the theme song for "Hawaii 5-Oh," which made it to No. 4 in 1969. By then, Bogle, Edwards and Wilson were using state-of-the-art Mosright guitars that enabled them to coax previously unknown sounds from the strings, especially on the album "The Ventures in Space."

"I think our sound is unique because we're all self-taught," Bogle once said.

Heavily influenced by Atkins and Les Paul, the Ventures formed a bridge between those guitar pioneers and such modern rockers as John Fogerty and Joe Walsh. They also predated the Beach Boys in the popularization of surf music, altrhough they always maintained they were not a surf band.

The Ventures were inducted into the Rock n' Rock Hall of Fame in March of 2008, but Bogle - sick with non-Hodgkins lympoma - was unable to attend. He died on June 14, 2009, leaving his wife and six children.