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Nokie Edwards has passed away.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:14 pm
by Ray Bohlken
Nokie Edwards has passed away. I got to speak with him a few times at the C.A.A.S. and he was very nice to me and was easy to talk too. I always enjoyed his playing at the conventions and with the Ventures. I've been a big fan for years.
Ray

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/mu ... story.html

Re: Nokie Edwards has passed away.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2018 1:43 pm
by Larry Marchino
I was saddened to hear the news of Nokie's passing. When I was a teenager in the 60s the only records I bought were Chet records and Ventures records (and maybe a country record once in while). I was never willing to turn loose of my hard earned money for the usual rock groups of the time. At CAAS Nokie's set was always one I didn't want to miss and it was also one of my wife's favorites! I loved to hear Nokie play the Ventures hits at CAAS each year, but my favorites that he played was his rendition of I've Got a Woman and Alabama Jubilee. I've never heard anyone play those two the way he did. We've lost another guitar hero. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Larry Marchino

Re: Nokie Edwards has passed away.

PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2018 8:53 pm
by DagerRande
Larry, I agree with you about your choices of Nokie's tunes at CAAS. I talked with him a few times and even played with him a couple of times in the lobby. He told me that he was a Chet fan way back when we all knew him for his trademark songs such as "Wipeout" and "Pipeline".

Re: Nokie Edwards has passed away.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 10:15 am
by Scott Taylor
I was so happy to see Nokie the first time at CAAS. Like meeting a Beatle for me. When I was learning to play guitar, everyone in school was into guitar. If you could pick up a guitar, you could play the "Satisfaction" lick or the Ventures "Pipeline" bass run.
I had an album called Learn to Play Guitar with the Ventures - Volume 1. It had its own style of notation and covered 4 songs: Walk Don't Run, Pipeline, Raunchy and Tequila. First they played the song with all the instruments then the album had cuts with each instrument deleted so you could play the various missing parts. They would say "The ventures play Tequila minus the lead guitar". It was cool to learn the lead, rhythm and bass parts then play each of them with the Ventures. Those days of sitting in my room and working on those Venture tunes are as vivid as yesterday. I not only learned to play the parts, I learned the important skill of resting my hand on the record player side and deftly moving the needle back any number of grooves with great accuracy. :-)
Then much later in life, I enjoyed meeting and getting to know Nokie over several years at CAAS. I was amazed he was there. He told us lots of great stories of playing with the Ventures. And he loved a good joke and could trade them all day if allowed.
I had bought a pretty hollow body used Mosrite guitar years before that I just could not play. It had such a tiny neck that it had to have slinky or extra light strings and I play with way too much force. So I took it to CAAS, got a picture with Nokie playing it for my files and sold it there.
I, as many others here, enjoyed his music for years and was so happy to see his CAAS performances. I particularly liked to hear him play Quando, Quando, Quando. We'll sure miss him. So I recommend you Walk, Don't Run to the liquor cabinet and have a Tequila for Nokie.

Re: Nokie Edwards has passed away.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:01 am
by Harold Payne
I still have the Album that Scott mentioned in my record cabinet, and I must say that it is slightly used from lifting the phonograph needle up and down. Nokie was a great player and gentlemen in all respects. He will be missed by all. Harold Payne UGP (Uncertified Guitar Player)

Re: Nokie Edwards has passed away.

PostPosted: Thu Mar 15, 2018 2:26 pm
by Larry Marchino
It was certainly exciting seeing and hearing Nokie play those Ventures tunes the first time I was at CAAS. He always had this slight smile on his face as he played them with so much ease and smoothness. And like Scott said, I too remember clearly sitting at the kitchen table learning Walk Don't Run after school one day--on the old busted up guitar that my Dad had learned to play on as a kid and then retrieved and restored. I still get the same thrill today when I learn some new lick or tune more than 50 years later.
It seems to me that guitar player are a different breed. You hear about kids being forced to practice the piano or other instruments, but I don't remember ever hearing of anyone being forced to practice the guitar. That either says something about guitar players or about the virtues guitar playing in general I guess. ;) Never the less, seems to me that guitar players learn to play because they want to, because the personal rewards from learning that new chord, new lick or tune is enough to make them push on through the pain of sore fingers and dead notes and keep working at it. As Monk on TV says: "I might be wrong about that, but I don't think so"!

Re: Nokie Edwards has passed away.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2018 4:11 pm
by Pickin Palmer
Good story, Scott. I guess we all just fell in love with WDR...

A, G, F, E..... Nokie was sooooo much more than that chord progression that we ALL played when we first started on guitar. And, if it weren't for the CAAS convention I would have never known about his advanced talents. Well, even then I only knew he was a pretty accomplished guitarist, but it wasn't until he actually came to play for us at one of our Ohio Fingerstyle Guitar Club Pickin' Parties that I discovered just how deep his talents went.

A number of years ago I had heard that Nokie was going to be in Cleveland, Ohio for part of his Rock n Roll Hall of Fame induction, so I gave him (actually his wife Judy) a call to see if he would come down to Columbus after his Friday night performance at the Hall of Fame to play for us. In that we can't pay fixed gig fees (we give the performers whatever is left in the tip jar after expenses), I didn't have real high hopes he would take us up on our offer. But, he surprised the daylights out of me and agreed to come.

There was close to a hundred folks that had showed up to hear him. He started his concert for us with a little trio of young musicians from Kentucky (I believe) that knew his “Ventures” music - WDR, Pipeline, etc. What he did next was a life learning experience for me. The whole time he was playing those early rock tunes his piercing blue eyes were scanning his audience (made up of mostly older admirers and players of Chet's music) and it must be he noticed that even though we were clapping – we weren't sitting up in our chairs leaning forward in the “I'M REALLY STOKED” position. Instead, we were mostly slouched back in a “we will be kind” attitude.

I believe as a trial he grabbed a nice heavy jazz chord intro to a “standard” - and, we all SAT UP! So, he continued to play the rest of that standard – to the demise and without his young combo – that had no idea how to play along with jazz standards. I kinda figured he wasn't going to be able to play a whole concert of standards “solo”, so I asked (whispered) Judy sitting in the back of the room if he would appreciate some knowledgeable rhythm guitar. She confirmed my supposition so I grabbed Charlie Berwinkle's equipment and dragged it and him up to sit at Nokie's feet – WHILE he was still playing. Without breaking stride he looked down at Charlie with a little wonder, and as soon as he realized that Charlie knew his stuff – off he went into the wild blue yonder. IT WAS AN AWESOME CONCERT!!!

The life lesson was to “read your audience” and PLAY WHAT THEY WANT!!! He didn't care one bit that he had paid a combo to come play old Rock tunes with him. That was obviously not what we wanted to hear – so, he changed his whole program “on the fly.” THAT'S TALENT, FOLKS!!!

Re: Nokie Edwards has passed away.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2018 5:53 pm
by DagerRande
Palmer, I consider you to be a gifted writer. Your delivery is more captivating to me than your content!

Re: Nokie Edwards has passed away.

PostPosted: Wed Mar 21, 2018 6:41 pm
by Ray Bohlken
Great story, Palmer. I wish I had been there to see that. I never saw him play those jazz chords, but I always thought he could do it.
Ray