Japan Has Also Been Good to Former Venture Edwards
Like his former partners in the Ventures, Nokie Edwards has been looking to the East--namely the Japanese market--as he pursues a solo career.
Edwards, 60, says he has released six albums in Japan during the past five years, and makes two or three performing trips to Japan each year.
He says he has no trouble finding supporting players there: “There are so many groups like [the Ventures] that they even try to call themselves something close to the name. The Yokohama Ventures, the Venturas--anything to get close.”
Not that the same phenomenon doesn’t exist closer to home. When he plays tonight at the Crazy Horse Steak House, Edwards will be backed by the Torquays, an Orange County band patterned after the Ventures.
“Nokie Edwards is kind of my hero,” says Jerry Gordon, a Costa Mesa cabinetmaker who was living in Kansas City in 1962 when he and a friend picked up guitars and named their band after a Ventures track called “Torquay.”
The current Torquays--Gordon and Steve Soest on guitars, Duff Paulsen on drums, and Don Parra on bass--even dress in the Ventures’ trademark stage garb of red blazers, black pants, white shirts and narrow black ties.
The seed for tonight’s gig was planted last summer when Edwards’ sister-in-law, who lives in Long Beach, saw the Torquays perform at the Orange County Fair and put Gordon in touch with the Ventures’ original lead guitarist.
Edwards, who lives in Brownsville, Ore., says he is currently putting together a steady band he hopes will play in the United States.
“I play a lot more [styles] than people think,” said Edwards, who cites Chet Atkins and Les Paul as his chief influences. He earned a reputation as a hot country guitarist in his pre-Ventures days in Tacoma, Wash., backing up Buck Owens and other touring stars. “I never expressed that in the Ventures. When people see me now, they say, ‘I can’t believe you play all of this.”’
* Nokie Edwards and the Torquays play tonight at the Crazy Horse Steak House, 1580 Brookhollow Drive, Santa Ana. 8 p.m. $10. (714) 549-1512.
