Rock Instrumental Music

Rhino closes its five-volume rock instrumentals series with an 18-track outing devoted to surf guitar. This fast-paced, prickly, and frequently exciting form may not be among the most diversified structurally, but if does offer some surging playing from its practitioners. They range from founding father Dick Dale to its most popular bands, the Surfaris, Belairs, Ventures, and Chantays. While not particularly a hardcore surf collection, this disc certainly outlines its virtues, and the tunes were long enough to display guitar proficiency, but short enough to prevent self-indulgence and repetition.

The most consistently enticing disc in the Rock Instrumental Classics series, this is both a great party and driving record and a window on the rhythms that powered soul music in the '60s (and early '70s, in two cases). In addition to some obvious choices (the four Booker T. & the MG's tracks, the Mar-Keys' "Last Night"), it also offers some left-field picks, such as the varied approaches to Latin music offered by Ray Barretto, Mongo Santamaria, and El Chicano. The stock of virtuoso performances here is all but endless: the bass-and-drums breakdown on Cliff Nobles and Co.'s "The Horse," the glinting guitar solo on the Bar-Kays' "Soul Finger," Hugh Masekela's questing trumpet on "Grazing in the Grass".

The Red Planet is a studio album by English keyboardist Rick Wakeman, released on June 2020 and featuring an alternative line-up of his backing band, The English Rock Ensemble. The Red Planet is Wakeman's first progressive rock album with his English Rock Ensemble since Out There (2003), another rock album of his with connections to space, the others being No Earthly Connection (1976) and 2000 A.D. Into the Future (1993). Wakeman said the album is different to his previous ones with a band, not only that its is instrumental but the diverse styles of music on it.

The Red Planet is a studio album by English keyboardist Rick Wakeman, released on June 2020 and featuring an alternative line-up of his backing band, The English Rock Ensemble. The Red Planet is Wakeman's first progressive rock album with his English Rock Ensemble since Out There (2003), another rock album of his with connections to space, the others being No Earthly Connection (1976) and 2000 A.D. Into the Future (1993). Wakeman said the album is different to his previous ones with a band, not only that its is instrumental but the diverse styles of music on it.

The Animated Egg were a studio-only group that issued a self-titled album of psychedelic instrumentals in the late '60s. It's now known that the chief instigator behind the Animated Egg was renowned Los Angeles session guitarist Jerry Cole, whose fuzzy leads (with some electric 12-string, surf, and Latin lines as well) dominate the arrangements. Cole also wrote the material, and though he was unsure of the other personnel when asked about the LP many years later, possible accompanists include Edgar Lamar and Don Dexter on drums; Tommy Lee and Glenn Cass on bass; Billy Joe Hastings and Norm Cass on guitar; and Billy Preston on organ.

Not the first but definitely the most popular rock instrumental combo, the Ventures scored several hit singles during the 1960s – most notably "Walk-Don't Run" and "Hawaii Five-O" – but made their name in the growing album market, covering hits of the day and organizing thematically linked LPs. Almost 40 Ventures' albums charted, and 17 hit the Top 40. And though the group's popularity in America virtually disappeared by the 1970s, their enormous contribution to pop culture was far from over; the Ventures soon became one of the most popular world-wide groups, with dozens of albums recorded especially for the Japanese and European markets.