Bob Bogle, 75; bricklayer cofounded the Ventures

Mr. Bogle, a resident of Vancouver, Wash., who suffered from non-Hodgkin lymphoma, died Sunday in a local hospital, said Don Wilson, who cofounded the Ventures with Mr. Bogle.

“His last four years have not been pleasant at all; it’s kind of a blessing he doesn’t have to endure that pain anymore,’’ Wilson said. “He’s the brother I never had. But he was much more than a brother to me. He was one of the kindest men I ever met.’’

Mr. Bogle and Wilson were doing masonry work together in 1959 when they formed their band. The original members of the Ventures included Mr. Bogle on lead guitar, Wilson on rhythm guitar, Nokie Edwards on bass, and Skip Moore, who was soon replaced by Howie Johnson, on drums.

Renowned for their “big guitar sound,’’ the Ventures first hit the Billboard singles chart in 1960 with “Walk - Don’t Run,’’ which peaked at number two.

“That song started a whole new movement in rock ’n’ roll,’’ John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival said while inducting the Ventures into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. “The sound of it became ‘surf music,’ and the audacity of it empowered guitarists everywhere.’’

Said Wilson: “Any guitar player would tell you, Bob is the most unique-sounding guitar player ever. The way he used to do the whammy bar, that vibrato bar. He kept his little finger on it while he played it all the time. He’d make it sound, like at the end of a chord, wow-wow.

“His style was unique. When you heard him play, you knew it was him.’’

The Ventures returned to the top 10 in 1964 with a new version of “Walk - Don’t Run,’’ “Walk - Don’t Run ’64,’’ with Mr. Bogle switched to bass and Edwards to lead guitar.

The Ventures’ only other top-10 hit was the “Hawaii Five-0’’ theme, which peaked at number four in 1969. But between 1960 and 1972, the Ventures charted 37 albums in the Billboard Top 200 albums chart.

“We got pegged as a surfing band, because there was a scene then with the Beach Boys, the Chantays [‘Pipeline’], and so on,’’ Mr. Bogle told The Buffalo News in 1998. “But before we got to LA, we’d never even heard the phrase ‘surfing music.’ We were doing weddings, house parties, and night-job gigs for a year before we recorded, so we had a pretty broad base.’’

Guitar Player magazine once called the Ventures “the quintessential guitar combo of the pre-Beatles era [that] influenced not only styles, but also a generation’s choice of instruments.’’

“The Ventures, like the Beatles in a way, made an entire generation of people pick up guitars,’’ Howard Kramer, curatorial director at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, told the Los Angeles Times. “But more to the point is, they literally instructed you in how to play a guitar.’’

Indeed, the Ventures recorded a number of guitar instructional albums, each of which hit the top-100 charts.

“You could play along with them,’’ Kramer said. “Not merely did these guys possess tremendous technical expertise, they made these appealing smash-hit records that also inspired people to pick up instruments.’’

A native of Wagoner, Okla., Mr. Bogle was working as a bricklayer in 1958 when he walked into a Seattle used-car lot where Wilson was a salesman.

“I said, ‘Can you get me a job?’ ’’ Wilson recalled. “I was working on commission, and I wasn’t doing very well and wanted a weekly paying job.’’

Wilson quit the car lot to work as a hod carrier for Mr. Bogle. They discovered that they both had once owned guitars and could play a few chords. They bought guitars at a pawnshop and, while learning to play, began entering talent contests together. After four or five talent shows, they started winning.