Ventures Founder and Surf Rock Mastermind Dead

Talk about a guitar hero.

Bob Bogle, cofounder and lead guitarist of the Ventures, whose riffs on hits like "Walk Don't Run" and "Perfidia" defined surf rock, died Sunday at 75.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was hospitalized after falling ill over the weekend, per Washington's News Tribune of Tacoma. He had reportedly been suffering from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which forced him to quit the band he founded five decades ago with Bob Wilson.

"Even though you know it's gonna happen, when it does it's like a bomb dropping on you," Wilson told the paper.

Bogle did manage to see his band enshrined in the Rock Hall in 2008 after recording indelible instrumentals that include versions of "Hawaii Five-O," "Pipeline" and the Pulp Fiction staple "Surf Rider," and selling more than 100 million records.

"If you listen to 'Walk, Don't Run' and 'Perfidia,' the lead guitar is just totally unique," said Wilson of his longtime mate. "He used that vibrator bar—they call it a whammy bar—and he used it like nobody else."

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