Creativity Quote by Terry Kath

Terry Kath’s throwaway line is a tiny autobiography in two names. “After The Ventures” signals a starting point in the mid-century guitar pipeline: clean, melodic, radio-friendly instrumentals that taught a generation how to sound “professional” before they even had a band. The Ventures weren’t just a taste; they were a curriculum. Saying he “dug” them plants Kath in that teenage world of affordable records, suburban amplifiers, and riffs learned by ear, where identity is built one lick at a time.

Then comes the pivot: “I dug Johnny Smith quite a bit.” That “after” carries the real weight. Johnny Smith is not the obvious next stop if you’re headed toward Chicago’s horn-rock muscle; he’s a guitarist’s guitarist, all velvet chord-melody sophistication and jazz harmony that rewards patience and precision. Kath is quietly mapping his credibility here, but not in a braggy way. The slangy “dug” keeps it grounded, as if to say: I didn’t go to school for this, I fell into it because it sounded good and I chased it.

The subtext is a rebuttal to the myth of the self-invented rock hero. Kath frames influence as evolution: from surf-era clarity to jazz-era complexity. It also hints at the secret sauce behind his reputation among musicians: the reason his playing could be both brutal and tasteful, both loud and harmonically literate. One casual sentence, and you can hear the route he took to get there.