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Dick Dale & His Del-Tones
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Dick Dale & His Del-Tones · Dick Dale, born Richard Anthony Monsour in 1937 in Boston, was an American rock guitarist and a pioneer of surf music. His father had Lebanese roots and his mother Polish-Belarusian. He grew up in Quincy, learned piano as a child and later bought a guitar from a friend for eight dollars. His early playing on the tarabaki, a Middle Eastern drum, shaped his guitar technique. He began in country bars and in 1955 received the name Dick Dale from an entertainer called Texas Tiny.
Music and breakthrough
Dale became known as the King of the Surf Guitar, also the title of his second album. He used Middle Eastern scales, experimented with reverb and made the tremolo technique on electric guitar famous: fast, staccato picking of a single note. Together with Leo Fender he worked on new amplifiers that sounded much louder, including the first hundred-watt guitar amplifier. His version of the folk song Misirlou came out in 1962. Tarantino used the recording in Pulp Fiction, after which Dale returned in the 1990s with four albums and world tours.
Influence
Bands such as the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean and the Trashmen were influenced by Dale, and guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend, Eddie Van Halen and Brian May named him as an example. Because he sought out the limits of amplification, he is also regarded as one of the fathers of heavy metal. In 2003 Rolling Stone placed him 31st among the greatest guitarists of all time.
Listening
Misirlou · Dick Dale & His Del-Tones, 1962Apple Music ↗
Discography
Studio albums
- 1962Surfers’ Choice
- 1963Checkered Flag
- 1963King of the Surf Guitar
- 1964Mr. Eliminator
- 1964Summer Surf
In School of Rock
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