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Dick Dale

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Dick Dale was an American guitarist and a pioneer of surf music. He was born in 1937 as Richard Anthony Monsour in Boston, the son of a Lebanese father and a mother of Polish-Belarusian descent. He received the name Dick Dale in 1955 from an entertainer in the country bars where he played. He used Middle Eastern scales and plenty of reverb, which became the trademark of surf guitar. Being left-handed, he played a right-handed guitar upside down.

Music and breakthrough

Let's Go Trippin' is regarded as one of the first surf rock songs. Jungle Fever and Surf Beat followed on his own label Deltone. His first album, Surfers' Choice, appeared in 1962 and was released nationally by Capitol Records. Dale appeared in films and on The Ed Sullivan Show, where he played his signature Misirlou. Together with Leo Fender he developed equipment that could sound much louder, including the first hundred-watt guitar amplifier. Because of his loud amplifiers and thick strings he was nicknamed the Father of Heavy Metal. With the British Invasion in 1964 the national popularity of surf music faded. In the 1990s he made a comeback, after Quentin Tarantino used his recording of Misirlou in Pulp Fiction.

Influence

Dale is known as the King of the Surf Guitar. He helped spread fast tremolo playing on electric guitar, and his sound influenced surf bands such as the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Misirlou. Notice the lightning-fast picking of a single string and the Middle Eastern scale.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Mentioned in other articles

See also

Categories: ArtistsSurf rock