Dick Dale

Dick Dale
Dale at The Middle East, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2005
Background information
Birth name Richard Anthony Mansour
Also known as The King of the Surf Guitar
Born (1937-05-04) May 4, 1937
Boston, Massachusetts
Genres Surf rock, protopunk, instrumental rock, rock and roll[1]
Occupation(s) Musician, guitarist
Instruments Guitar, vocals
Years active 1959–2018
Labels Capitol, GNP Crescendo, Deltone
Associated acts Del-Tones
Website www.dickdale.com

Richard Anthony Monsour (born May 4, 1937), better known by his stage name Dick Dale, is an American rock guitarist, known as The King of the Surf Guitar. He pioneered and created what many call the surf music style, drawing on Middle-Eastern music scales and experimenting with reverberation. He worked closely with Fender to produce custom made amplifiers,[1] including the first-ever 100-watt guitar amplifier.[2] He pushed the limits of electric amplification technology, helping to develop new equipment that was capable of producing distorted, "thick, clearly defined tones" at "previously undreamed-of volumes." The "breakneck speed of his single-note staccato picking technique" and showmanship with the guitar is considered a precursor to heavy metal music, influencing guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen.[1]

Early life

Dale was born Richard Anthony Monsour in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 4, 1937. He is of Lebanese descent from his father and Polish-Belarusian descent from his mother.[3] His grandparents farmed in Whitman, Massachusetts.

"I would go out picking swamp berries in Whitman, Massachusetts, where my grandma and grandpa lived"[4]

Dale's family moved to Quincy, Massachusetts, which had a significant Arab immigrant community, when Dale was very young. He learned to play music, starting with piano when he was nine.[5]

"I first was given a trumpet when I was in seventh grade."[4]

Dale admired Hank Williams, and wanted to be a cowboy singer, so he got a ukulele and taught himself to play by reading an instruction book.

"It was an ukelele, back when I was in kindergarten. I was reading a Superman magazine and it said: Sell so many jars of Noxzema skin cream and we'll send you this ukelele. And I got it. But it was a piece of crap, so I filled a red wagon with a bunch of Pepsi and Coke bottles, went down to the store, cashed them, and I got a basic ukelele for $6."[6]

The first song he played on the ukulele was "Tennessee Waltz".[4]

"And my buddy had a guitar for sale, so he sold it to me for $8, and I paid him 25 or 50 cents a week."[6]

He then learned to play guitar, using a combination of styles incorporating both lead and rhythm aspects, so that the guitar filled the place of drums. He was raised in Quincy until he completed the eleventh grade at Quincy High School in 1954, when his father, a machinist, took a job working for Hughes Aircraft Company [7][8] in the Southern California aerospace industry.[6] His parents drove the family across the country to live in El Segundo, California. Dale spent his senior year at and graduated from Washington Senior High School.[9] It was in Southern California that he learned to surf at the age of 17.[10] He soon learned to play the drums and the trumpet.[10]

When I was 18 at the Santa Ana River Jetty is where I put my first board in the water that I ever got from Joe Quigg. I was just riding the whitewater in, and I was just in heaven.[11]

Due to his Arab heritage, he also had a strong interest in Arabic music, which later played a major role in his development of surf rock music.[12]

He first started playing the piano when he was young from sitting with his aunt who played and listening to it.[13]

Career

Among his early musical influences was his uncle.[14] According to Dale,

"My uncle taught me how to play the tarabaki, and I watched him play the oud.
We used to play at the Mahrajan while relatives belly-danced."[12]

His early tarabaki drumming later influenced his guitar playing, particularly his rapid alternate picking technique. According to Dale,

"It's the pulsation," stating that whether he is playing the guitar, trumpet, or piano, "they all have that drumming beat I learned by playing the tarabaki."[12]

Dale played at local country bars where he met Texas Tiny,[15] who gave him the name "Dick Dale" because he thought it was a good name for a country singer.[16]

Dale is credited as one of the first electric guitarists to employ fast scales in his playing. Dick Dale was an avid surfer in the late 1950s and 1960s. Dick's Music sound comes from Gene Krupa's jungle drum rhythms, Wild Animals roars and sounds as well as the Indgenous people dancing. Dick Dale was among the first guitarists to use reverb—which gave the guitar a "wet" sound that has become a staple of surf music. Dale's staccato picking, however, is his trademark. Being left-handed, he initially had to play a right-handed guitar, but then changed to a left handed model.[14] However, he did so without restringing the guitar, leading him to effectively play the guitar upside-down (Hendrix, in contrast, restrung his guitar), often playing by reaching over the fretboard rather than wrapping his fingers up from underneath. Dale is also noted for playing his percussive, heavy bending style, using what most guitarists consider very heavy gauge strings (16p, 18p, 20p. 38w, 48w, 58w[17] guitar string manufacturers do not make string sets for standard tuned electric guitars heavier than 13 to 56).

"When I met Leo Fender and he was creating Fender Equipment he wanted me to also pioneer it, proof it, and help take all the bugs out of it. Everything that came out of Leo Fender's head, I was his test pilot as well as helped create it and pioneer Dick Dale said, Leo Fender Would say about Dick Dale "When it can withstand the barrage of punishment from Dick Dale, then it is fit for the human consumption." So I blew up over 50 amplifiers. And that's why they call me the Father of Heavy Metal. Because I use 60-gauge strings and I make people's ears bleed."[6]

"So when I had my first concert with Leo Fender, I went to Balboa, California, and then I started surfing. So when we opened up the ballroom at Stan Kenton that was the last act that was there, and they were going to tear it down, and I got permits to open it with my dad. It held 4,000 people of all ages. The stage was humongous and there were giant red curtains. I told the surfers I was surfing with, we had a club called the 5th Street Crew, and I told the guys I was going to be playing at a place called the Rendezvous, 'cause we had no money to promote. And the first group of people that came there were these surfers, about 17 of them."[4]

Fender Showman (On loan from Dick Dale.)

His desire to create a certain sound led him to push the limits of equipment.

Leo Fender kept giving Dale amps and Dale kept blowing them up! Till one night Leo and his right hand man Freddy T. (Freddie Tavares) went down to the Rendezvous Ballroom on the Balboa Peninsula in Balboa, California and stood in the middle of four thousand screaming and dancing Dick Dale fans, and said to Freddy, I now know what Dick Dale is trying to tell me. They went to James B. Lansing loudspeaker company and explained that they wanted a fifteen inch loudspeaker built to their specifications. The unit became famous as the 15" JBL D130F model. It made the complete package for Dale to play through and was named the Single Showman Amp. When Dale plugged his Fender Stratocaster guitar into the new Showman Amp and loudspeaker cabinet, he was probably the first performer to jump from the volume scale of a smaller amplifier to levels most amplifiers and loudspeakers could not attain. That is when Dale became the "Father of Heavy Metal" as quoted from Guitar Player magazine. Dale broke through the electronic barrier limitations of that era![18]

Eventually, his work with Leo Fender produced a distinctively fuzzy sound that had set the base of surf music.

During a six-month period that began July 1, 1961, Dale's performances at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa are credited with the creation of the surf music phenomenon. Dale asked for and gained permission to use the 3,000 person capacity ballroom for surfer dances after overcrowding at a local ice cream parlor where he performed made him seek other venues.[19] The Rendezvous ownership and the city of Newport Beach agreed to Dale's request on the condition that he prohibit alcohol sales and implement a dress code. Dale's events at the ballrooms, called "stomps," quickly became legendary, and the events routinely sold out.[19] Paul Johnson, guitarist for the contemporary group The Bel-Airs, recalled the electric atmosphere of the shows:

I remember making the trek to the Rendezvous in the summer of '61 to see what all the fuss was about over Dick Dale. It was a powerful experience; his music was incredibly dynamic, louder and more sophisticated than The Belairs, and the energy between The Del-Tones and all of those surfers stomping on the hardwood floor in their sandals was extremely intense. The tone of Dale's guitar was bigger than any I had ever heard, and his blazing technique was something to behold.[19]

"Let's Go Trippin'" is often regarded as the first surf rock song.[20] This was followed by more locally released songs, including "Jungle Fever" and "Surf Beat" on his own Deltone label. His first full-length album was Surfers' Choice in 1962. The album was picked up by Capitol Records and distributed nationally, and Dale soon began appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show, and in films where he played his signature single "Misirlou". He later stated, "I still remember the first night we played it ("Misirlou"). I changed the tempo, and just started cranking on that mother. And...it was eerie. The people came rising up off the floor, and they were chanting and stomping. I guess that was the beginning of the surfer's stomp."[21] His second album was named after his performing nickname, "King of the Surf Guitar".

Dick Dale stated his two passions, Surfing and Guitar, by saying:

There was a tremendous amount of power I felt while surfing and that feeling of power was simply transferred into my guitar when I was playing surf music. The style of music I developed, to me at the time, was the feeling I got when I was out there on the waves. It was good rambling feeling I got when I was locked in a tube with the white water caving in over my head. I was trying to project the power of the ocean to the people. I couldn't get the feeling by singing, so the music took an instrumental form.[22]

Dick Dale and The Del-Tones performed the songs "My First Love," "Runnin' Wild" and "Muscle Beach" in the 1964 film, Muscle Beach Party.

Dale and the Del-Tones performed both sides of his Capitol single, "Secret Surfin' Spot" / "Surfin' and Swingin'" in the popular 1963 movie, Beach Party, starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. This helped bring Dale, surf music, and surf culture to national prominence. He also appeared in the 1987 film, Back to the Beach—in which Avalon's character, reluctant to attend a Dick Dale concert, remarks to Funicello, "We can come back here in the year 2000 and see Dick!"—a testimony to Dale's continued popularity and career longevity.

Surf rock's national popularity was somewhat brief, as the British Invasion began to overtake the American charts in 1964. Though he continued performing live, Dale was soon set back by rectal cancer. In the liner notes of Better Shred Than Dead: The Dick Dale Anthology, the thought, "Then you'll never hear surf music again," was Jimi Hendrix's reaction upon hearing that Dale had a possibly terminal case of colon cancer, intended to encourage his comrade to recuperate. Dale, in gratitude to his late friend, later covered "Third Stone from the Sun" as a tribute to Hendrix.[23] Though he recovered, he retired from music for several years. In 1979, he almost lost a leg after being injured while swimming and a pollution-related infection made the mild injury much worse. As a result, Dale became an environmental activist and soon began performing again. He recorded a new album in 1986 and was nominated for a Grammy. In 1987 he appeared in the movie Back to the Beach, playing surf music and performing "Pipeline" with Stevie Ray Vaughan. In 1993, he recorded a guitar solo on the track "Should Have Known" on a vinyl single by a Southern California indie band, The Pagodas. The use of "Misirlou" in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction gained him a new audience.

In 1995, he recorded a surf-rock version of Camille Saint-Saëns's "Aquarium" from The Carnival of the Animals for the musical score of the enclosed roller coaster, Space Mountain at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. In 1997, Dale appeared in the campy cult film An American Vampire Story, performing a rousing guitar solo on the beach with his son on drums. In 2002, Dale appeared in The True Meaning of Christmas Specials, playing several original songs for the program.

The National Hockey League's Colorado Avalanche use Dale's song "Scalped" as their theme song. The Black Eyed Peas' song "Pump It" (from the 2005 album Monkey Business) heavily samples Dale's "Misirlou". "Misirlou" also features in the PlayStation 2/Xbox 360 video game, Guitar Hero II, as well as the Wii video game Rayman Raving Rabbids. In the feature film Space Jam, as Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam (in a parody of the Pulp Fiction characters Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield) shoot out teeth from one of the Monstars, a clip from "Misirlou" plays.

In 2009, Dale was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee.[24] Dale is also a 2011 inductee into the Surfing Walk of Fame in Huntington Beach, California, in the Surf Culture category.[25]

Personal life

Dale has said that he has never used alcohol or other drugs and discourages their use by band members and road crew. Health is a priority for him. In 1972, he stopped eating red meat. He studied martial arts (Kenpo karate) for over 30 years.[18][26] At age 80 (as of May 2017) he is still putting on physically energetic live shows.[10][12][27] In early 2008, he experienced a recurrence of rectal cancer and finished a surgical, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment regimen.[28]

In June 2009, Dale began a West Coast tour from Southern California to British Columbia, with approximately 20 concert dates. "Forever Came Calling" (or FCC) featured Dale's then-17-year-old son, Jimmie Dale on drums, who opened for him. He was scheduled to play the Australian One Great Night On Earth festival to raise funds to benefit those affected by the Black Saturday bushfires and other natural disasters.[29] Dale continues to perform at venues across the U.S. into 2016 [30] in order to pay for medical bills.[31]

Equipment

In addition to Fender amplifiers, Dale is associated with the Fender Stratocaster guitar. Fender makes a signature model, the Dick Dale Custom Shop Stratocaster, fitted with "Custom Shop '54" pickups and intended to recreate the sound of the first Stratocaster. Dale used a reverb unit with the signal split between two Fender Dual Showman amps. As of 2010, Dale continued to play with his original reverb unit and Showman amps from the early 1960s, continuing his practice of stringing his left-handed guitar upside down. The unique features of this guitar include a toggle switch that bypasses the three position blade switch to activate neck and middle pickups only.

Fender also makes an acoustic signature model, the Fender Kingman Dick Dale guitar, with an all mahogany body so there is no loss in sound. The guitar is a three quarter size guitar but sounds like a dreadnought in Dale's words.

Discography

LPs

Appearances

  • The Silver Sounds Of The Surf (Cloister Records 1963)
  • Wild Hot Rod Wails (Diplomat Records 1964)

Singles

Year Titles (A-side, B-side)
Both sides from same album except where indicated		 Label & number Album
1958 "Ooh-Whee-Marie"
b/w "Breaking Heart"		 Deltone 5012 Non-album tracks
1959 "Stop Teasing"
b/w "Without Your Love"		 Deltone 5013
1960 "We'll Never Hear The End Of It"
b/w "The Fairest Of Them All"		 Cupid 103
"St. Louis Blues"
b/w "Jesse Pearl"		 Deltone 5014
1961 "Let's Go Trippin'"
b/w "Del-Tone Rock"		 Deltone 5017 Surfer's Choice
1962 "Jungle Fever"
b/w "Shake-N-Stomp" (from Surfer's Choice)		 Deltone 5018 Non-album tracks
"Misirlou"
b/w "Eight Till Midnight"		 Deltone 5019
"Peppermint Man"
b/w "Surf Beat"		 Deltone 5020 Surfer's Choice
1963 "King Of The Surf Guitar"
b/w "Hava Nagila"		 Capitol 4963 King Of The Surf Guitar
"Surfin' and A-Swingin'"
b/w "Secret Surfin' Spot"		 Capitol 5010 Non-album tracks
"The Scavenger"
b/w "Wild Ideas" (Non-album track)		 Capitol 5048 Checkered Flag
"The Wedge"
b/w "Night Rider"		 Capitol 5098
1964 "Mr. Eliminator"
b/w "The Victor"		 Capitol 5140 Mr. Eliminator
"Wild Wild Mustang"
b/w "Grudge Run" (from Checkered Flag)		 Capitol 5187 Non-album track
"Glory Wave"
b/w "Never On Sunday"		 Capitol 5225 Summer Surf
"Oh Marie"
b/w "Who Can He Be"		 Capitol 5290 Non-album tracks
1965 "Let's Go Trippin' 65"
b/w "Watusi Jo"		 Capitol 5389
1966 "A Run For Life"
b/w "Lovin' On My Brain"		 Deltone 5028
1975 "Let's Go Trippin'"
b/w "Those Memories Of You"		 GNP Crescendo 804 Greatest Hits
1987 "Pipeline" (with Stevie Ray Vaughan)
b/w "Love Struck Baby" (by Stevie Ray Vaughan) (Non-album track)		 Columbia 07340 "Back To The Beach" soundtrack

Compilations and live albums

  • Hot Rod Music on Capitol (Capitol 1963)
  • The Big Surfin' Sounds on Capitol (Capitol 1964)
  • Rock Out with Dick Dale and His Del-Tones: Live at Ciro's (Capitol. March 1965)
  • Greatest Hits (GNP Crescendo 1975)
  • Golden Summer (United Artists 1976)
  • The Tigers Loose (Balboa. August 1983) [live album]
  • King of the Surf Guitar: The Best of Dick Dale & The Del-Tones (Rhino 1989)
  • Cowabunga Surf Box Set (Rhino 1996)
  • Rocket Jockey (Rocket Science Games/SegaSoft 1996)
  • Better Shred Than Dead: The Dick Dale Anthology (Rhino 1997)
  • MOM II Music for our Mother Ocean (Surf Dog Records 1997)
  • Guitar Legend: The Very Best of Dick Dale (Shout! Factory 2010)
  • The Phantom Surfers and Dick Dale - Conquer Your World! (Groovie Records 2011)
  • Dick Dale: Live on the Santa Monica Pier (Rockbeat Records July 2014)

Soundtracks

Peel Sessions

Dick Dale made four recordings for John Peel's Peel Sessions:

  1. March 30, 1995 (Maida Vale 4)
  2. July 10, 1995 (3 Mcr.)
  3. August 28, 2002 (Maida Vale 4)
  4. March 24, 2004 (Maida Vale 4)

Peel later selected Let's Go Trippin' as the theme tune for his BBC Radio 4 series Home Truths.[32]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Huey, Steve. "Dick Dale". AllMusic. Retrieved 25 July 2012.
  2. ↑ History Archived September 13, 2016, at the Wayback Machine., Dick Dale official website
  3. ↑ Huey, Steve. "Dick Dale Biography". Allmusic.
  4. 1 2 3 4 O'Connor, Patrick. "The wisdom of Dick Dale". nuvo.net. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  5. ↑ Larkin, Colin (2000). The encyclopedia of popular music. Oxford University. p. 699. ISBN 0195313739.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Pajot, S. (3 June 2011). "Dick Dale the King of Surf Guitar Talks Blowouts, Wipeouts, and Animal Screams". miaminewtimes.com. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  7. ↑ Pareles, Jon. "Surfin' Again". nytimes.com. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  8. ↑ BOEHM, MIKE (20 May 1993). "Cresting a New Wave : Dick Dale, Family Man and Surf Guitar King, Is Ready to Ride". Retrieved 28 May 2018 – via LA Times.
  9. ↑ Crowe, Julia (2012). My First Guitar: Tales of True Love and Lost Chords from 70 Legendary Musicians. ECW Press. pp. 92–93. ISBN 1770902759.
  10. 1 2 3 Hodgins, Paul (March 20, 2009). "Dick Dale is still darn loud". Orange County Register. p. News 15.
  11. ↑ "Dick Dale Quotes". brainyquote.com. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Holgate, Steve (14 September 2006). "Guitarist Dick Dale Brought Arabic Folk Song to Surf Music". The Washington File. Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 29 August 2010.
  13. ↑ "Surfers' Choice: The Innovation and Triumph of Dick Dale". rockonphilly.com. 11 August 2015. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  14. 1 2 "Dick Dale". Last.fm. 2009-02-11. Retrieved 2012-03-03.
  15. ↑ "Guy Norris "Texas Tiny" Cherry (1917-1971) - Find..." www.findagrave.com. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  16. ↑ "PIPELINE: Surf Music's Rocky Rise, Untimely Death, and Unlikely Return". trustmeimascientist.com. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  17. ↑ Dick Dale interview, Fresh Air, WHYY/NPR, 26 July 1993, rebroadcast 25 May 2007.
  18. 1 2 "Official website". Dickdale.com. Retrieved 2012-03-03.
  19. 1 2 3 "Rendezvous Ballroom". Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum. Archived from the original on 2011-07-19. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
  20. ↑ Marsh, Dave (2004). Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian, eds. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Simon and Schuster. p. 208. ISBN 978-0-7432-0169-8.
  21. ↑ "Washed out for a decade, surf's up again," Los Angeles Times, 1 February 1981.
  22. ↑ David P. Szatmary, Rockin' in Time, 8th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2014), p. 73.
  23. ↑ Dick Dale, Better Shred Than Dead: The Dick Dale Anthology (Rhino Records, 1997), liner notes to Disc 2, Track 12.
  24. ↑ CMT : News : Rascal Flatts Perform With Toto During Musicians Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony Archived October 31, 2014, at the Wayback Machine.
  25. ↑ Carroll, Corky (June 9, 2011). "Walk of Fame inductee list one of the best ever". The Orange County Register.
  26. ↑ "2017 Inductees – Kenpo Karate Hall of Fame". kkhof.com. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  27. ↑ "At 80 and with myriad health issues, surf-rock legend Dick Dale plays through the pain Archived March 17, 2016, at the Wayback Machine." Pittsburg City Paper, July 29, 2015.
  28. ↑ "Play One For Dick Dale" Archived January 12, 2009, at the Wayback Machine., surferspath.com
  29. ↑ "All hail the great Dick Dale!". OneGreatNightOnEarth.com.au. May 16, 2011. Archived from the original on 26 August 2011. Retrieved 15 December 2011.
  30. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-10-24. Retrieved 2016-01-06.
  31. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-03-17. Retrieved 2015-05-23.
  32. ↑ Dick Dale Archived March 5, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. at the BBC Radio 1 John Peel minisite

References

  • Burt, Rob (1986). "Surf City, Drag City". Blandford Press. ISBN 0-7137-1890-0.
  • Szatmary, David (1987). "Rockin' in Time: A Social History of Rock-and-Roll". Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-188790-4.
  • Official website
  • Interview at Roctober, includes biographical information
  • A 1995 interview
  • 2004 Interview with Guitar Nine Records
  • 2006 Video Interview – Dick talks about his musical origins and offers advice for musicians
  • Dick Dale's advice for musicians on YouTube by Tommy Liberto
  • Audio discography
  • Dick Dale's Guitar Screams With Pain And Pleasure, National Public Radio, 26 September 2010 mp3
  • Dick Dale: Still King of Surf Guitar, National Public Radio, 31 December 2000
  • Dick Dale Drops Mad Science About How the Universe Works, Part 1 of 3, Audio interview with Dick Dale, Anarchy Gumbo Podcast, 10 October 2012
  • Dick Dale Interview (2003) - NAMM Oral History Library
  • Riley, James (4 May 2015). "Rockabilly N Blues Radio Hour: Dick Dale interview part 1, new tunes and more!". rockabillynblues.blogspot.com. Retrieved 28 May 2018. mp3
  • Riley, James (11 May 2015). "Rockabilly N Blues Radio Hour: Dick Dale interview part 2 and more!". rockabillynblues.blogspot.com. Retrieved 28 May 2018. mp3
  • Riley, James (18 May 2015). "Rockabilly N Blues Radio Hour: Dick Dale interview part 3 and more!". rockabillynblues.blogspot.com. Retrieved 28 May 2018. mp3
  • Riley, James (25 May 2015). "Rockabilly N Blues Radio Hour: Dick Dale interview part 4 and more!". rockabillynblues.blogspot.com. Retrieved 28 May 2018. mp3
  • "Rockabilly & Blues Radio Hour". rockabillynbluesradio.libsyn.com. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  • "Rock and Roll; In The Groove; Interview with Dick Dale [Part 1 of 2]". openvault.wgbh.org. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
  • "Rock and Roll; In The Groove; Interview with Dick Dale [Part 2 of 2]". openvault.wgbh.org. Retrieved 28 May 2018.
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