Dick Dale

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Richard Anthony Monsour (May 4, 1937 – March 16, 2019), also known as Dick Dale, was an American rock guitarist.

He was a pioneer of surf music, drawing on Middle Eastern music styles and playing with reverberation.

Dale was also known as "The King of the Surf Guitar," the name of his second studio album. Dale worked closely with Fender to produce custom-made amplifiers, including the first-ever 100-watt guitar amplifier.

He pushed the limits of electric amplification technology, assisting in the design of equipment capable of producing a more acoustic guitar sound without sacrificeing reliability.

Early life

Dick Dale was born Richard Anthony Monsour of Boston, Massachusetts, on May 4, 1937. He was of Lebanese descent from his father, James, and of Polish-Belarusian descent from his mother, Sophia "Fern" (née Danksewicz). His family later moved to Quincy, Massachusetts, which at the time had a significant Lebanese population in the neighborhood of Quincy Point. After listening to his aunt's playing it, he learned the piano when he was nine years old. After being inspired by Hank Williams, he was given a trumpet in seventh grade and later acquired a ukulele (for $6 part exchange). "Tennesse Waltz" was his first performance on the ukulele. He was also influenced musically by his uncle, who showed him how to play the tarabaki and how to play the oud.

Dale borrowed a guitar from a friend for $8, repaying him by installments. He learned to play the guitar, as well as other lead and rhythm styles, so that the guitar took its place of drums. His early tarabaki drumming influenced his guitar playing, especially his quick alternate picking style. Dale referred to this as "the pulsation," referring to all instruments he used from the tarabaki. He was not born in Quincy until he finished the eleventh grade at Quincy High School in 1954, when his father, amachinist, took a job with Hughes Aircraft Company in the Southern California aerospace industry. The family then moved to El Segundo, California. Dale spent his senior year at and graduated from Washington Senior High School. He learned to surf at the age of 17. He remained keen on Arabic music as a Lebanese-American, which later played a significant role in his surf rock music's rise.

Personal life

Dale has been married three times. Jeannie, his first wife, was a Tahitian dancer who performed on Hawaii and provided backup vocals for the 1975 release of Spanish Eyes. They performed together in Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe as a group. The couple made considerable investments in nightclubs and real estate, allowing Dale to buy his three-story 17 room dream mansion at 'the Wedge', a new Newport Beach suburb, off the coast of Balboa Peninsula and mouth to Newport Harbor. Jeannie and his Deltones toured in Dale's early 1980s until they were forced to leave Dale's public and bitter divorce in 1984, which depleted a large portion of the city's accumulated wealth.

In 1986, he married Jill, his second wife. They had a son, James (Jimmy), who was born in 1992. Dale praises Jill for his conversion from surf rock to a more raw and stripped-down style that consisted of just him and two other musicians. For Dale's 1993 Tribal Thunder album, Jill performed back-up vocals and drum tracks.

Lana Dale married Dale's third wife in 2011.

He said he never used alcohol or other drugs for health reasons and that band members and the road crew were forbidden from using them. He stopped eating red meat in 1972. Kenpo karate has been studying for more than 30 years. He had a recurrence of colorectal cancer in early 2008 and undertook a surgical, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy regimen.

Dale was ranked 31st in 2003 and 74th in the 2011 edition of "Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time."

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Career

Dale began playing in local rockabilly bars where he encountered Texas Tiny in 1955 and gave him the nickname "Dick Dale" because he thought it was a good name for a country singer.

Dale's playing had a non-Western scale. He used reverb a lot, becoming a trademark of surf guitar. Dale was born lefthanded and initially followed a right-handed approach. However, he did so (askeptic King) without restringing the guitar, effectively turning the guitar upside down (while Hendrix, by comparison, will restring his guitar). Dale continued to play his reverse stringing even after he had acquired a proper left-handed guitar. Rather than wrapping his fingers up from underneath, he often played by reaching over the fretboard rather than wrapping his fingers up from underneath.

He collaborated with Leo Fender to try new technology, later adding, "If it can withstand Dick Dale's barrage of punishment, it is fit for human consumption." His combination of loud amplifiers and heavy gauge strings earned him the nickname "Father of Heavy Metal." Dale exploded several Fender amplifiers, Leo Fender, and Freddie Tavares attended Dale's performance in Balboa, California, and the audience erupted, pointing to his louder sounds than the audience screaming. The pair visited the James B. Lansing loudspeaker factory and ordered a custom 15-inch loudspeaker that had been modified to the JBL D130F model, as the Single Showman Amp. Dale's combination of a Fender Stratocaster and Fender Showman Amp enabled him to achieve much higher volume levels than were unobtainable by conventional methods.

Dale's appearances at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa in mid-to-late 1961 are credited with the origination of the surf music movement. After overcrowding at a local ice cream parlor where he appeared forced him to seek other locations, Dale was able to use the 3,000-person capacity ballroom for surfer dances. On the condition that Dale's request be fulfilled, the Rendezvous founder and the city of Newport Beach accepted Dale's invitation on condition that alcohol sales be banned and enforce a dress code. The events, which were dubbed "stomps," quickly became popular, and the ballrooms were always sold out.

One of the first surf rock hits, "Let's Go Trippin'" by Let's Go Trippin'. "Jungle Fever" and "Surf Beat" were among his own Deltone tracks that were followed by more locally released songs. In 1962, Surfers' Choice was his first full-length album. Capitol Records and nationally distributed the album, and Dale soon began appearing on The Ed Sullivan Exhibition and in films where he appeared in his signature song "Miserlou." "I still remember the first night we played it ("Misirlou")," the narrator said later. I changed the scene and started crankeding on that mother. And, it was eerie. The people were chanting and stomping as they came up off the floor. I guess that was the start of the surfer's stomp." After his name, "King of the Surf Guitar," he was named on his second album.

"There was a lot of energy I felt while surfing, and the feeling of power was simply transferred to my guitar," Dale later described. His playing style reflected his surfing experience and demonstrated the ocean's ability to people.

In the 1963 film Beach Party, Dale and the Del-Tones appeared on both directions of his Capitol single, "Secret Surfin' Spot," starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. In the 1964 film, Muscle Beach Party, the group performed the songs "My First Love," "Runn Wild," and "Muscle Beach."

Surf rock's national fame was relatively brief until the British Invasion began to overtake the American charts in 1964. Dale had colorectal cancer while still performing live, but he died of it. In reaction to learning that he might be terminally ill, Dale wrote "Then You'll never hear surf music again." Despite recovering, he resigned from music for many years. After a mild swimming injury caused by a pollution-related disease, he almost lost a leg. Dale became an environmental activist and soon began performing again. In 1986, he made a new album and was nominated for a Grammy. In 1987, he appeared in the film Back to the Beach, playing surf music and performing "Pipeline" with Stevie Ray Vaughan.

In the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction, the use of "Miserlou" gave him a new audience. Following a performance in the Garage in London last year, John Peel praised his playing. The theme tune for his BBC Radio 4 series Home Truths was later selected "Let's Go Trippin'." He made a surf-rock version of Camille Saint-Sabins' "Aquarium" at The Carnival of the Animals in Anaheim, California, the same year.

In 1996, Dale was inducted into the Hollywood Rock Walk of Fame. Dale was voted into the Library of Congress Hall of Records in 2000 for outstanding contributions to music in the United States. Dale's version number 89 on Q magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks in March 2005.

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

Dale began a West Coast tour in June 2009, from southern California to British Columbia, with approximately 20 concert dates. Jimmie Dale, Dale's then-17-year-old son, appeared on drums for the first time on "Forever Came Calling" (or FCC). He was due to attend the Australian One Great Night On Earth festival to raise funds to help those affected by the Black Saturday bushfires and other natural disasters.

Dale said he was compelled to continue touring until the end of his life due to his inability to pay his medical bills. He had many health problems, including diabetes, kidney disease, and vertebral damage that made performing excruciatingly painful. Dale was touring dates scheduled into November 2019 at the time of his death.

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