OT: R.I.P. Dick Dale King of Surf Guitar
- Thread starter rudedude
- Start date
It was the mid-1960s and the rapid-fire sounds Dick Dale was pulling out of his gold-painted Fender Stratocaster had already reshaped popular music.
In the space of a few short years, the Boston-born, Southern California transplant (born Richard Anthony Monsour) had merged the laid-back, sun-blasted lifestyle of the surf scene with a blistering rhythm of rockabilly and early rock-and-roll. As the mad scientist behind what was dubbed “surf rock,” Dale was, in the words of a 1963 Life magazine profile, a “thumping teenage idol who is part evangelist, part Pied Piper and all success.” The music Dale and his band the Del-Tones made poured out of radios, sound-tracked popular beach movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, and lit inspirational fires in other musicians like the Beach Boys. Fans crowned him “The King of the Surf Guitar.”
“I once made a million dollars a year with my career,” Dale reminisced to the Los Angeles Times magazine in 2001. “I made $10,000 for three minutes’ work on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ in 1963.”
© Richard Drew/AP Dick Dale, known as "The King of the Surf Guitar," performs at B.B. King Blues Club in New York. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)But Dale’s time in the spotlight came to a sudden end in 1965. That year, when he was only 28, he was diagnosed with rectal cancer. As the Times magazine reported, doctors told the guitarist that without aggressive surgery, he could be dead in a matter of months. He survived, but the cancer bout whittled Dale from 158 pounds to 98 pounds, and also drained his bank account of his pop star proceeds. He moved to Hawaii and stayed away from music for a number of years.
Dale passed away on Saturday night, his longtime drummer Dusty Watson confirmed to NPR. The guitarist was 81. No cause of death has been released.
Tributes have begun popping up online, with many celebrating his distinctive sound. But the musician’s life story was also a constant struggle against health problems — and to pay medical bills. After his first cancer diagnosis in 1965, Dale continued to battle the disease. Up until the end of his life, Dale was explicit that he toured to fund his treatment.
“I can’t stop touring because I will die. Physically and literally, I will die,” he told the Pittsburgh City Paper in 2015. “Sure, I’d love to stay home and build ships in a bottle and spend time with my wife in Hawaii, but I have to perform to save my life."
Dale’s signature guitar style was the result of a happy accident. Most guitars are strung for a right-handed player. Dale, a lefty, originally picked up the guitar upside down so he could play naturally — without restringing the instrument, leaving the thicker strings on the bottom of the fret board. “[N]obody told me I was holding it wrong,” Dale explained to the Orange County Register in 2009. “I just taught myself to play it like that. It was hard at first.”
Dale’s playing was also heavily inspired by his bloodline. Born in Boston to Lebanese parents, Dale’s father spent most of his childhood in the family homeland. Dale grew up around instruments from the region, such as the tarabaki drums and the oud, a stringed instrument.
“My uncle taught me how to play the tarabaki, and I watched him play the oud,” Dale told Washington Files, a website run by the U.S. State Department, in 2006. The staccato guitar playing that defined surf rock came directly Middle Eastern music. Dale’s best known song from the 1960s — “Misirlou” — is an electrified revamp of a Mediterranean folk tune.
After his near-death cancer experience in the mid-1960s, Dale reinvented himself as a club owner in Southern California. But bad business decisions and a divorce eventually pulled his lifestyle out from under him. According to the Times magazine, Dale was evicted from his dream house in 1986.
The next year, when he recorded a version of “Pipeline” with Stevie Ray Vaughan that would earn a Grammy nomination, the guitarist was living in an RV parked in his parents’ driveway.
Dale’s career got an unexpected boost in 1994, when director Quentin Tarantino used “Misirlou” in the opening credits of his Academy Awards-nominated film, “Pulp Fiction.”
But health problems continued to dog Dale, and although various medical conditions
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/new...le-touring-till-the-end/ar-BBUUt6t?li=BBnb7Kz
In the space of a few short years, the Boston-born, Southern California transplant (born Richard Anthony Monsour) had merged the laid-back, sun-blasted lifestyle of the surf scene with a blistering rhythm of rockabilly and early rock-and-roll. As the mad scientist behind what was dubbed “surf rock,” Dale was, in the words of a 1963 Life magazine profile, a “thumping teenage idol who is part evangelist, part Pied Piper and all success.” The music Dale and his band the Del-Tones made poured out of radios, sound-tracked popular beach movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, and lit inspirational fires in other musicians like the Beach Boys. Fans crowned him “The King of the Surf Guitar.”
“I once made a million dollars a year with my career,” Dale reminisced to the Los Angeles Times magazine in 2001. “I made $10,000 for three minutes’ work on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ in 1963.”
Dale passed away on Saturday night, his longtime drummer Dusty Watson confirmed to NPR. The guitarist was 81. No cause of death has been released.
Tributes have begun popping up online, with many celebrating his distinctive sound. But the musician’s life story was also a constant struggle against health problems — and to pay medical bills. After his first cancer diagnosis in 1965, Dale continued to battle the disease. Up until the end of his life, Dale was explicit that he toured to fund his treatment.
“I can’t stop touring because I will die. Physically and literally, I will die,” he told the Pittsburgh City Paper in 2015. “Sure, I’d love to stay home and build ships in a bottle and spend time with my wife in Hawaii, but I have to perform to save my life."
Dale’s signature guitar style was the result of a happy accident. Most guitars are strung for a right-handed player. Dale, a lefty, originally picked up the guitar upside down so he could play naturally — without restringing the instrument, leaving the thicker strings on the bottom of the fret board. “[N]obody told me I was holding it wrong,” Dale explained to the Orange County Register in 2009. “I just taught myself to play it like that. It was hard at first.”
Dale’s playing was also heavily inspired by his bloodline. Born in Boston to Lebanese parents, Dale’s father spent most of his childhood in the family homeland. Dale grew up around instruments from the region, such as the tarabaki drums and the oud, a stringed instrument.
“My uncle taught me how to play the tarabaki, and I watched him play the oud,” Dale told Washington Files, a website run by the U.S. State Department, in 2006. The staccato guitar playing that defined surf rock came directly Middle Eastern music. Dale’s best known song from the 1960s — “Misirlou” — is an electrified revamp of a Mediterranean folk tune.
After his near-death cancer experience in the mid-1960s, Dale reinvented himself as a club owner in Southern California. But bad business decisions and a divorce eventually pulled his lifestyle out from under him. According to the Times magazine, Dale was evicted from his dream house in 1986.
The next year, when he recorded a version of “Pipeline” with Stevie Ray Vaughan that would earn a Grammy nomination, the guitarist was living in an RV parked in his parents’ driveway.
Dale’s career got an unexpected boost in 1994, when director Quentin Tarantino used “Misirlou” in the opening credits of his Academy Awards-nominated film, “Pulp Fiction.”
But health problems continued to dog Dale, and although various medical conditions
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/new...le-touring-till-the-end/ar-BBUUt6t?li=BBnb7Kz
I was lucky enough to see him play some years back at Maxwells in hoboken. Pretty great show.
Earlier that year I was also lucky enough to see Link Wray at the same venue. Complete underrated musicians.
Earlier that year I was also lucky enough to see Link Wray at the same venue. Complete underrated musicians.
Like many career musicians, lack of health care coverage is problematic. That really needs to be addressed.It was the mid-1960s and the rapid-fire sounds Dick Dale was pulling out of his gold-painted Fender Stratocaster had already reshaped popular music.
In the space of a few short years, the Boston-born, Southern California transplant (born Richard Anthony Monsour) had merged the laid-back, sun-blasted lifestyle of the surf scene with a blistering rhythm of rockabilly and early rock-and-roll. As the mad scientist behind what was dubbed “surf rock,” Dale was, in the words of a 1963 Life magazine profile, a “thumping teenage idol who is part evangelist, part Pied Piper and all success.” The music Dale and his band the Del-Tones made poured out of radios, sound-tracked popular beach movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, and lit inspirational fires in other musicians like the Beach Boys. Fans crowned him “The King of the Surf Guitar.”
“I once made a million dollars a year with my career,” Dale reminisced to the Los Angeles Times magazine in 2001. “I made $10,000 for three minutes’ work on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ in 1963.”
© Richard Drew/AP Dick Dale, known as "The King of the Surf Guitar," performs at B.B. King Blues Club in New York. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)But Dale’s time in the spotlight came to a sudden end in 1965. That year, when he was only 28, he was diagnosed with rectal cancer. As the Times magazine reported, doctors told the guitarist that without aggressive surgery, he could be dead in a matter of months. He survived, but the cancer bout whittled Dale from 158 pounds to 98 pounds, and also drained his bank account of his pop star proceeds. He moved to Hawaii and stayed away from music for a number of years.
Dale passed away on Saturday night, his longtime drummer Dusty Watson confirmed to NPR. The guitarist was 81. No cause of death has been released.
Tributes have begun popping up online, with many celebrating his distinctive sound. But the musician’s life story was also a constant struggle against health problems — and to pay medical bills. After his first cancer diagnosis in 1965, Dale continued to battle the disease. Up until the end of his life, Dale was explicit that he toured to fund his treatment.
“I can’t stop touring because I will die. Physically and literally, I will die,” he told the Pittsburgh City Paper in 2015. “Sure, I’d love to stay home and build ships in a bottle and spend time with my wife in Hawaii, but I have to perform to save my life."
Dale’s signature guitar style was the result of a happy accident. Most guitars are strung for a right-handed player. Dale, a lefty, originally picked up the guitar upside down so he could play naturally — without restringing the instrument, leaving the thicker strings on the bottom of the fret board. “[N]obody told me I was holding it wrong,” Dale explained to the Orange County Register in 2009. “I just taught myself to play it like that. It was hard at first.”
Dale’s playing was also heavily inspired by his bloodline. Born in Boston to Lebanese parents, Dale’s father spent most of his childhood in the family homeland. Dale grew up around instruments from the region, such as the tarabaki drums and the oud, a stringed instrument.
“My uncle taught me how to play the tarabaki, and I watched him play the oud,” Dale told Washington Files, a website run by the U.S. State Department, in 2006. The staccato guitar playing that defined surf rock came directly Middle Eastern music. Dale’s best known song from the 1960s — “Misirlou” — is an electrified revamp of a Mediterranean folk tune.
After his near-death cancer experience in the mid-1960s, Dale reinvented himself as a club owner in Southern California. But bad business decisions and a divorce eventually pulled his lifestyle out from under him. According to the Times magazine, Dale was evicted from his dream house in 1986.
The next year, when he recorded a version of “Pipeline” with Stevie Ray Vaughan that would earn a Grammy nomination, the guitarist was living in an RV parked in his parents’ driveway.
Dale’s career got an unexpected boost in 1994, when director Quentin Tarantino used “Misirlou” in the opening credits of his Academy Awards-nominated film, “Pulp Fiction.”
But health problems continued to dog Dale, and although various medical conditions
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/new...le-touring-till-the-end/ar-BBUUt6t?li=BBnb7Kz
I saw him New Years Eve 94 @ The Hard Rock Cafe in Newport Beach.Its very special because that's where the team stayed for the Rose Bowl.
About a decade ago, there was a good band who would play the Phyrst on football weekends. They had a good guitarist who would open up the set with a dick dale surf guitar solo. Guy was pretty good.
The problem isnt the coverage as much as the cost. Either he bears the cost or you and I do.
Fix the costs.
Ldn
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