Dick Dale

 ( 1937 Births ) 

Dale then bought a guitar from a friend for $8, paying him back in installments. He learned to play the instrument, using both lead guitar and rhythm guitar styles, so that the guitar filled the place of drums. His early tarabaki drumming later influenced his guitar playing, particularly his rapid alternate picking technique. Dale referred to this as "the pulsation" and said his way of playing any instrument derived from his tarabaki style. 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 in the Southern California aerospace industry. The family moved to El Segundo, California. Dale spent his senior year at and graduated from Washington Senior High School.

Dale employed non-Western scales in his playing. He regularly used reverb effect, which became a trademark of surf guitar. Being left-handed, Dale would become known for his unorthodox method of playing a right-handed guitar upside-down, doing so (like Albert King) without restringing the guitar (while Hendrix, by comparison, would restring his guitar). Even after he acquired a proper left-handed guitar, Dale continued to use his reverse stringing. He often played by reaching over the fretboard, rather than wrapping his fingers up from underneath.

He partnered with Leo Fender to test new equipment. In interviews Dale noted that Fender had stated, "When it can withstand the barrage of punishment from Dick Dale, then it is fit for the human consumption." His combination of loud amplifiers and heavy-gauge strings led him to be called the "Father of Heavy Metal." After Dale blew up several Fender amplifiers, Leo Fender and Freddie Tavares saw Dale play at the Rendezvous Ballroom, Balboa, California, and found the problem arose from his creating a sound louder than the audience's screaming. The pair visited the James B. Lansing loudspeaker company and asked for a custom 15-inch loudspeaker, which became the JBL D130F model, and was known as the Single Showman Amp. Dale's combination of a Fender Stratocaster with a Fender Showman Amp allowed him to attain significantly louder volume levels unobtainable by then-conventional equipment. Furthering the development, the Showman Amp later added a second 15-inch JBL D-130 speaker, and it was named the Dual Showman Amp.

Dale's performances at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa in mid to late 1961 are credited with the creation of the surf music phenomenon. Dale obtained 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. 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.

"Let's Go Trippin'" is one of the first surf rock songs.

The use of "Misirlou" in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction gained him a new audience. The following year, John Peel praised his playing following a gig in the Garage, London. Peel later selected "Let's Go Trippin'" as the theme tune for his BBC Radio 4 series Home Truths. (BBC Radio 1 John Peel minisite) The same year, 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.

Dick Dale participated in the Vans Warped Tour in 1996, along with NOFX, Pennywise and Rocket From The Crypt. A booking agent for the event told the Los Angeles Times: "I'm a fan of, and I thought it would be cool to expose him to this group of young kids."

Dale was inducted to the Hollywood Rock Walk of Fame that same year. In 2000 the U.S. House of Representatives elected Dale into the Library of Congress Hall of Records for outstanding achievements in music. In March 2005, Q magazine placed Dale's version at number 89 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Q magazine - 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks Ever!

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

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.

Dale said that he was forced to keep touring to the end of his life, because of his inability to afford his medical costs. He had many health issues, including diabetes, kidney failure, and vertebrae damage that made performing excruciatingly painful. At the time of his death, Dale had tour dates scheduled into November 2019.

He met his second wife Jill in 1986. Together they had a son, James (who later performed professionally as Jimmy Dale), born in 1992. Dale credits Jill for his transition from surf music to a more raw and stripped-down style that consisted of just him and two other musicians. Jill provided back up vocals and drum tracks for Dale's 1993 Tribal Thunder album. Dale married his third wife Lana in 2011. Dale later owned a home with a small private airstrip in the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles, and flew his own private aircraft (a Piper Tri-Pacer). The airstrip was marked as "Dale" on the NOAA aeronautical charts.

He said that, for health reasons, he never used alcohol or other , and discouraged their use by band members and road crew. In 1972, he stopped eating red meat. He studied American Kenpo for over 30 years." At 80 and with myriad health issues, surf-rock legend Dick Dale plays through the pain " Pittsburgh City Paper, July 29, 2015. In early 2008, he experienced a recurrence of colorectal cancer and completed a surgical, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment regimen. "Play One For Dick Dale" , surferspath.com