“King of the Surf Guitar” Dick Dale has Died
This story has been updated.
From country to punk, from rockabilly to blues, from pioneering some of the most important sounds and modes on the most influential instrument of the last century, Dick Dale was a guitar god, a cultural icon, the soundtrack to generations of fans, and a forger of the future of all American music art forms. And now the “King of the Surf Guitar” is gone. Dick Dale passed away on Saturday, March 16th at the age of 81.
Richard Anthony Monsour was born in Boston, Massachusetts on May 4th, 1937 to parents of both Lebanese and Polish descent—a fact that would later go on to influence his music. After moving to Quicy, Massachusetts, he learned how to play piano at the age of 9. But his first significant music influence was Hank Williams. Dale he saved up returnable Coke bottles to buy a ukulele and pursued becoming a cowboy singer, with the first song he ever learned on the uke being “Tennessee Waltz.”
Later Dick Dale began to learn to play guitar in both lead and rhythm rolls to make up for not having drums to accompany him, which would go on to influence his later style, as would his exposure to Arabic music through his family heritage, including the tarabaki drumming style that would influence his rhythmic, alternative picking technique. In eleventh grade, Dale’s father took a job working for Hughes Aircraft, and he moved with his family to El Segundo, California. At the age of 17, Dale learn to surf while also pursuing guitar, and soon all of the influences were meshing together to make the future “King of the Surf Guitar.”
Playing locally, Dick met an entertainer named Texas Tiny, who convinced him to change his stage name to Dick Dale, because it sounded like a country singer’s name. Singing wasn’t what Dick Dale would become famous for though. He was arguably the first to ever bring non-Western guitar scales to the electric version of the instrument. Dick Dale was the first to employ reverb into his tone which would later become the industry standard. Being left handed also made him a unique player that would go on to influence Jimi Hendrix and other silly siders, and his propensity to blow up guitar amplifiers necessitated Leo Fender to start manufacturing 100-watt amps to keep up with the power and innovation Dick Dale was forging as a pioneer of the instrument.
Dick Dale’s residency at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, CA beginning in July of 1961 is given credit by rock and roll historians as the period when surf guitar was born through the fingers of Dick Dale. His song “Let’s Go Trippin'” is considered to be the first ever surf guitar song. After becoming a cultural phenomenon, his recordings were picked up by Capitol Records, he appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. He formed his backing band called the Del-Tones, and though Dale never became a superstar, he influenced most all of the superstars of the generation, and for generations to come.
Soon The Beach Boys, The Ventures, many of the bands in the British Rock invasion, and Jimi Hendrix were citing Dick Dale as a direct influence. His signature style creeped into rockabilly and country, and would go on to greatly influence the West Coast and Baskersfield sounds of country, born off the power of the electric lead. Dale’s signature song “Misirlou” because synonymous with Quentin Tarantino’s magnum opus, Pulp Fiction. And even today you would be hard pressed to find a guitar player without some Dick Dale somewhere in their sound.
Dick Dale never earned any major hit records or singles, but much of the sound of American music would shatter without his influence. In 2009, he was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville, but an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has alluded him. Later in life and in ailing health, Dick Dale was forced to tour to survive, and skirted by through earning royalties off of use of his songs in movies, commercials, TV shows, and video games, all which sought out the iconic sound of Dick Dale, and the immediate visceral reaction they garnered in listeners and viewers.
Dale professed to never drink alcohol or use drugs except for medical reasons, never ate red meat, and studied martial arts. However in 2008 he contracted rectal Cancer, and had been suffering from failing health in recent years, falling behind on medical bills.
Dick Dale’s death was initially reported by California Rocker.
March 17, 2019 @ 1:10 pm
CaliforniaRocker.com which seems to be the source of this have pulled the news from their website. I wonder if anyone has done their due diligence before posting this news.
March 17, 2019 @ 1:17 pm
Actually CaliforniaRocker.com has updated their story to affirm that he died. There are also multiple other confirmed sources reporting his death. Nonetheless, I am monitoring the story and if updates are necessary, they will be forthcoming.
March 17, 2019 @ 1:38 pm
We had other sources are confirming?
March 17, 2019 @ 2:08 pm
Dick Dale’s bassist, Sam Bolle, has CONFIRMED his death, as did Stretch Reidle in this very comments section below. Also California Rocker has updated their story a third time to confirm his death. Dick Dale is dead.
March 17, 2019 @ 1:11 pm
Great obit. A much more complicated artist than I’d realized.
March 17, 2019 @ 1:20 pm
HUGE influence , as you rightly point out Trigger , on not just rock guitarists but rock bands and the sound of the 50’s ,60’s . Who knows where popular music would have gone without influences like his and the artists he inspired ?
And , unfortunately , another case of an ARTIST not only not getting his due but not being able to hang it up even when that influence and reputation should have afforded him the option of doing so when illness struck . This is a sad scenario . We can only hope that Dick Dale’s love of music sustained him through times when finances and fandom did not .
God bless the King of Surf Guitar
March 17, 2019 @ 1:56 pm
He is not dead, this is a hoax!! come on people, do a tiny bit of work before posting news. SMH
March 17, 2019 @ 2:23 pm
No, it’s not a hoax. Dick Dale is dead, confirmed by multiple sources, including Dick Dale’s bassist, Sam Bolle, Stretch Reidle, and California Rocker, who has affirmed their story now three times.
For those who care:
I believe I know why some people think the story of Dick Dale’s death is a hoax. There is a site called mediamass.net that I have reported on multiple times before that engages in death hoaxes, OR when someone popular dies, they say the death is a hoax. They’re basically a click farm that has been exposed through multiple independent reports. When Dick Dale died and California Rocker reported it initially, meidamass sprung into action. I was able to find direct tweets to Guitar.com and Kurt Loder who reported on Dick’s death, and later retracted their news, spooked by mediamasses misinformation. This is what made people think the reports were not true. But they are.
I reported on how mediamass uses click gaming of deaths in 2015 in anyone’s interested,
https://savingcountrymusic.com/willie-nelson-death-hoax-is-a-hoax-itself-but-hes-alive/
If anything, if mediamass is saying the death of Dick Dale is a hoax, which they are, that’s all the confirmation you should need that he’s indeed dead.
RIP Dick Dale.
March 17, 2019 @ 2:36 pm
Also, not to run this into the ground, but the mediamass debacle back in 2015 is what directly inspired Willie Nelson to write “Still Not Dead.” Some things never change.
March 17, 2019 @ 4:19 pm
Who the hell would hoax Dick Dales’ death?
March 17, 2019 @ 2:02 pm
Official date of Dick’s passing is 3/16/19. Confirmed.
Stretch
March 17, 2019 @ 2:27 pm
Sad day Stretch. Thanks for the information.
March 17, 2019 @ 4:46 pm
Fell behind on medical bills? Imagine that. Makes this news even sadder.
March 17, 2019 @ 5:27 pm
It is a big loss to see such a master of a particular strain of rock pass away. Dick Dale, even if he and his band the Del-Tones never achieved any big national hits, were still a mainstay of the Southern California music scene of the early 1960s, and that style they helped pioneer not only reflected the region’s surf culture, but also helped form much of the West Coast sound of that decade and beyond. Just for his prowess on electric guitar (not to mention that he played left-handed, something you don’t exactly see every other day of the week), he should have been given his props in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while he was still around, certainly around the time that “Misirlou” found its way into a hugely popular (albeit enormously violent) film like PULP FICTION. But then, some of those they’ve honored have only gotten that honor after they’ve departed this life.
March 17, 2019 @ 6:26 pm
An absolute legend. He was also one of the first guys to go wireless with the guitar. He would play a bar and all the sudden, he’d walk out the front door and be standing on the sidewalk or middle of the street, wailing away, while the crowd was watching him out window. He’d scale an awning or roof and sit up there shredding while every body in the crowd wondered where the hell he went.
March 17, 2019 @ 6:34 pm
I can’t say for certain,but I think a lot of Eddie vAn Halen s antics were stolen from, or inspired by dick Dale.
March 17, 2019 @ 11:00 pm
Trigger, been thru a lot in the past few years and I’m just now catching up with my true interests.
I just subbed to your YouTube and I was surprised at the lack of videos in the last 4 years. Why did Laurs leave Sturge??? It has been bothering me for years and I find no answers. I have too many ?s to be answered. Hope you’re doing well and fight the fight.
March 18, 2019 @ 5:50 am
Best I can tell Laur didn’t “leave” Sturgill. Sturgill decided he wanted to be a lead guitar player.
I’ve seen him twice since Laur left and there is a definite hole where Laur used to be. Not to mention that it seems like Sturgill really wants to front a jam band. Probably won’t bother again until there is new music and/or Laur rejoins him. Not holding my breath on either one and guess what, there are still a ton of good shows out there to see.
I was totally unfamiliar with Dick Dale. Not anymore. Good stuff.
March 18, 2019 @ 7:05 am
10-4. Thanks, pard.
March 18, 2019 @ 7:21 am
Here are a couple of articles to get you caught up:
https://savingcountrymusic.com/no-horns-and-no-laur-joamets-on-upcoming-sturgill-simpson-tour/
https://savingcountrymusic.com/where-is-sturgill-simpsons-former-guitarist-laur-joamets-now/
I believe he is still playing with Drivin’ & Cryin’
March 18, 2019 @ 1:19 am
This is a great loss to the world of music: rest in peace, Dick Dale.
March 18, 2019 @ 4:17 am
You cannot overstate the influence of DD on guitar players. Jim Hendrix himself acknowledged what Dale was doing. A couple points for those who geek out on details. DD did not invent the staccato picking technique that he made his trademark. In occasional interviews he acknowledged learning it from country double neck picker Larry Collins, who himself was learning from Joe Maphis. Dale was chasing Larry’s sister Lorrie at the time and would ask the whiz kid picker how he was doing certain techniques. Look up the footage of The Collins Kids at Town Hall Party and the videos of Larry and Joe dueling on double neck Mosrite’s to see the origins of this style. What Dale did though, is associate the style with surfing and essentially brand the surf sound. And of course his work with Leo Fender on developing the Fender Showman amplifier is all true. Dale was like the test pilot, if he couldnt blow up the amp onstage, then it was good. Leo built many versions of the amp, each time trying to make it DD proof.
There was also a guy named Billy Mure who recorded some dazzling guitar instrumental albums in the 50s that foreshadowed the style. Look up his work on his “supersonic” albums to hear it.
But, how Dale made it his own using gigantic, fat , almost bass size strings on a stratocaster , upside down, coupled with his use of a reverb tank is the stuff of legend. It should be mentioned as well that Dale first used a reverb unit to add interest to his voice when playing live and later he would plug his guitar into one. That’s not taking anything away from him, his stature is well deserved and there will only be one Dick Dale! He had a big influence on me in my teen years and I have many amazing memories seeing him play live. No one was more gracious, patient and kind to his fans than Dale. He never refused autographs and he always stayed a couple hours after each show to meet everyone who wished to meet him. He would look you in the eye and make you feel like you personally mattered. What a man!!! To say he will be missed doesn’t even begin to do him justice.
March 18, 2019 @ 7:29 am
I was just reading about Dick Dale’s contributions to the evolution of the solid-body electric guitar in the recent book The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul, and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry That Shaped Rock ‘n’ Roll.
March 18, 2019 @ 8:11 am
Sorry to hear of the loss
March 18, 2019 @ 8:14 am
What a fantastic read about a life lived.
Way too many people in this country die under the crushing weight of medical debt…
March 18, 2019 @ 9:09 am
I saw Dick Dale when I was 17. Besides the music, there were the two things I remember most. One was a story he told from the stage about not being able to teach guitar because he had no understanding of how someone is “supposed” to play guitar— he just does what he does and can’t really slow it down to explain it to anyone else.
The other thing I remember is that he played with thin, white plastic picks that ended up being literally shredded to pieces. Most of the time he would burn through a pick before the song ended and had to grab another. I remember he wore a black outfit and there were little pieces of white plastic like sawdust all over the front of it by the end of the show.
I still have his autograph somewhere. RIP King of Surf.
March 18, 2019 @ 5:32 pm
Dick Dale was definitely one of the great and unique stylists on guitar. Not at all surprised that he influenced so many players. His legacy will live on forever.
January 27, 2020 @ 2:03 am
He was meant to play to the bitter end. Love it.