Guitar Legend Dick Dale
Presented By The Longboard House
- February 4, 2007
- 0 Comments
- By Story By Jeff Nall
If you’re as passionate about surf music as you are surfing itself, cancel any plans you may have made for the evening of Tuesday February 13.
On that day, Dick Dale, the man who invented surf music, will play just over the Melbourne Causeway at the County Line Saloon.
Concert-goers will have the opportunity to hear the same coasting, deep buoyant melodies of a guitar who has played for crowds of hundreds-of-thousands and whose 2006 tour was voted number of the year by a magazine in Spain.
Dale is said to have basically created the genre of surf music with his 1962 release, “Surfer’s Choice,” an album which notably did not feature what has become the keystone effect of the genre, ‘reverb.’ In fact, Dale later helped develop the effect.
According to Dale, who turns 70 on May 4, he received the title ‘King of Surf Music’ from actual surfers who attended his early concerts.
Unlike those who play the genre but don’t surf, Dale was an avid surfer dating back to the late 50’s.
Dale, who was inducted into California’s Surfing Hall of Fame, said his music was inspired by the sound of the water he heard while surfing, which he tried to emulate.
His sound was also heavily influenced by a drummer.
“My style came from listening to Gene Krupa drum,” he said. “I wanted my guitar to sound like his drums. So I would use 60 gauge strings whereas people use 6 and 7 gage strings.
“They would give me a thick, fat sound. That’s why they call me the ‘father of heavy metal.’
About as modest royalty, Dale said that his music influenced Stevie Ray Vaughn.
The first records he learned on,” said Dale, “he learned on Dick Dale records.”
Since the nineties, Dale’s popularity has surged, particularly when his song, 'Miserlou,' which has become the epitome of the surf music sound, appeared in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film, “Pulp Fiction.“
Dale said of his initial reaction to the film, “I laughed my ass off when I saw it.”
What many may not know is that, according to Dale, Tarantino didn’t so much use the song to compliment the film as he did build the film around the song.
“The movie was created by Tarantino playing the song over and over and over,” said Dale. “He wanted to create a masterpiece to go along with the musical masterpiece.“
A man with much to say on a little of everything, Dale said his artistic longevity is due to his drug-free living and involvement in the martial arts.
“I’ve been playing for 51 years with such an intensity because of the martial arts and because I’ve never had a drug in my body, all of my life; never had any alcohol in my life all of my life. And I stopped smoking.”
Dale, a vegetarian who said he’d rather shoot a criminal than an innocent animal, also credits giving up red meat for aiding a prolific, energized career.
What can people can expect when he takes to the stage this Tuesday?
“I just give them my heart and soul,” he said.
Influencing his attitude toward playing the guitar and performing, Dale has a ‘live in the here and now‘ philosophy.
“The energy that is created by people in front of me, I just play to their faces,” he said.
“People say, well what’s in their future. This is my future. I don’t think about yesterday, it’s done.”