Dick Dale
Origins and Early Years
Richard Anthony Monsour was born on May 4, 1937, in Boston, Massachusetts. Of Lebanese-Polish descent, he grew up in Southern California, where he became a passionate surfer. He developed a unique guitar style inspired by Middle Eastern music inherited from his Lebanese family and the rhythm of the waves of the Pacific Ocean.
He performed at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, California, drawing crowds of up to 4,000 surfers per night and creating an entirely new music scene.
The Invention of Surf Rock
His track “Let’s Go Trippin’ (1961)” is considered the first surf rock single in history. “Misirlou (1962),” adapted from traditional Middle Eastern music (a Greek and Arabic folk tune), became his most famous piece, gaining worldwide popularity through the film Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino in 1994.
He worked closely with Leo Fender to develop the first Fender Showman amplifier and JBL D130 speakers capable of withstanding his intense playing. Dick Dale literally destroyed existing amplifiers with the power of his attack. This collaboration directly led to the invention of the Fender reverb system.
Legacy
Dick Dale was nicknamed the “Father of Heavy Metal” by some critics for his pioneering use of spring reverb, extreme volume, and rapid tremolo picking. His upside-down left-handed playing style (he was left-handed but played a right-handed guitar without restringing it, with the low strings on the bottom) gave him a unique tone and attack. He passed away on March 16, 2019, at the age of 81.
Iconic Guitar
Dick Dale is inseparable from his gold metallic Fender Stratocaster, played in an upside-down left-handed style. Fender dedicated a signature model to him, reproducing his specifications, with a reversed neck and high-output pickups.
