Dale was born to a
Lebanese father and a
Polish mother, and soon learned to play the
drums, the
ukulele, the
trumpet and finally the
guitar. Among his early musical influences was his uncle, an
oud player performing
belly dance music. Much of his early music shows a middle eastern influence; Dale is often credited as one of the first electric guitarists to employ exotic scales in his playing. Dale himself was an amateur surfer and wanted his music to reflect the sounds he heard in his mind while surfing. While he is primarily known for introducing the use of guitar reverb which would give the guitar a "wet" sound, which has since become a staple of the surf sound, it was Dale's fast
staccato picking that was his trademark. Since Dale was left-handed he was initially forced to play a right-handed model, much like later guitarist
Jimi Hendrix would do a few years later. However, he did so without restringing the guitar, leading him to effectively play the guitar upside-down (while Hendrix would restring his guitar) and often plays by reaching over the fretboard rather than wrap his fingers up from underneath. Even after he acquired a proper left-handed guitar, Dale continued to use his reverse stringing. Dale is also noted for playing his percussive, heavy bending style while using what are, for most guitarists, extremely heavy gauge string sets 16p, 18p, 20p. 38w, 48w, 58w (standard electric guitar string set may range from 9 to 42).
His desire to create a certain sound lead him to push the limits of equipment:
Leo Fender kept giving Dale amps and Dale kept blowing them up! Till one night Leo and his right hand man Freddy T. went down to the Rendezvous Ballroom on the Balboa Peninsula in Balboa, California and stood in the middle of Four Thousand screaming dancing Dick Dale fans and said to Freddy, I now know what Dick Dale is trying to tell me. Back to the drawing board. A special 85 watt output transformer was made that peaked 100 watts when dale would pump up the volume of his amp, this transformer would create the sounds along with Dale's style of playing, the kind of sounds that Dale dreamed of. BUT! they now needed a speaker that would handle the power and not burn up from the volume that would come from Dale's guitar.
Leo, Freddy and Dale went to the James B. Lansing speaker company, and they explained that they wanted a fifteen inch speaker built to their specifications. That speaker would soon be known as the 15" JBL -D130 speaker. It made the complete package for Dale to play through and was named the Single Showman Amp. When Dale plugged his Fender Stratocaster guitar into the new Showman Amp and speaker cabinet, Dale became the first creature on earth to jump from the volume scale of a modest quiet guitar player on a scale of 4 to blasting up through the volume scale to TEN! That is when Dale became the "Father of Heavy Metal" as quoted from Guitar Player Magazine. Dale broke through the electronic barrier limitations of that era!
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[quoted from the official Dick Dale Web site.]
With his backing band The
Del-Tones (bassist
Ron Eglit, drummer
Ron Fish and guitarist
Carl Verhein), Dale's live performances became huge local draws.
1961's "
Let's Go Trippin'" is often regarded as the first surf rock song. This was followed by more locally-released songs, including "Jungle Fever" and "Surf Beat" on his own Deltone label. His first full-length album was
Surfers' Choice in
1962. The album was picked up by
Capitol Records and distributed nationally, and Dale soon began appearing on the
Ed Sullivan Show and in films. His signature single
Misirlou went to #1 in Los Angeles. He later stated, "I still remember the first night we played it (Misirlou). I changed the tempo, and just started
cranking on that mother. And...it was eerie. The people came rising up off the floor, and they were chanting and stomping. I guess that was the beginning of the surfer's stomp." His second album was named after his performing nickname,
King of the Surf Guitar.
Though surf rock became nationally popular in the U.S. briefly, the
British Invasion began to overtake the American charts in
1964. Though he continued performing live, Dale was soon set back by
rectal cancer. He recovered, though, and retired from music for a time. In
1979, he almost lost a leg after being injured while swimming; a pollution-related infection made the mild injury much worse. As a result, Dale became an environmental activist and soon began performing again. He recorded a new album in
1986 and was nominated for a Grammy, and the use of "
Misirlou" in the
Quentin Tarantino film,
Pulp Fiction, gained him a new audience. He has released several albums since and continues to actively tour.
In 1993 he recorded a guitar solo with a Southern California indie band "The Pagodas" (David Lane & John Purcell) which was released as a vinyl single.
In 1995, 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.
In 2002, Dale appeared in
The True Meaning of Christmas Specials, he also played several original songs for the program.
Of recent interest, the
Black Eyed Peas song "
Pump It" (from the
2005 album
Monkey Business) heavily samples Dale's "
Misirlou". "Misirlou" is also featured in the
PlayStation 2/Xbox 360 video game,
Guitar Hero II, as well as the
Wii launch title
Rayman Raving Rabbids.
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As of 2007, the Father of Heavy Metal and King of the Surf Guitar has yet to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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