Richard Anthony Monsour (May 4, 1937 – March 16, 2019), known professionally as Dick Dale, was an American rock guitarist. He was a pioneer of surf music, drawing on Middle Eastern music scales and experimenting with reverb. Dale was known as "The King of the Surf Guitar", which was also the title of his second studio album.
Dale was one of the most influential guitarists of all time and especially of the early 1960s. Most of the leading bands in surf music, such as The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean and The Trashmen, were influenced by Dale's music, and often included recordings of Dale's songs in their albums. His style and music influenced guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend, Eddie Van Halen and Brian May.
He has been credited with popularizing tremolo picking on electric guitar, a technique that is now widely used in many musical genres (such as extreme metal, jazz fusion, etc.). His speedy single-note staccato picking technique was unrivaled until guitarists like Eddie Van Halen entered the music scene.
He is cited as one of the fathers of heavy metal for pushing the limits of amplification. Working together with Leo Fender, Dale also pushed the limits of electric amplification technology, helping to develop new equipment that was capable of producing thick and previously unheard volumes including the first-ever 100-watt guitar amplifier. Dale also pioneered the use of portable reverb effects.
The use of his recording of "Misirlou" by Quentin Tarantino in the film Pulp Fiction led to his return in the 1990s, marked by four albums and world tours. He was also nominated for a Grammy in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category for the song "Pipeline" with Stevie Ray Vaughan. In "Rolling Stone'''s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time", Dale was ranked 31st in 2003 and 74th in the 2011 revision.
Early life
Dick Dale was born Richard Anthony Monsour in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 4, 1937. He was of Lebanese descent from his father, James, and of Polish-Belarusian descent from his mother, Sophia "Fern" (née Danksewicz). His family subsequently moved to Quincy, Massachusetts, which at the time had a significant Lebanese population in the neighborhood of Quincy Point. He learned the piano when he was nine after listening to his aunt playing it. He was given a trumpet in seventh grade, and later acquired a ukulele (for $6 part exchange), after having become influenced by Hank Williams. The first song he played on the ukulele was "Tennessee Waltz". He was also influenced musically by his uncle, who taught him how to play the tarabaki and could play the oud.
Dale then bought a guitar from a friend for $8, paying him back in installments. He learned to play the instrument, using both lead and rhythm 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", noting all instruments he played derived from the tarabaki. 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. He learned to surf at the age of 17. As a Lebanese-American, he retained a strong interest in Arabic music, which later played a major role in his development of surf rock music.
Career
1960s
Dale began playing in local country western rockabilly bars where he met Texas Tiny in 1955, who gave him the name "Dick Dale" because he thought it was a good name for a country singer.
Dale employed non-Western scales in his playing. He regularly used reverb, which became a trademark of surf guitar. Being lefthanded, 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.