Dick Dale

Dick Dale, “King of the Surf Guitar,” was a technical virtuoso and trailblazing innovator. Born Richard Anthony Monsour in Boston, MA, in 1937, Dale learned to play country tunes on his ukulele and guitar as a teenager. He became a surfer when the family moved to Southern California in 1954 and, inspired by the motion of the ocean while wave-riding, he created his singular sound: the electrifying swing of 1961’s “Let’s Go Trippin’,” the first recorded surf-rock instrumental. In 1962, Surfer’s Choice featured the wild “Jungle Fever” and now-classic “Miserlou,” the latter of which propelled Dale to a midlife comeback when filmmaker Quentin Tarantino featured it in 1994’s Pulp Fiction. Dale’s lightning-fast staccato picking influenced phenoms like Eddie Van Halen; he tested the boundaries of amplification with the help of Fender; and he defined the sound of surf for generations to come. He died in 2019, after nearly six decades of music and with tour dates still scheduled.