Dick Dale

We lost two great musicians in the past few weeks, both of whom were not as well known as they should have been. Hal Blaine, a session drummer who played on so many hits it's mind-boggling, from "The Way We Were" to "Mrs. Robinson" to "Good Vibrations," died at 93 years old. Some credit him with developing the rock and roll drum sound.

Just this week, Dick Dale passed away at 81, still performing right up to the end. He was "The King of the Surf Guitar," creating a style of guitar playing that is still going strong today.

Dale was born Richard Monsour in Boston, but moved to California and formed a band called the Del-Tones. They played gigs in Balboa and Newport Beach, and that's where surf rock was born. It came out of surf culture, but it also earned that name because the sounds the guitars made were similar to the plink-plink-plink of the waves as they formed a pipeline. Dale also incorporated a lot of reverb to the sound, which has become a trademark of surf rock ever since. He and Leo Fender developed the first 100-watt amp.

Dale was part Lebanese, and Middle Eastern music formed much of his style. He recorded the traditional Jewish celebration song, "Hava Nigila," with a surf rock sound, and his signature tune, "Misirlou," is a Turkish melody. It's that song that made me aware of Dale, as it was used by Quentin Tarantino as the opening theme of Pulp Fiction in 1994. The blistering sound of Dale's guitar is electrifying, and when the horn comes in, well, bliss. I think I could listen to it for an hour straight, maybe longer.

Surf rock was almost wiped out (pun intended) by the British Invasion, but it never completely went away. There are loads of contemporary bands, surely many of them inspired by Dale. To get a taste, go to a radio station from Europe, that plays nothing but surf rock: North Sea Surf Radio.

I've been listening to Dale's hits and they are unique in that they are powerful but also moving. A song with the dubious title of "Mr. Eliminator" has a poignancy one wouldn't expect. He also covered Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone from the Sun" and makes it sound majestic.

It's not often you can pinpoint when a type of music was invented, but with Dale there's no doubt, he was the inventor of surf guitar and its king. The king is dead, long live the king.