|
 Dale, whose work included the 1962 hit "Misirlou" that was
featured in the film "Pulp Fiction," died on Saturday night.
Dale's music was one of the dominant sounds of Southern
California's car-and-beach culture in the late 1950s and early
'60s. He was widely considered the creator of instrumental surf
music and an influence on scores of noted bands and guitarists,
including Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys and Eddie Van Halen.
The popularity of surf music faded in the United States with the
advent of rock's "British Invasion" but Dale would have a career
revival that started in the 1990s.
Despite health problems that plagued him during every show, he
was still performing in 2019, often with his son,
guitarist-drummer Jimmy Dale.
He often said he kept performing because he wanted to "die
onstage with an explosion of body parts." But Dale also told
interviewers he was on the road because he needed to earn $3,000
a month to pay medical expenses not covered by insurance after
bouts with cancer, diabetes and back problems. He said he also
liked to inspire people who might be having a tough time.
Dale said his fans from the beach gave him the title "king of
the surf guitar" and his powerful breakneck-picking style was
considered by many to be a forerunner of heavy metal music.
Hits by Dale and his band, the Del-Tones, included "Let's Go
Trippin'" and "Mr. Eliminator" and he was best known for "Misirlou,"
a buzzing, fast-paced reworking of a folk song traced back to
Greece and the Middle East.
Director Quentin Tarantino used "Misirlou" to set the pace and
build tension early in "Pulp Fiction" and the song also popped
up in other movies, television commercials and video games.
"SO INTENSE"
"Having 'Misirlou' as your opening credit, it's just so
intense," Tarantino said in an interview featured in a special
edition of the "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack. "It just says you're
watching an epic, you're watching a big ol' movie ... It just
throws down a gauntlet that the movie now has to live up to."
Dale was born Richard Monsour on May 4, 1937, into a
Lebanese-Polish family in Boston and showed an early aptitude
for a variety of musical instruments. The family moved to
Southern California when he was a teenager and he developed a
passion for surfing.
[to top of second column] |
"I became addicted to the point where I would be out there from
sunup to sundown," Dale told Surfing magazine of his early days on
the beach. "I wouldn't do anything else."
When it came to guitar, Dale was left-handed but created his
signature sound on a right-handed Fender Stratocaster that he
flipped over and essentially played upside down with extra-thick
strings.
"What I was trying to do was actually capture the sound of being out
in the ocean," Dale told the Baltimore Sun. "When I'd be out there
surfing, I could feel this thunderous sound. It was just like the
screaming, the roar of the tiger. When I started banging on my
guitar, I was trying to emulate that same sound - that fat, thick
sound."
Volume - lots of it - was a key component of the Dale sound and he
liked to tell audiences that he was on stage "to make your ears
bleed."
Ground-breaking guitar manufacturer Leo Fender provided Dale with
amplifiers in the 1960s but according to Dale's count, he blew out
more than 50 of them with his high-volume playing. Fender eventually
came up with a heavy-duty amp that could handle the Dale sound,
which would be a boon to the rock 'n' rollers who followed him.
Dale, who kept lions and tigers at his mansion for many years, did
not drink, smoke or use drugs.
He was first diagnosed with rectal cancer in 1966, had a recurrence
in 2008 and suffered kidney problems but continued to play.
(Reporting and writing by Bill Trott; Additional reporting by Dan
Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Clarence
Fernandez)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
 |
