Dick Dale
Dick Dale
Dick Daleis an American surf rock guitarist, known as The King of the Surf Guitar. He pioneered the surf music style, drawing on Eastern musical scales and experimenting with reverberation. He worked closely with Fender to produce custom made amplifiers, including the first-ever 100-watt guitar amplifier. He pushed the limits of electric amplification technology, helping to develop new equipment that was capable of producing distorted, "thick, clearly defined tones" at "previously undreamed-of volumes." The "breakneck speed of his single-note staccato...
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth4 May 1937
CityBoston, MA
When I start playing I'm just a rollercoaster of sound. I don't know what's coming next, I never do, and I sit and sign and talk to the people afterwards.
I don't claim to be a musician, I didn't go to Julliard.
I became stereotyped.
My aunt played the piano and I used to sit and listen to it.
I always wanted a guitar. I always wanted to be a cowboy singer because I also listened to Hank Williams, and he would always sing these neat romantic songs.
I'll never die. I'll just explode, right there before your eyes, onstage.
I always felt people should live with animals.
I almost had to have my leg amputated because of an infection.
I used to be a mean maniac. Someone once threw a firecracker at a show and I jumped off the side of the stage and whacked 'em on the side of the head.
I met Leo Fender, who is the guru of all amplifiers, and he gave me a Stratocaster. He became a second father to me.
I grew a love for helpless, defenseless things. People would give me lions and jaguars. I had cheetahs, monkeys.
I can play every instrument there is, every horn, I've played all the saxes and trumpets and everything and keyboards.
Every time I went into the studio some engineer tried to impress me with how they're going to capture my sound with all kinds of tricks. But they limited the sound and never allowed me to play how I felt.
Every song is like a painting.