Dick Dale

Dick Dale (born Richard Anthony Monsour on May 4, 1937, in Quincy, Massachusetts) is "The King Of The Surf Guitar": a pioneer of surf rock and one of the most influential guitarists of the early

Dick Dale (born Richard Anthony Monsour on May 4, 1937, in Quincy, Massachusetts) is "The King Of The Surf Guitar": a pioneer of surf rock and one of the most influential guitarists of the early 1960s. He experimented with reverberation and made use of custom made Fender amplifiers, including the first ever 100 watt amp.

He was born to a Lebanese father and a Polish mother, and soon learned to play the drums, the ukulele, the trumpet and finally the guitar. Among his early musical influences was his uncle, an oud player performing belly dance music. Much of his early music shows a middle eastern influence; Dale is often credited as one of the first electric guitarist to employ exotic scales in his playing. Dale himself was an expert surfer and wanted his music to reflect the sounds he heard in his mind while surfing. While he is primarily known for introducing the use of guitar reverb which would give the guitar a "wet" sound, which has since become a staple of the surf sound, it was Dale's fast staccato picking that was his trademark. Since Dale was left-handed he was initially forced to play a right-handed model, much like later guitarist Jimi Hendrix would do a few years later. However, he did so without restringing the guitar, leading him to effectively play the guitar upside-down (while Hendrix would restring his guitar) and often plays by reaching over the fretboard rather than wrap his fingers up from underneath. Even after he acquired a proper left-handed guitar, Dale continued to use his reverse stringing. Dale is also noted for playing his percussive, heavy bending style while using what are, for most guitarists, extremely heavy gauge string sets (for example, a standard electric guitar string set will start with a .009 - .011 high E string; Dale's high E is strung with a .016 gauge string).