The King of the Surf Guitar

Dick Dale was born on this date in 1937. Audrey Hepburn was also born on this date, in 1929, but she could never do this:



Dale is a great story. He really was a surfer (unlike, say, the Beach Boys, who seemed more to want to be surfers and wish they were with the girls of the beach, when in fact they were mostly spending their time fantasizing in their room) and he invented a music that would sound like what surfing was when he was doing it. Once he captured that sound, which as a left-hander he did upside now, rather than restringing the guitar, he also needed to project it, so he got some folks to invent an amp that could blast from somewhere in California roughly as far away as Cleveland. He claims to be the first person to set an amp at ten (or, actually, TEN!).

You know that line from Hendrix, "You'll never hear surf music again"? Dale got hit by rectal cancer in the 60s, and Jimi was sending a tribute to one of his own idols. Fortunately, Dale bounced back.

If you want, you can play Misirlou as part of Guitar Hero 2. And if you're wondering about the source of the guitar version of Saint-Saens on Disneyland's Space Mountain, now you know.

Happy birthday to a surfing and guitar-playing legend.
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