It was the mid-1960s and the rapid-fire sounds Dick Dale was pulling out of his gold-painted Fender Stratocaster had already reshaped popular music.
In the space of a few short years, the Boston-born, Southern California transplant (born Richard Anthony Monsour) had merged the laid-back, sun-blasted lifestyle of the surf scene with a blistering rhythm of rockabilly and early rock-and-roll. As the mad scientist behind what was dubbed “surf rock,” Dale was, in the words of a 1963 Life magazine profile, a “thumping teenage idol who is part evangelist, part Pied Piper and all success.” The music Dale and his band the Del-Tones made poured out of radios, sound-tracked popular beach movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, and lit inspirational fires in other musicians like the Beach Boys. Fans crowned him “The King of the Surf Guitar.”
