Dick Dale, ‘King of the Surf Guitar,’ dead at 81Richard Monsour may have grown up in snowy Massachusetts, but the guitarist known as Dick Dale brought the rock music of California’s surf culture to the nation.
Known as the “King of Surf Guitar,” Dale, 81, died over the weekend, according to reports.
While Dale’s music traveled around the world, his imprint on Southern California is strong. He led the surf music revolution from the Rendezvous Ballroom on the Balboa Peninsula in the late 1950s and early 1960s and over the years had residences in Newport Beach and also in the high desert community of Wonder Valley.
Dale and his family moved to Orange County from Massachusetts in 1954 and he began surfing.
“I surfed Dana Point, San Clemente, and of course Huntington Beach. Every morning you could find me at the hot water pipe,” he said in an interview with The Orange County Register in 2009.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/17/dick-dale-king-of-the-surf-guitar-dead-at-81/
