Dick Dale: Guitarist behind Pulp Fiction theme song dies age 81
Written by News on 18/03/2019
Dick Dale, the man who played the distinctive high-speed guitar riff at the start of Pulp Fiction, has died age 81.
The American musician died on Saturday night, said his former bassist Sam Bolle.
Dale became known by many as the King of Surf Guitar, famous for his loud power-chord instrumentals on songs such as 1961’s Let’s Go Trippin’ and Miserlou.
The latter song became famous after being used as part of the opening scene in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 classic Pulp Fiction.
It begins after Tim Roth’s character jumps up in the diner to announce his armed robbery and continues over the opening credits.
Dale, who was born Richard Monsour, adapted the track from a Middle Eastern folk song he heard played by his parents when he was a child.
Rolling Stone magazine said in its Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll that “Dale pioneered a musical genre that Beach Boy Brian Wilson and others would later bring to fruition”.
An avid surfer, Dale built a fan base in Los Angeles in the late 1950s with regular appearances at Newport Beach’s Rendezvous Ballroom.
The Boston-born guitarist said his musical style was a mix of the sounds of crashing ocean waves and melodies inspired by rockabilly music.
Dale was left handed and started off playing a right-hand guitar upside down and backward because he could not afford a custom model.
All that changed when he met legendary guitar maker Leo Fender, who offered to make Dale a left-handed model if he tested some guitars and amps.
“I became Leo’s personal guinea pig,” Dale said in a 1997 interview. “Anything that came out of the Fender company, I played.”
He blew up one amplifier after another until Fender built a “Dick Dale Dual Showman” doubled-sized amp, which became popular with aspiring LA guitarists
Dale toured into his 80s, partly he said to pay medical bills – having beaten cancer in the 1960s he suffered a recurrence in 2015.
No details were immediately available on the cause of his death.
He is survived by his wife, Lana, and son James.
(c) Sky News 2019: Dick Dale: Guitarist behind Pulp Fiction theme song dies age 81
