King Of The Surf Guitar: The Best Of Dick Dale & His Del-Tones

Dick Dale

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 4, 1989)
• Original Release Date: August 29, 1989
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rhino / Wea
• ASIN: B00000348H
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,765 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  #1 in	Music > Rock > Rock Guitarists > Surf Guitar
  #8 in	Music > Rock > Oldies & Retro > Surf Rock

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
This collection rightly concentrates on Dale's instrumental exploits as the Jimi Hendrix of surf music. Nineteen sixty-one's "Let's Go Trippin'" was the first real surf instrumental, although the pyrotechnic fretwork of later Dale records is largely absent. Those divebomb runs, reverb drenchings, and impossibly quick picking displays materialize on the next single, "Shake & Stomp," then bloom on the revved-up Middle-Eastern standard "Misirlou." Dale's instrumentals generally fell into two camps: standard-progression frat blasts ("Take It Off," "Night Rider," "Mr. Eliminator") and minor-key Middle-Eastern excursions ("The Wedge," the "Pipeline"-esque "Banzai Wipeout," "The Victor," even "Hava Nagila"--which Jewish purists must have regarded as a hora of Babylon), on which his blistering technique was more likely to find its spotlight Some of his best work is found on "King of the Surf Guitar," a Duane Eddy knockoff with great vocals by the Blossoms garnished by lightning flashes of boss guitar. With all the dazzling axe-work on display (also including a beautiful 1987 duet with Stevie Ray Vaughan on the Chantays' unearthly "Pipeline"), the coolest cut here may be the sole vocal, "Mr. Peppermint Man," on which Dale's rasp oozes a concupiscent slime over the murky tale of a lollipop Lothario who "carries a little sign that says, Have some dessert." Frat rock godhead. --Ken Barnes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Don't Know Dick, December 30, 2006

By	John P. Morgan "Light Coach" (Beautiful San Dimas, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I've owned this particular CD for years, but I have been kind of reluctant to review it. Y'see, to me, Dick Dale is kind of like the Tao; "the Tao that is spoken about, is not the Tao..." The Dick dale that I speak about is not really Dick Dale.

Dick Dale needs to be experienced in order to be appreciated. I can't explain his music. It's kind of primal, kind of tribal, it's kind of raw and will gnaw at your gut for hours after listening to it. It takes a "different kind" of soul to not only listen to Dick Dale, but appreciate him. This isn't said out of arrogance, it's just said out of a knowing that not everybody will like him just like not everyone likes the Mills Brothers...

Shine little glow worm...

He is truly amazing. I saw him in concert a few times, but I remember one time he was playing so fast and so furious that he broke a guitar string in the middle of a jam session. Big deal you say? What would you say if I told you he changed that guitar string while he was playing it? He had a stage hand hold the guitar, while he changed the string with his left hand and played with his right. You wouldn't even believe how thunderous the applause was after that happened.

Every time I've seen him, I've been "deaf" for days. I've never left a Dick Dale concert without somehow changing in some way. He's like a Shaman, a wizard, an alchemist. He can transform the ordinary into something pure and golden. He is truly one of the world's greatest (and most overlooked) musicians.

He is the King.

So, buy this album. It's a great little starter and after you learn to appreciate this album, go to another, and another, until you'll finally be able to say, "Wow, I really do know Dick..."

Peace and Blessings, children

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Listen to the King of the Surf Guitar., May 4, 2005

By	Johnny Heering "trivia buff" (Bethel, CT United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Dick Dale is generally regarded as the "father" of surf music. This CD contains 18 of his semi-legendary performances (he didn't actually have any hits). "Let's Go Trippin'" is considered by many to be the first surf record. "Miserlou" is considered by me to be the best surf record. You also get some other great recordings like "Shake 'N' Stomp", "Surf Beat", "Hava Nagila" and "Riders in the Sky". There are also a few missteps, like the vocal songs "Mr. Peppermint Man" and "King of the Surf Guitar", but overall it's a good sampler of Dick Dale's work. Recommended to fans of surf music.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Defines a genre and a generation, August 29, 1998

By	Thomas E. Fry (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It doesn't seem to make sense if described in words: a Lebanese-Polish kid from Boston who creates the sound of the blond California beach culture at the dawn of the Sixties with a synthesis of Gene Krupa's big band beat, minor-keyed Middle Eastern folk tunes, and the sounds he hears in the water as a tube-surfing daredevil. Makes a machine gun of the guitar, playing it in the frenzied, staccato double-picking style of the mandolin, while drenching it in reverb, a technical innovation of the day. The Sound is something every rock & roll devotee will, at once, recognize and find utterly different than anything he's ever heard. Rhythm sections tighter than James Brown's, brass as bold as Herb Alpert. This compilation traces his development through the daring, gritty "Miserlou" to the infectious "Surf Beat" on to the glistening smoothness of "The Wedge" and beyond. If you thought there was only Motown and Brill Building pop after Elvis and before the Beatles, think again. An absolute must for every serious collector.