Dick Dale, pioneer of the surf guitar, dies at 81
LOS ANGELES - Nearly 60 years ago, surfers flocked to the waves along Newport Beach to try mastering the new craze. When the sun set, they needed some place to dance and Dick Dale delivered it at Rendezvous Ballroom on the Balboa Peninsula. Nearly every week for two years, Dale and his band packed over 3,000 people into the ballroom.
"The energy between the Del-Tones and all those surfers stomping on the hardwood floor in their sandals was extremely intense. The tone of Dale's guitar was bigger than any I had ever heard," recalled Del-Tones bandmate Paul Johnson.
Dale, whose death was confirmed Sunday, manifested a quintessentially Southern California story, forged in surf, sand and rock 'n' roll. They called him the Pied Piper of Balboa Beach, but his musical instrument of choice was defiantly not a flute. Rather, the electric-guitar-playing
