By Chris Swope
When I was a kid we had 3 channels. Well, 3 VHF and the local UHF channel. One of those channels would show afterschool movies and each week would be a different theme. There was Godzilla week, Charlie Chan week, Western week, Elvis week, and of course, Beach Movie week. You gotta have that.
Beach movies were great because they had everything a young pre-teen boy dreamed of: girls in bikinis, hot-rod cars and lots and lots of guitars (mostly Fenders). This was my first encounter with Dick Dale.
Dick Dale; absolute force of nature, architect of Surf music, real life surfer, early test pilot of the Fender Stratocaster, co-conspirator/creator/inspiration for the Fender Showman amp and Fender Reverb unit!!!!!!!!!!!are you serious? And on top of that, he was in the movies with Annette “the original stone cold fox” Funicello……….
Dick Dale’s music could be an absolute sonic assault. Middle Eastern musical influences are huge in Dale’s Repertoire. His reverb laced interpretation of “Miserlou”, a popular Greek song from the 1920s, faithfully expresses the sound of crashing waves like only a surfer would have heard. Decades later Dick hit the mainstream again with “Miserlou” via the soundtrack of Pulp Fiction
Check out the strat in this clip. You’ll notice Dale is playing a lefty strat but it is strung righty.
Then:
This provides a unique sound in that the slant of the bridge pickup is opposite what you would traditionally have. Now the pickup proximity to the bridge is closer on the bass side of the strings. This results in a more aggressive bottom end a bit sweeter top end.
Fender went one step further by giving the Dick Dale strat a reverse headstock to further nail Dale’s sound by replicating the string tension of a right handed guitar strung lefty.
The Dick Dale strat boasts the period correct three-way switch along with a couple of Dale’s modifications. Dale favors the sound of the neck and bridge pickups together and installed a toggle switch for that combination. He also got rid of those pesky tone knobs and favors a single master volume knob.
Dick Dale is still at it today. The man and his guitar continue to be unstoppable. This guitar really represents Dale’s place in the history of rock and roll quite well. It is an absolute “Twang Beast” with a unique sonic pallet. Give it a rip.
Call Chris or Scott for an in-hand description of this guitar. 1-800-343-9795