Dick Dale Belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

/ Peter Berris

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame generally loves music royalty. It inducted the King of Rock and Roll (Elvis Presley) on its first ballot in 1986. The next year, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame welcomed both the King of the Blues (B.B. King) and the Queen of Soul (Aretha Franklin). By the end of the 1980s, the Hall of Fame had also added the Empress of the Blues (Bessie Smith).1 So why has there been no love from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for the King of the Surf Guitar?

That’s right folks, I’m talking about Dick Dale, the left-handed, Stratocaster-wielding guitarist who gave us powerful rock recordings like Misirlou, Let’s Go Trippin’, and the Wedge. Dale–who was born Richard Monsour in 1937–drew from his Lebanese heritage, his Southern California surroundings, and his time on a surf board, to develop a unique and highly influential style of music.2

Speaking of which, Dale’s omission from the Hall of Fame can’t be because of a lack of influence.3 Dick Dale essentially invented the entire sub-genre of surf rock.4 His sound inspired countless instrumental surf rock groups, who in turn recorded iconic and immediately recognizable songs like Wipeout and Penetration. As the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll explains, Dale’s “signature staccato slide down the strings was copied by the Chantays to open their surf instrumental classic ‘Pipeline.'” Dale’s influence extended far beyond instrumental surf bands, however. Perhaps most notably, he was a huge influence on the Beach Boys.5 They covered some of his songs and Dale’s playing inspired Carl Wilson’s approach to the guitar.6 At a more abstract level, the surf rock sub-genre that Dale helped to create was also a proving ground for musicians who went on to greater fame in other styles. For instance, Neil Young and Johnny Barbata (of Turtles/CSNY/Jefferson Starship) each played in surf groups early in their respective careers. Bruce Springsteen’s childhood band played Wipeout.7 (Readers who are interested in the history and legacy of surf rock can find more in a previous post).

I don’t want to venture into It’s A Wonderful Life territory and get bogged down in what-if hypotheticals where Dale never lived to catalyze surf rock. But it a rare thing when you can attribute the genesis of an entire musical idiom to one person. It puts Dale in the company of iconic figures like Bill Monroe who is generally credited with inventing bluegrass.8 (The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Monroe in 19979).

Dale’s influence extends beyond the music itself to the tools he used to make it. In a 1993 interview with Terri Gross, Dale described his frustration in achieving a quality guitar sound at his enormous concerts in Balboa’s Rendezvous Ballroom.10 Dale said that he needed an amplifier that would “sound thick and pure on its own merit,”11 but found that existing amplifiers were insufficient for his volume needs. To resolve the problem, Dale worked with the inventor Leo Fender–the 1992 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee who founded Fender guitars.12 According to Dale, Fender loaned him numerous amplifiers to test at his concerts: “And that’s how I blew up over 48 speakers and amplifiers, they’d catch on fire.”13 Ultimately, Fender came up with a solution that worked: the powerful Showman Amplifier (and the even more powerful Dual Showman).14

Dale prompted Fender to invent something far more important and ubiquitous than the Showman–spring reverb for guitar. As author Ian S. Port explains in The Birth of Loud, reverb makes electric guitars “sound wet.”15 According to one account of the genesis of guitar reverb, Dale had long been “self-conscious about his singing and thought some kind of electronic effect would make up for his lack of natural vibrato.”16 In response to this request, Fender made Dale a reverb unit based on the one in a Hammond organ.17 Although developed for vocals, Dale soon fed his Stratocaster through the reverb unit. The result was one of the defining sounds of surf rock. Guitar reverb has since been widely adopted across other genres.18

Okay, so if Dale hasn’t been omitted from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame based on influence, what else could it be? It’s certainly not for lack of talent. Dale was a guitar hero who remains one of the all-time greats of his instrument. His “heavy machine-gun staccato picking style” is instantly recognizable.19 Jack White wrote about learning Dale’s licks and called him an “incredible guitar player.”20 Rolling Stone ranked Dale 121 on its 2023 list of the 250 greatest guitarists.21 Dale has even been called the father of heavy metal due to his “breakneck speed.”22

Hmmm… so not that either. Could it be that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has snubbed Dale for lack of continued relevance? I don’t think so. Dale’s music has featured prominently in movie soundtracks23 and has been sampled in hit songs.24

So let’s recap: based on influence, talent, and even continued relevance, Dale obviously belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Why is he missing then? I am certainly not the first person to ask.25 Now is an especially good time to explore the question, because the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame just released this year’s slate of nominees. And once again Dale is missing. A quick skim of the list could lead to the conclusion that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has simply run out of musicians from the genre’s early days worthy of induction. But if the leadership of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame were to drop the needle on Dick Dale’s Misirlou, I think they’d quickly realize that they forgot at least one.

  1. And of course there’s also Queen, Prince, and the Thin White Duke (David Bowie). ↩︎
  2. The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (3d Edition); see also https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/18/dick-dale-obituary. ↩︎
  3. See, e.g., https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/dick-dale-12-artists-influenced-rip-8502865/ (describing influence of Dick Dale on various acts). ↩︎
  4. See, e.g., https://www.berklee.edu/news/berklee-now/long-live-king-surf-rock-tribute-dick-dale (describing the “innovative, reverb-drenched tone and style developed by Dick Dale” and describing his first hit as “the big bang of the surf”); https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/dick-dale-the-inventor-of-surf-rock-was-a-lebanese-american-kid-from-boston (describing Dale as the inventor of surf rock); https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/18/dick-dale-obituary (“Dale’s 1961 single, Let’s Go Trippin’, issued on his own label, Del-Tone Records, is now considered the first surf record.”) ↩︎
  5. Based on an essay Dick Dale wrote for the CD Box Set Cowabunga!, it seems possible Dale didn’t necessarily appreciate the fruits of his influence when it came to surf rock with lyrics. ↩︎
  6. https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/dick-dale-dead-the-beach-boys-remembered-8503160/. ↩︎
  7. https://diyrockandroll.com/2025/05/31/diy-surf-rock-crafting-your-sound/. ↩︎
  8. E.g., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bill-Monroe (describing Monroe as the inventor of Bluegrass). ↩︎
  9. https://rockhall.com/inductees/bill-monroe/. ↩︎
  10. https://www.keranews.org/2019-03-22/remembering-dick-dale-king-of-the-surf-guitar ↩︎
  11. Id. ↩︎
  12. https://rockhall.com/inductees/leo-fender/. ↩︎
  13. https://www.keranews.org/2019-03-22/remembering-dick-dale-king-of-the-surf-guitar. ↩︎
  14. https://www.guitarplayer.com/gear/before-the-100-watt-marshall-stack-there-was-the-mighty-fender-showman. ↩︎
  15. Emphasis omitted. ↩︎
  16. See John Blair, Liner Notes to Cowabunga! The Surf Box, at p. 9, Rhino (1996). For anyone curious about surf rock, this set is essential! ↩︎
  17. Ian S. Port, The Birth of Loud, at 164-65 (Scribner 2019). ↩︎
  18. If you don’t believe me, ask your guitarist friend whether they’ve ever tried to play with reverb. ↩︎
  19. https://www.guitarplayer.com/gear/surf-music-is-a-heavy-machine-gun-staccato-picking-style-how-dick-dale-pushed-leo-fender-into-pulling-out-the-big-guns. ↩︎
  20. https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/jack-white-honors-dick-dale-following-death-8503115/. ↩︎
  21. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-guitarists-1234814010/king-sunny-ade-2-1234814443/. Way too low! ↩︎
  22. https://www.fender.com/articles/fender-performances/the-father-of-surf-7-essential-dick-dale-facts, ↩︎
  23. Here, people usually reference the prominent role Dale’s music played in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, but should we also talk about Space Jam? See https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117705/soundtrack/

    ↩︎
  24. https://www.whosampled.com/sample/186/Black-Eyed-Peas-Pump-It-Dick-Dale-and-His-Del-Tones-Miserlou/ ↩︎
  25. See, e.g., https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/2019/03/dick-dale-was-one-of-the-rock-roll-hall-of-fames-biggest-snubs.html (“You’d be hard pressed to find a list of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame snubs that doesn’t feature Dale. That includes cleveland.com, as we ranked Dale pretty high on our list of the Top 100 Rock Hall snubs of all time.”); https://crazyonclassicrock.com/2019/03/25/20-artists-not-in-rock-hall-but-should-be/. ↩︎

Leave a comment