Surf Rock icon Dick Dale dies aged 81

American guitarist Dick Dale, the pioneer of surf rock, with songs like Let’s go trippin’ and Miserlou, died on Saturday aged 81, according to information provided on US media yesterday. Although the peak of his career was at the beginning of the 1960s, his widespread fame is largely thanks to Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp fiction (1994): Miserlou is on the film’s famous soundtrack.

Dick Dale’s real name was Richard Monsour and he was born in Boston in 1937. His parents were of Polish and Lebanese origin, and this was a key factor in the development of his unique and influential style as a guitarist, because the scales he used for Surf Rock got there inspiration from Middle Eastern scales.In the mid-1950s Dick Dale’s family moved to southern California where Dick was to fall in love with surfing and rock’n’roll and bring these passions together in Surf Rock.