The True Tragedy of the Loss of Dick Dale

Dick Dale Live Picture courtesy of Discover Los Angeles

I was saddened, but not totally shocked at the recent announcement of the passing of surf guitar legend, Dick Dale from congestive heart faliure. Many of us who weren’t around in the early 60’s when Dale first hit, caught wind of Dale in 1994 when director Quentin Tarentino used his song, Misirlou, as the intro for his movie , Pulp Fiction.

Dale lived 82 years and had a PROLIFIC career to say the least. Taking a quick glance online, his tour schedule was going to keep him busy until the end of 2019. When many musical legends opt to only play the larger arenas and theaters, Dale was playing as much as he could, where he could. For about the last 20 years of Dale’s long, legendary career, we should’ve seen him play a little more sparingly, but he was out every year, playing more shows than his contemporaries. The reason for that wasn’t a constant chase for notoriety or to relive his 60’s fame and stay in the vaunted spotlight so craved by many past their prime celebrities, no, Dale was touring to literally survive. From a 2015 interview in the Pittsburg City Paper:

The hospital says change your patch once a week. No! If you don’t change that patch two times a day, the fecal matter eats through your flesh and causes the nerves to rot and they turn black, and the pain is so excruciating that you can’t let anything touch it. That has happened to me because I was following the orders of the hospital.