Dick Dale and His Del-Tones: Surfers' Choice (yellow vinyl) [SUNDAZED MUSIC, INC.]

Why you'll love it

Sundazed presents Surfers' Choice in mono on yellow vinyl. The album reached No. 59 on the Billboard pop albums chart in 1963, and "Let's Go Trippin'" made the singles chart in 1962.

This edition

• Yellow vinyl
• Mono mix

About the album

Every surf band of the 1960s, the Beach Boys included, owes a little rent to Dick Dale. A left-handed guitarist who played a right-handed guitar upside down, he drew on the Middle Eastern scales his Lebanese-American uncle played on the oud, cranked up the reverb and picked so fast the notes blurred into a wave.

Surfers' Choice was mostly recorded live at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, California, where Dale's 1961 shows are credited with starting the whole surf music craze, with studio overdubs added later. "Let's Go Trippin'" and "Surf Beat" set the template, "Misilou Twist" points toward the "Misirlou" that Pulp Fiction would make famous decades on, and the Del-Tones throw in "Sloop John B," "Night Owl" and "Lovey Dovey" for the dancers. It came out on Dale's own Deltone label and carried surf music to middle America.

Dale helped Leo Fender design louder amplifiers because he kept blowing the old ones up, and it shows in every bar. Fender's verdict was that if it could survive Dick Dale it was fit for human consumption, which we'd also say of this record.

Also at Kops: more Dick Dale on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Sundazed (cat# LP 5291), a reissue of the 1962 album.