Guitarist Dick Dale, known as the king of surf rock, died on Saturday. He was 81.
Born Richard Monsour, he taught himself how to play guitar and got his start performing at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Newport Beach, California. He pounded rather than plucked the strings, and was known to shred his guitar picks in the middle of songs. Dick Dale and the Del-Tones appear in several Beach Party movies, and his 1962 hit "Miserlou," adapted from a Middle Eastern folk song, was used decades later in Quentin Tarantino's 1994 cult classic Pulp Fiction. He continued to tour, even as he hit his 80th birthday.
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