May Birthdays 
Dale's wrong note leads to birth of surf music
Dick Dale became famous as "The King of the Surf Guitars" at the old Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa back in the 1950s. He'd perform on a platform above some 4,000 screaming fans, mostly teenagers. He's never stopped working, since.
Although Dick no longer lives in the famed Gillette Mansion he once owned on the Balboa Peninsula, he still spends a lot of time in Newport Beach in between his performances. Busier than ever, the guitarist/singer/songwriter now lives on a 150-acre ranch above Palm Springs where he's preparing for a PBS special and getting ready to head for the World Guitar Champions TV performance in Shanghai. He also has a new CD on the market.
At his ranch, Dale has his own plane and airport so he can commute to Newport Beach, where he berths his two yachts. His 68-footer "Miserlou" (named after his title song in the film "Pulp Fiction") is berthed at Lido Marina Village while his 48-foot-yacht "Surf Beat" is tied up outside his favorite restaurant, the Bluewater Grill.
Not as often as in the '60s, people sometimes recognize Dick and talk him into local appearances like his recent surprise performance at a charity fund-raiser at the Newport Dunes Waterfront Resort, where he and his 14-year-old son, Jimmy, both played their Fender guitars.
Sitting on the deck of his boat at sunset, Dale still loves to tell the story of his first Fender. He'd gone to meet the famed guitar guru, Leo Fender, and was asked to try out the newly designed Fender Stratocaster electric guitar. More a surfer than guitarist, at the time, Dick found Leo laughing uproariously when he started to play. Seems Dale was playing the guitar upside down and in the wrong hand, working feverishly to transpose the notes.
Dale elbows today, "I guess that's how surf music was born."
