CD Odyssey Discs 756 and 757: Dick Dale

Every time I think I know a lot of music something comes along to remind me I’m just wading in the shallow end of a very deep sea. Earlier this week I met a couple of nice folks from New Zealand who traded me musical recommendations from their home town. So far I’ve checked out Fat Freddie’s Drop, Dave Dobbyn and Fly My Pretties – all pretty good stuff, so thanks to Helen and Morgan!

I gave them some Canadian recommendations as well but it was a few beers in so I’m a bit fuzzy as to exactly what – Blue Rodeo, Tragically Hip and Lindi Ortega for sure, and probably a few more. My friend Andrew added “D.O.A.” the list as well.

It is fitting this next review feature surfer music, since surfing is a truly international activity whether you are in Raglan, NZ or Tofino, CAN.

Disc 756 and 757 are….Surfer’s Choice and Surf Beat

Artist: Dick Dale

Year of Release: Surfer’s Choice: 1962, Surf Beat: singles from 1958-1962

What’s up with the Cover? Bonus two-cover action for this double album set. “Surfer’s Choice” has a classic sixties approach, with the song titles listed on the front of the album, along with exhortative advertising about how great the record is (“With Dick’s Great Hits”). Also, Dick rides a wave and looks sexy doing it.

The other album is “Surf Beat” which still features a sexy Dick Dale, lovingly laying his hands on his board. He looks skyward, no doubt praying “May no gremmies ever ding you, beloved board!” to the surf gods in the sky.

How I Came To Know It: I must have picked this album up a hundred times in the record store before I finally bought it when I couldn’t find any other Dick Dale albums I didn’t already have. Ironically, it is Dale’s first full-length LP but because of that on-cover advertising (“With Dick’s Great Hits”) I thought it was a compilation album. When I finally bought it I got both Dick’s greatest hits and his first studio album, so I was right either way.

How It Stacks Up: All Dick Dale is equally awesome, but I’ll put “Surfer’s Choice” 3^rd out of my 4 studio albums. “Surf Beat” is a compilation, so it doesn’t stack up. I know – back in the late fifties lots of songs were just singles, but just because they did that kind stuff in 1958 doesn’t mean I should condone it. Make albums!

Ratings: Surfer’s Choice gets 4 stars but Surf Beat is a compilation of singles, so no rating for that one.

Disc 756: Surfer’s Choice

Despite “Surfer’s Choice” being one of the most innovative and influential records of the 1960s, it never even cracked the Billboard top 50. What the hell were you thinking, people of the sixties?

It all starts with the way Dale plays the guitar – so distinct we still call the style “surf guitar” when we hear it. Lots of reverb and incredibly fast picking up and down on the strings makes it sound like a hive of bees is serenading you. It captures both the ebullience of a cresting wave and the cool soothing diffusion of sound you might experience if you could play an electric guitar underwater and not electrocute yourself.

Dale’s voice is the classic crooner style of the era, and while he doesn’t have the same range of many of his contemporaries like Frankie Valli he still gets the job done, and he sings with gusto.

When Dale is trying to do the sixties crooner thing, such as on “Peppermint Man,” “Lovey Dovey” or “Night Owl” he doesn’t interest me as much. Fortunately on “Surfer’s Choice these songs seem included as more of an afterthought to please the mainstream listener. Not that it worked.

 The album is at its best when the surf guitar sound is flying, punctuated here and there with a saucy saxophone. Words are not necessary. Listening, you know songs like “Surf Beat,” “Surfing Drums” and “Let’s Go Trippin’” are all about freedom. The freedom of the beach, the freedom of the wave, and the unbridled freedom of a generation that was riding high on life and not yet scarred by Vietnam or stagflation.

“Surfing Drums” manages to throw in a drum solo as well as saxophone letting you know there are lots of ways this music can shout “yeehaw!” Even the slower pace of “Death of a Gremmie” can’t get you down. I guess in a crowded surf spot one less gremmie isn’t the biggest tragedy…

Even when there are words, they are sparse, as on “Take It Off” where the music occasionally breaks every couple of bars so Dick can exhort you to ‘take it off.’ This song is also all about freedom, and hearing it I can see girls in bikinis go-go dancing by firelight up and down the beach. It’s a great image.

Dale takes on the folk classic, “Sloop John B” as well, and although I expect this is controversial, I like it better than the Beach Boys version that came out four years later. Dale’s is a little bit slower, and tinged with just the right amount of regret. Even the odd rat-pack style string section he uses works here. I’m sure the Beach Boys were listening.

The most famous song on the album is “Misirlou Twist” which is just that – a twist on the single “Misirlou” released separately. “Misirlou Twist” is twice as long, but the extra content detracts from the song’s great riff. I must reluctantly side with the single on this one.

The album ends with “Let’s Go Trippin’” which may be the finest example of surf music ever made. The guitar cuts its way up and down the progressions hitting the high notes with bluesy enthusiasm. The saxophone is a clinic on how to use that instrument in pop music that was sadly never learned by the epidemic of crappy eighties music that would follow twenty years later.

“Surfer’s Choice” is just another great Dick Dale album, so consistently good that if you were to only own one, you’d be just fine with this one. Of course, if you only want to own one Dick Dale album you’re an idiot.

Disc 757: Surf Beat

“Surf Beat” isn’t actually an album, but rather a collection of Dale’s early singles from 1958 to 1962. Being earlier in Dick Dale’s career, the album only lands that sweet surfer sound in fits and starts; I expect he’s still learning just what it is all about.

Instead, there is a lot of the crooner stuff that I don’t enjoy as much. It is still good stuff, but if I want this kind of fifties/sixties pop music I prefer Buddy Holly. It just feels like it is trying too hard to please the masses.

The exception to this rule is “We’ll Never Hear the End of It” where Dale steps up his game. This is a sorrowful tune about young foolish lovers and (I suspect) teen pregnancy. Rather than bow down to the admonishment of their elders, this is a song about forging ahead, reveling in the recklessness of young love. By the end Dale makes an honest woman of his girl, and puts a ring on her hand. I love the slow rhythm of the melody, sad and uncertain, even as the lyrics give the song its stiff upper lip.

Dale’s signature guitar sound pokes its head up even on the most by-the-numbers tracks; the shadow of things to come. The songs are presented in chronological order, which I appreciate because you can actually feel the music evolve as you listen to the record.

It isn’t until the latter half of “Surf Beat”s 14 tracks that surf guitar really starts to hit, but when it does, it is as good as anything on Surfer’s Choice. In fact, some of the songs would later appear on that studio debut, among them “Surf Beat,” Let’s Go Trippin’” and “Shake ‘N’ Stomp.” I’ll leave those off my favourites list, though, since I’ve already got them on the LP

The one repeat that is better is the classic surfer song “Misirlou” (rediscovered for the movie “Pulp Fiction” in 1994). Overplayed thought this song has become in recent years, there is no denying how awesome it is.

“Surf Beat” for me is a bit of a disappointment, but it isn’t because it is bad. It’s because I know the greatness of “Surfer’s Choice” and the albums that would follow. I take solace knowing that without these early singles, Dale would never have learned the lessons he needed to be great later. You gotta walk before you surf, man.

Best tracks (Surfer’s Choice): Surf Beat, Sloop John B, Take It Off, Surfing Drums, Shake N’ Stomp, Let’s Go Trippin’

Best tracks (Surf Beat): We’ll Never Hear the End of It, Misirlou