Richard Anthony Monsour, known professionally as Dick Dale, was an American rock guitarist. He was a pioneer of surf music, drawing on Middle Eastern music scales and experimenting with reverb. Dale was known as "The King of the Surf Guitar", which was also the title of his second studio album.
The Surfaris are an American surf music band formed in Glendora, California, in 1962. They are best known for two songs that hit the charts in the Los Angeles area, and nationally by May 1963: "Surfer Joe" and "Wipe Out", which were the A-side and B-side of the same 45 rpm single.
Surf music is a genre of rock music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Southern California. It was especially popular from 1958 to 1964 in two major forms. The first is instrumental surf, distinguished by reverb-heavy electric guitars played to evoke the sound of crashing waves, largely pioneered by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones. The second is vocal surf, which took elements of the original surf sound and added vocal harmonies, a movement led by the Beach Boys.
Carl Dean Wilson was an American musician who co-founded the Beach Boys. He was their lead guitarist, the youngest sibling of bandmates Brian and Dennis, and the group's de facto leader in the early to mid-1970s. He was also the band's musical director on stage from 1965 until his death.
"Misirlou" is a folk song from the Eastern Mediterranean region. The original author of the song is not known, but Arabic, Greek, and Jewish musicians were playing it by the 1920s. The earliest known recording of the song is a 1927 Greek rebetiko/tsifteteli composition. There are also Arabic belly dancing, Albanian, Armenian, Serbian, Persian, Indian and Turkish versions of the song. This song was popular from the 1920s onwards in the Arab American, Armenian American and Greek American communities who settled in the United States.
Gary Lee Usher was an American rock musician, songwriter, and record producer, who worked with numerous California acts in the 1960s, including the Byrds, the Beach Boys, and Dick Dale. Usher also produced fictitious surf groups or hot rod groups, mixing studio session musicians with his own troops. These bands included the Super Stocks ; the Kickstands; plus the Hondells with their No. 9 US pop single "Little Honda"; and others.
Surfbeat was the first album recorded by the Los Angeles-based surf rock group The Challengers. They recorded the album in a 3½ hour session at the end of 1962. The album was released in early 1963 and became a huge hit, helping to propel the surf genre. It was sought by collectors for many years and gained great notoriety in the obscure surf market. In 1994, Sundazed records, a company with a lot of vintage surf at its disposal, released the album on CD with two bonus tracks.
"Surfin' Safari" is a song by American rock band the Beach Boys, written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love. Released as a single with "409" in June 1962, it peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also appeared on the 1962 album of the same name.
"Wipe Out" is a surf music instrumental composed by Bob Berryhill, Pat Connolly, Jim Fuller and Ron Wilson. Composed in the form of twelve-bar blues, the tune was first performed and recorded by the Surfaris, who became famous with the single in 1963.
Rarities is a Beach Boys compilation album released in 1983 by Capitol Records. It is a collection of outtakes, alternate mixes and B-sides recorded between 1962 and 1970. Included are songs written or made popular by the Beatles, the Box Tops, Stevie Wonder, Ersel Hickey and Lead Belly. Also featured are several standards, such as "The Lord's Prayer" and "Auld Lang Syne". The album sold poorly and quickly went out of print.
The Phantom Surfers are a surf rock band formed in 1988.
The Surfin' Lungs are an English surf music band originally from Bracknell, Berkshire, who were formed in 1981 by Chris Pearce and Geoffo Knipe. The original line-up consisted of: Chris Pearce, Geoffo Knipe, Steve Dean and Lee Money (drums).
Summer Surf is the fifth studio album of surf music by Dick Dale and His Del-Tones. Dale wrote three of the tracks on the album, with Beach Boys' session musician Steve Douglas writing another three. The rest are culled from various writers that were not necessarily writing in the classic surf style. For example, the track titled "Glory Wave," written in the style of a spiritual, was originally written for the 1964 beach party film, Surf Party, where it was performed by Jackie DeShannon. This was the last album Dick Dale recorded with the Del-Tones due to his battle with rectal cancer, and the last album he would record until 1986.
MOM: Music for Our Mother Ocean is a series of three compilations produced by Surfdog Records to benefit the Surfrider Foundation. The albums feature original songs as well as covers – many sharing a surfing or summer theme – by a range of popular artists.
The (Original) Surfaris were a surf music band from California. They were active from the early to mid 1960s and had singles released on various labels which included Del-Fi, Northridge, and Reprise.
The California sound is a popular music aesthetic that originates with American pop and rock recording artists from Southern California in the early 1960s. At first, it was conflated with the California myth, an idyllic setting inspired by the state's beach culture that commonly appeared in the lyrics of commercial pop songs. Later, the sound was expanded outside its initial geography and subject matter and was developed to be more sophisticated, often featuring studio experimentation.
"Church Key" is an instrumental single that was released by California surf group The Revels on Tony Hilder's Impact Records label in 1960. It was a hit for the group and later a hit for Dave Myers and his Surf-Tones.
Surfin' Guitars: Instrumental Surf Bands of the Sixties is a book by Robert J. Dalley which covers the instrumental side of the surf genre in the 1960s and looks at groups and artists from that era. It has been published three times with the first version published in 1988 and the third in 2015. It has been quoted and referred to multiple times in books relating to surf music.
"Exotic" is a song composed by Bruce Morgan and recorded by various bands back in 1963 when it was first released.
"Surfin' U.S.A." is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys, credited to Chuck Berry and Brian Wilson. It is a rewritten version of Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" set to new lyrics written by Wilson and an uncredited Mike Love. The song was released as a single on March 4, 1963, backed with "Shut Down". It was then placed as the opening track on their album of the same name.
