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Similarities Between Misirlou And Dick Dale

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Between Tradition and Experimentalism: “Misirlou” and Dick Dale The American music industry in 1959 was in critical conditions: amidst the death of many of its main artists and the payola scandal which dragged down many of the independent labels, the industry drastically changed as the majors became the new key players in the market. As the Vintage Years of rock and roll drew to a close, new genres of music were being created to effectively target the emerging demographic segments: one of them was surf rock, or as it was later called hot rod music. One of its pioneers was Dick Dale: with Deltone Records he recorded “Let’s Go Trippin” in 1961 which is considered to be the “first surf rock song” (Brackett 208) creating the “surf craze”. This …show more content…

In 1960, during a live performance, Dale was challenged by a kid in the audience to play a melody on only one string (Wikipedia “Miserlou”): the next day, the artist arranged a rock instrumental version of “Misirlou”. In 1962 he recorded it as a single with Deltone Records, an independent label founded by his father, accompanied by the Delt-tones. The record was at first spelled as “Misirlou” and in a later release in the same year “Miserlou”; the credited composers were Tauber, Wise, Leeds, and Roubanis: Wise and Leeds, along with Bob Russell, wrote the original English lyrics to the record, while Roubanis supposedly firstly arranged “Misirlou” in 1941. The B-side of the record was “Eight Till Midnight”, composed by Dick Dale himself, in which the characteristic roll of drums is accompanied by electric piano and sax, while the electric guitar sustains the rhythm with experimental scales. Dale’s cover of “Misirlou” was pressed on vinyl, 7’’, 45rpm records: the format introduced by RCA-Victor in 1949 was by 1962 already in widespread use throughout the country, as the old 78rpm shellac records were lastly commercially produced in …show more content…

Dale was particularly known for his use of Fender Stratocaster electric guitar, which was used in the record, and of Fender’s amplifiers. His help was fundamental in the development of the 100-watt electric amplifier (Wikipedia), which gave to his records the “wet” sound of the waves, and allowed him to perform live over screaming masses of “surfers”. Dale’s “Miserlou” is radically different from any other precedent version: there are no vocals backing the instruments, and only at the beginning of the verses can Dale’s deep, unarticled yells (“Ah! Eh!”) be heard, and are immediately buried by the instruments. The major contribution to the record is made by the electric guitar’s fast scales, which emulate the string sections in Roubaris’ version and give “Miserlou” its characteristic Oriental vibe. Another stark difference is the use of the electric piano to accompany and echo the guitar’s scales, and of the drums to set the rhythm behind the sax. There is no orchestra behind Dale’s electric guitar: it is, after all, a record published 20 years after Roubaris’ version, and the culture which the record belongs to cares more about the volume of the music than its

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