Guitar Hero

Dick Dale was welcomed to a sold-out show at Sister Bar in Downtown Albuquerque as a wise elder and a music legend by a heavily millennial crowd on Monday night. He even was applauded for delivering a seminar to the house crew on proper technique for sound levels.

Dale, who turned 79 last week, was noticeably slower than when we last saw him about a decade ago, still shreds a six-string like few others, and no one else can stand on a stage and proclaim to be the king of surf guitar. His set was a history lesson in rock 'n' roll, from the world's first power chord ("Rumble") to the first power chord you learned in the '70s ("Smoke on the Water"). Dale's sound is rooted in the folk music of his Lebanese heritage -- compare any traditional song played on a mandolin, oud or tamboura with the manic, jittery fury of the iconic Dale staple "Misirlou" (re-popularized for the last generation by the opening credits of "Pulp Fiction").

Dale, with his young bucks on bass and drums, can still rev up a crowd, despite his tendency to prattle like the cranky senior citizen he is. But there is no denying the vibrancy of the enduring genre he invented and its embrace of and influence on every conceivable muscle-rock riff that has been served up since. 

Bonus Track

Here is a video from seven years ago that offers a decent sampling of Dale's current shtick, including his surf twist on that Deep Purple classic: