Rock Hall Snubs: Dick Dale

 

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In a way, Seuras' post about the UK Music Hall of Fame belatedly informed me about my choice, causing me to question the point of our snub selections. There is an authoritative, well-linked site named futurerocklegends.com that has a list of snubs. From the handfull of back and forth checks I did with musicians I was curious about the official rockhall.com and futurerocklegends agree: Dick Dale has never been nominated and the snub count stands at 34 years. But before taking off on lambasting the Rock Hall for their omission, it is worth pointing out that Dick Dale did not leave this world unrecognized for his contributions and that Rock Hall of Fame is but one of many: elected to the Library of Congress Hall of Records, the Hollywood Rock Walk of Fame, the  Musicians Hall of Fame and the Surfing Walk of Fame, that collection of recognition of that sort doesn't include accolades such as working with Leo Fender to help develop electric guitar sounds in the early 60s.

I confess that if I had ever heard of Dick Dale before this week's posting began, the name was lost in the fog of a fading memory. His online bio is cause for me to hide my tail between my legs. As someone who calls himself a guitar player (mind you - never more than amateur) I really should have known at least a little about the man who is/was known as the King of the Surf Guitar. That is the guitar style of the classic Beach Boys as well as an influence for Hendrix and Townshend.

Influence or not, the technique he developed and played just about right up to his death 2 years back is - as the 'pedia says "unmatched"

Hell Week: Covers from Hell

Primus: The Devil Went Down To Georgia

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Danny Barnes: Sympathy For the Devil

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Dick Dale and his Del-Tones: Ring of Fire

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Hayseed Dixie: Hells Bells

Hayseed Dixie: Highway to Hell

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We try to avoid the obvious choices here at Star Maker Machinery, though we'll make an exception for a truly great song no matter how popular it might be. Still, somewhere around the beginning of each theme, a few song names pop up in the comments, and once named, these "obvious songs" never get posted.

This is a problem for me, because I'm one of those audiophiles who gets earworms, and bad. Which means whenever someone says "oh, yeah, I was thinking about this song", I start thinking about it, too. And though usually I just nod my head textually and pretend to move on, way back here behind the screen I'm damned to suffer the song on infinite repeat in my head for the remainder of the week.

Which is to say: I've had Sympathy for the Devil, The Devil Went Down to Georgia, and Ring of Fire stuck in there since they were first mentioned in the comments way back on Sunday. Plus a couple of AC/DC songs I bet you were thinkin' of, too.

Since I'm still feeling a bit devilish, here's an eleventh hour set of the songs we were all thinking of this week. But I'd never be so trite as to post the originals -- that would, indeed, be too obvious, and not nearly evil enough. No, I've tried to find hillbilly and bluegrass covers for the rock stuff, and surf and jam/funk covers for the country songs. And you're going to listen to them anyway, aren't you? Because, in the end, the temptation we fear most is in ourselves.