The shocking truth about Dick Dale,who invented the most Californian of guitar sounds,is that he’s actually from Quincy,Massachusetts. And it wasn’t hot sun or bitchin’ waves that first inspired his guitar work—it was the folk tunes he’d grown up with in a Lebanese-American family. But once Dale moved to Southern California and started playing those Middle Eastern riffs with speed, volume and a ton of reverb, the sound forever known as surf guitar was born.

Dale’s music has been in the California bloodstream since the late ’50s; even the Beach Boys covered one of his instrumentals (“Let’s Go Trippin’”) on their second album.But unlike most of the Beach Boys Dale really surfed, and his music was all about capturing that wave-riding rush. Tarantino’s use of “Miserlou”in Pulp Fiction reignited his career,so did a couple solid ’90s albums for Hightone. Even after rounding 75 and coming through a recent bout with cancer,Dale just won’t slow down: His usual live band is a power trio (with his 23-year-old son Jimmy Dale on drums)that does its best to keep up with the hyperspeed licks he throws at them.Half the songs will be the familiar hits of old, the other half are likely to be made up on the spot; and if he feels like crooning a country ballad or telling some old family stories, he’ll do that too.