Ben In LA
Latest Update: July 10, 2004

Jimi Hendrix recorded Third Stone From the Sun in 1967, an instrumental which finishes with Hendrix’ psychedelic soliloquy:

Although your world wonders me
with your majestic superior cackling hen.
Your people I do not understand.
So to you I wish to put an end.
And you'll never hear surf music again.

“What?” the world has wondered ever since. “Was Hendrix talking about? Superior cackling hen? And did he hate surf music? Did he love it? What?”

Thirty-seven years after Hendrix’ cryptic obituary, the King of the Surf Guitar is alive and well. Dick Dale can bring it, don’t you doubt it, and on Saturday night he brought his surf guitar to the shady turf of Glendale to rock the 11th Annual Cruise Night.

Using Dalespeak to describe the scene, it was a bitchin’ summer night in front of a bitchin’ crowd who had flocked to Glendale from as far as Los Feliz and Glendora to check out a long line of bitchin’ Mustangs, Corvettes, Cobras and Malibus. Dale came on at 9:00 and tweaked a few ears with his sound check. Tonight he was leading a power trio of bass player and drummer and in honor of all the hot rods that had promenaded past the stage a few house earlier, Dale’s sound system tonight was hot-rodded, revved-up and LOUD.

This party took up several blocks of downtown Glendale, and Dick Dale was front and center, up high on a stage at the intersection of Central and Brand. The band played directly under functioning traffic lights which put on a tri-color light show throughout Dale’s performance. But even when the yellow or the red lights were on, with Dale it was, “Go man, Go!”

Dale was born in Boston in 1937, and he took the stage in his standard uniform of black pants, black jacket and black headband holding back a black ponytail. He stood on high before a mixed crowd of young and old “Dick Heads”: those who were young when Dick Dale jammed with Stevie Wonder in Muscle Beach Party, and those who were young when Dick Dale’s Miserlou was the overture to Pulp Fiction. Young and old gave the King of Surf Guitar a rousing welcome as he took the stage, said a few syllables and then cooled the sweaty crowd with a tidal wave of sound you could probably hear in Pasadena.

After only three songs Dale launched into Miserlou and the crowd went berserk. Perhaps I was the only one in the crowd who knew that Dale played the trumpet solo on that song, but when Dale didn’t put a trumpet to his lips, I got a little crowdaphobic and disappointed and wandered off down Brand Ave to check out all the hotrods-with Dale’s guitar bouncing from Jamba Juice to California Pizza Co to Barnes and Noble and chasing me the whole way. I checked out too many Chevies and not enough Fords, then came back about half an hour later to hear Dale still playing Miserlou.

“Oh oh,” I thought, “He’s lost it. World’s longest Miserlou jam? Are people rioting?”

But when I got close to the stage, there was no power trio, only Dick Dale sitting front and center playing duets with a kid who was barely taller than his flamed, hot-rodded guitar. The kid couldn’t have been any older than 10 and after they finished that Miserlou duet, Dale referred to the young lad as “My son, Jimmy.”

Cool. That’s who it was: Jimmy Dale, son of Dick Dale and holy shit does this kid have some chops. It was as miraculous to hear those good sounds flowing from the fingers of a 12-year-old as it was from a man almost 70 and all of a sudden the night got a little more bitchin’.

The Dick and Jimmy show was a little bit vaudeville. Dad and lad have an act, they do shtick, and it’s good stuff. Dick Dale talked about getting stuck on a composition until Jimmy chimed in with a few chords that got it flowing again. Jimmy smiled shyly at the praise from his dad, and looked like he was waiting for the geezer to clam up so they could play some more.

Jimmy and Dick Dale played a few more songs and it was just a bitchin’ thing to see, a dad handing off his talent and possibly the Surf Guitar God mantle to his son, who is a shockingly talented musician for being only 10.

Then the power trio came back on and Dale ripped through Let’s Go Trippin’ and Mr. Peppermint Man and then soloed Amazing Grace as a tribute to all the lads in Iraq. There were shades of Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock in a different time. But Hendrix is long gone and surf music is alive and well and in the right hands.

After the show, Dick and his son and entourage were watching the hot rods parade past when I thanked him for the show. He seemed talkative so I asked him about that Hendrix quote. “Any idea what Hendrix was trying to say when he said, ‘You’ll never hear surf music again?’”

He did: “As a matter of fact, ‘you'll never hear surf music again’ was a dedication to me from Jimi as he recorded Third Stone from the Sun. What happened was, I had rectal cancer and was told I only had three months to live. It was all kept pretty secret but it got so bad that for the first time I missed a gig-at Harmony Park-because I was rushed into surgery. Dave Meyers and the Surftones filled in. Hendrix was recording when he got the news, and someone told him I was dying of rectal cancer. It wasn’t true, but Jimi thought it was and that is why he said those words at the end of Third Stone. And that is why I dedicated it back to him on my last CD. I said, ‘Jimi, I’m still here. Wish you were.’ Jimi was a very nice quiet soul when I first met him, but it is sad he became part of his surroundings.”

Stunned by the revelation, I forgot to ask him about ‘superior cackling hen.’