When Dick Dale played the Ventura County Fair some years ago, I got to write a profile of him. I asked one question and that was it, he was off, telling stories, sharing memories, full of opinions and outrage, epic rants, awe at his (then) young son Jimmy's gift for the drums, pride that when he needed an airstrip at his Inland Empire ranch he simply climbed aboard a bulldozer and built one, his belief that the waters of the Pacific will heal you, love for his family, his expanding relationship to a higher power. It was like being caught inside one of those impossible guitar riffs of his, tumbling, blistering, disorienting, and I remember that as he kept referring to himself in the third person, it made perfect sense.

Here's a a good obit in the LA Times, a decent one in Spin, and a great remembrance in the NYer.