Dale’s ‘Spirits’ Rise With a New Label

Dick Dale’s next album, “Calling Up Spirits,” is due out in May on Beggars Banquet, an English record label known for its roster of alternative rockers.

The album will be the third chapter in Dale’s remarkable story of midlife resurgence. The thunderous guitar player created the surf-rock sound 35 years ago in Orange County’s coastal ballrooms, but his failure to tour kept him a regional figure, known mainly to Southern California fans and to guitar buffs who admired him as the founder of an influential style.

Dale, who turns 59 in May, began renewing his legacy in 1993, when he signed with HighTone Records and released “Tribal Thunder,” his first album of new material since the 1960s.

Dale, who lives with his wife and 4-year-old son in the desert town of Twentynine Palms, began touring nationally and expanded his horizons to Europe, Asia and Australia after the 1994 release of “Unknown Territory.” Dale’s profile got another boost when his ‘60s classic, “Misirlou,” emerged as the opening-credits theme for the film, “Pulp Fiction.”

Lesley Bleakley, vice president in charge of Beggars Banquet’s newly opened U.S. office in New York City, said the label signed Dale after executives heard a tape of his new material and saw Dale perform last year in England and New York.

“It just felt right. We got on with him, and he got on with us,” she said. “It’s great to work with somebody who has been so influential.”

While the Oakland-based HighTone is a respected roots-rock label, Beggars Banquet has long been geared toward the alternative audiences Dale has tried to reach with his touring. Others on the Beggars Banquet roster include Charlatans U.K., Peter Murphy, Buffalo Tom and Love & Rockets.

Dale is expected to play some West Coast dates around the time of his new album’s release, followed by appearances at major European rock festivals and a U.S. tour.

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BLUES-HARP FEST: The Blues Harmonica Blowdown, an annual showcase for Southern California’s wealth of harmonica-driven traditional blues bands, will have its 10th installment March 23 at the House of Blues in West Hollywood.

This year’s lineup features Rod Piazza & the Mighty Flyers and the James Harman Band, with Chicago blues man Billy Boy Arnold joining Orange County’s Harman band as special guest. The Harmonica Fats & Bernie Pearl Duo will play an acoustic set, and one-man band Mike Curtis will open the show, with other artists to be announced. Information: (213) 848-5100 (House of Blues) or (714) 740-2000 (Ticketmaster).

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JUST SAY YES: The latest album from progressive-rock keyboard ace Rick Wakeman is a benefit release for ASSIST, a Garden Grove-based Christian organization that works with youth in the former Soviet Union.

“The Piano Album” consists of live solo performances Wakeman gave in 1994 at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa and at a second concert in Virginia. Selections include excerpts from the English rocker’s “Six Wives of Henry VIII” album, the Yes hit “Wondrous Stories,” and versions of some well-known songs Wakeman played on during his early-’70s days as a high-profile session musician, among them Cat Stevens’ “Morning Has Broken” and David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and “Life on Mars.”

ASSIST’s founder and president, Dan Wooding, is a former journalist who covered Wakeman during his rise in England and wrote Wakeman’s official biography, “The Caped Crusader.” Wakeman, who recently rejoined Yes, recorded two previous benefit albums for ASSIST, “In the Beginning” and “Prayers.”

CDs of “The Piano Album” are available for $25 plus $1.50 postage from ASSIST Ministries, P.O. Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92642-2126.

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JUST SAY GOO: The Goo Goo Dolls, enjoying million-selling success with the album “A Boy Named Goo,” will be at the Virgin Megastore, Triangle Square in Costa Mesa, on Monday from 4 to 6 p.m. The rock trio from Buffalo, N.Y., will play a free half-hour concert and sign autographs. (714) 645-9906.