Album Description
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Compilation producers: Gary Stewart, James Austin, David McLees.
Includes liner notes by Teisco Del Rey (a.k.a Dan Forte).
Audio Remasterers: Ken Perry; Bill Inglot.
Liner Note Author: Teisco del Rey.
Illustrator: Ed Fotheringham.
Rhino closes its five-volume rock instrumentals series with an 18-track outing devoted to surf guitar. This fast-paced, prickly, and frequently exciting form may not be among the most diversified structurally, but if does offer some surging playing from its practitioners. They range from founding father Dick Dale to its most popular bands, the Surfaris, Belairs, Ventures, and Chantays. While not particularly a hardcore surf collection, this disc certainly outlines its virtues, and the tunes were long enough to display guitar proficiency, but short enough to prevent self-indulgence and repetition. ~ Ron Wynn
Generations of junior high kids spent entire study halls pounding out paradiddles with their open palms on their desks until their hands were blistered and they were sent to detention, and it's all Ron Wilson's fault. Wilson was the drummer in the Surfaris, a suburban Los Angeles garage band, and his dazzling solos on the group's sole hit single, 1963's "Wipeout," set the standard for rock & roll drum frenzy so high that not even Keith Moon--whose fondness for this song was legendary--could beat it. Even without the drum solos, "Wipeout" has enough going for it in Jim Fuller's cyclical lead guitar line and hooks like the manic giggle (courtesy of manager Dale Smallin) at the top to make it an all-time surf classic. ROCK INSTRUMENTAL CLASSICS VOLUME FIVE surrounds "Wipeout" with 17 other exemplars of the form, including several beyond the usual suspects that appear on most similar compilations.
