Dick Dale is surf guitar, or whatever you want to call it.

Dick Dale is on his yacht, enjoying an afternoon cruise off the Newport Beach coast with an Italian lady friend. She offers him a glass of wine as he picks up the call for this interview.

“Nope, I’ve never had alcohol. I don’t touch the stuff,” he tells her, holding the phone off to the side. “I don’t want a drop in my body.”

His gorgeous companion on this idyllic July afternoon never got the memo. The “King of the Surf Guitar,” who’s been living the life of a major rock ’n’ roll star for much of the last five decades, is as clean as they come.

But that’s not the real story here.

Dale will tell you that the genre of which he is “king” is misnamed despite numerous claims hailing his 1961 hit, “Let’s Go Trippin,” as the first surf rock song. The “surf rock” label, he says, should’ve been “Jungle Rock,” a homage to the dozens of species of exotic animals he has raised over the years from lions to jaguars. He always tried to mimic their sounds with his guitar.

But that’s really not the story either.

Instead, you can simply say the 72-year-old Dale is in reflection mode. And that’s understandable as he recovers from a second bout with cancer, something you’d never suspect as he comes off a major West Coast tour. Dale is less than two years removed from his latest bout with colon cancer, yet he still attacks his shows with the vigor of a 17-year-old.

He is careful to enjoy every bit of his hard-earned life of luxury calling everything “beautiful” along the way. “I am 72, and I am still kicking ass,” he says.

He has to in order to keep up with his son, Jimmy, the 17-year-old drummer for the band Forever Came Calling.

“It was so beautiful,” Dale says of having his son’s band open for him.

Dale’s storied life is remarkable enough to have been included in the Congressional Record. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame considers “Let’s Go Trippin” to be one of the most influential rock songs in history.

In 2010, Fender will be releasing a limited edition collector’s set of Dick Dale guitars that he helped design.

Basically he is a guitar bad ass, and he knows it.

But much of that is behind him now. He has treated his body like gold—refraining from red meat, booze and drugs—yet cancer got him anyway. Now he plays his concerts for the families afflicted by cancer and other diseases, raising money for nonprofits such as the Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

His music has become an antidote for children and adults who have been stricken with illness by simply taking their minds off of being sick for a few hours. “His brain was not thinking about diabetes. That’s what music does. (Surf/jungle rock/whatever) is a music that opens the book; it’s just another window.”

And as he reflects on his career from his yacht, passing up a glass of wine offered by a woman he says is absolutely beautiful, it’s apparent that as important as music has been to his life, helping others—be it his son or a child battling cancer—is the most beautiful part of life now.

For more info about Dick Dale and his music: KickstandMag.com