Dave Burgess, the guitarist who led the Champs to radio domination with their Latin-tinged, Pee-wee Herman-approved instrumental rocker “Tequila,” has died. An obituary on the website for the Anglin Funeral Home in Dover, Tennessee, reports that Burgess died on Oct. 19. He was 90.
Named after Gene Autry’s horse Champion, the Champs lived up to their name when they knocked Elvis Presley’s “Don’t” from the top of the Billboard chart with their hit “Tequila” in 1958. The jaunty, saxophone-fueled chant-along was initially a B side — credited to the band’s saxophonist Danny Flores (though Burgess and later claimed he and guitarist Buddy Bruce also deserved credit) — to Burgess’ “Train to Nowhere,” but it took hold on radio and stayed in the top position for five weeks.
Burgess once estimated that “Tequila” sold between 1.5 and 2 million copies in its first run and that the album that followed it, Go, Champs, Go!, sold 100,000 copies.
“When ‘Tequila’ started to happen, it was so quick,” Burgess said in author John Broven’s Record Beakers and Makers. “It sold so many records so fast. All the different booking agencies called me. … I said, ‘I tell you what. You’re all good, but I want the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday night followed by Dick Clark, the Saturday night show. And I want a gold record on each.’ … Rock & roll was just starting and Ed Sullivan didn’t quite know how to handle it.”
They kept the momentum going with the hits “El Rancho Rock,” “Midnighter,” and “Chariot Rock,” which reinterpret “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” as a beach-rock song. In 1959, Glen Campbell joined the band, and a year later, Jimmy Seals and Dash Crofts (later of “Summer Breeze” fame) joined. After a few nonstarters, they got back on the radio charts with “Too Much Tequila” (1960) and “Tequila Twist” (1962), latching onto the limbo craze that year with “Limbo Rock” and “Limbo Dance.” Their popularity did not survive Beatlemania, and the group called it quits in 1965.
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“Tequila” got a second life in 1987, when Pee-wee Herman danced to it in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure in a scene where the character was trying to entertain rowdy, bloodthirsty bikers by pointing at his private parts and shouting “Tequila!” The non-sequitur scene was such a hit that in 2010, Herman actor Paul Reubens attended a motorcycle rally in an attempt to secure a Guinness World Record of the most people doing the “Tequila” dance.
Several jazz musicians, including Wes Montgomery, David Sanborn, and Larry Carlton recorded versions of the song. Flores, who sold the U.S. rights to the song, claimed in 2000 that he was making $70,000 a year from royalties in Europe.
Born in Los Angeles to Sigmund and Mariet Eck on Dec. 3, 1934, Dave later adopted the last name of his stepfather, Austin “Tex” Burges, who had come into his life when he was four years old, as his stage name. Before forming the Champs, he released a handful of singles including “Don’t Put a Dent in My Heart” and “Don’t Turn Your Back on Love.” By the time the Champs took off in his mid-20s, he added an extra “s” to the surname and legally changed it to Burgess in 1959. That year, he married dancer and actress Deon Adair Raab.
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The obituary reports that the couple, who had a son David and daughter Charmaine, ran a Montana art gallery in between Burgess’ stints in the music business. They resettled outside of Nashville. His website claims he had registered more than 700 copyrights to songs and that Dean Martin, Marty Robbins, Gene Vincent, and others had recorded his songs. He reportedly also produced music for Darlene Love, Marty Balin, and Don McLean.
Looking back on the Champs’ rise in Record Breakers and Makers, Burgess said the best part of success was performing live. “The youngsters loved it, and the parents hated us,” he said. “We were the bad guys. We were gonna corrupt their kids with rock & roll.”
