DAVE Burgess, who was the leader of the band that recorded the popular track Tequila, has died at 90.
Burgess was part of The Champs, which soared to fame in 1958 with the track.
He died on October 19 in Tennessee.
His cause of death hasn’t been revealed.
Tequila spent five weeks as the top-selling chart, beginning in March 1958.
More than one million copies of the instrumental, which won a Grammy for the Best R&B performance in 1959, were sold.
The song defeated tracks such as Harry Belafonte’s Belafonte Sings the Blues, Nat King Cole’s Looking Back, and Perez Prado’s song Patricia.
It even received a gold disc from officials at the Record Industry Association of America.
Burgess, from Los Angeles, worked with Challenge Records during the 1950s, which was founded by the rodeo crooner Gene Autry.
When Chuck Rio, the saxophonist, wrote Tequila, it was initially viewed as a throwaway song.
But, it ended up rising to fame.
Saxophonist Eddie Platt produced a cover in 1958 and it rose to number 20 in the US charts.
The song featured in a scene of the 1985 movie Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.
The character played by Paul Reubens irritated a group of bikers by knocking over their motorcycles.
He then tried to appease them by picking the song on the jukebox.
Reubens’ character then started to dance to it.
Tequila was used as the theme song for Banana Split between 2009 and 2011.
And, it has been adopted into chants for sports stars.
The Tequila tune is sung by Arsenal fans when they chant about the team’s defender, William Saliba.
During his music career, Burgess wrote more than 700 songs.
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