For TTK - Les Baxter was the real writer of Tequila

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I've been reading John Broven's book "Record makers and breakers" and there's this nice little story from Dave Burgess, the guitarist with the Champs.

I had been working with my guitar, plaing around wit ha thing called "Train to nowhere". So I came in to Joe [Johnson, of Challenge Records] and said, "Look, I've got a idea for an instrumental."

So it was, let's get a band together. Johnson had seen a sax player a few nights before, Danny Flores (aka Chuck Rio). They got him in and did the record.

"but we gotta have a B side." I said, "Give us a little while; we'll come up with something." So we had listened to a guitar player from Tiajuana, Mexico, by the name of Little Joe Washington, who had mixed this R&B/Latin rock thing. I started playing that riff on the guitar, and Danny started playing this melody on the saxophone, which was just a great melody, and the bass player Cliff Hills fell in with it; so did the drummer, Gene Alden, and the guitar player, Buddy Bruce. I said to Danny, "why don't we do a bridge on it and stop and let you say 'Tequila!'" because he had this raspy voice."

Then a big movie producer, Les Baxter, said, "I wrote 'Tequila'; that's my melody."... So he sent it over. In that little clip of the movie was this girl i nthe islands with a basked on her head walking through the rain and they were playing that song. It was note for note! The movie ["Bop girl goes calypso"] was released in 1957 and Chuck [Danny Flores] had seen the movie.

So in the end, Challenge paid Les Baxter ten grand. And when you think of it, it's right up Baxter's street.

I liked that little story.

MG

[GA Russell]

Great story, MG!

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

i have to digest this and comment later, i dont understand it- i dont tyhink i followed....im going to put on my Tequlia 78 rpm and try again later

[Big Beat Steve]

Yeah, nice story. But please, MG, don't keep on spilling the beans from that book in public! I've still got to continue with "How Britan Got The Blues" before I can make any serious progress with "Record Makers and Breakers" which is awaiting me on my bookshelf! :D

Anybody seen Bop Girl Goes Calypso anytime in recent decades?

It's one of those flicks that crops up in books about r'n'r/teen/JD movies of the 50s but seems to remain off the screen otherwise.

I mean, the very idea hatched by music music moguls at that time, i.e. promoting calypso as the next biggest thing that would immediately oust r'n'r, was as dead as a doornail by the time the first calypso records hit the TEEN record stalls back then. Sure calypso had a certain following and still has some oldie appeal, but considering it was supposed to replace r'n'r as an even bigger TEEN fad then it really just was a (minuscule) flash in the pan.

Edited October 27, 2009 by Big Beat Steve

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Yeah, nice story. But please, MG, don't keep on spilling the beans from that book in public! I've still got to continue with "How Britan Got The Blues" before I can make any serious progress with "Record Makers and Breakers" which is awaiting me on my bookshelf! :D

OK - Sorry Steve.

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

Hey, just kidding ... and I suppose you know.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Hey, just kidding ... and I suppose you know.

Yea, but you're right, too. I knew you had this book. I'm about two thirds through.

MG

[Teasing the Korean]

Interesting story, thanks for sharing MG. Never knew this.

"Bop Girl Goes Calypso" has got to be one of the greatest titles ever.