The Real Story of Tequila - Part 2

Danny Flores and his band were the house act at the Hollywood on the Pike, when a real Hollywood label came calling. Flores was already under contract to a major L.A. indie label, Modern, so he signed with Gene Autry’s Challenge label as an instrumentalist.

Challenge was ready to release a highly produced instrumental, “Train to Nowhere,” but the record needed a flip-side and Flores was eager to oblige.

“Tequila” was Flores’ nightclub break tune. “I’d been using this as a little riff before we’d take an intermission at the club. We’d have a ‘dum dum dum, we’ll be right back, we’re taking a short break’ and that became a song, so we decided ‘let’s use that.’ The way I wrote it is the way we used to do in the 40s, we called it mutuno, which means ‘jam, get lost, do your own thing.’ All stay in the same key and we’ll all jam, the trumpet players, the piano player, the sax player all take a solo, all in one key. We were going to spell it ‘Tekila.’ We didn’t want to spell it like the alcohol because we thought parents wouldn’t let kids buy the record. The parents would say ‘what do you want to buy that record for?’” asked Flores. “Train to Nowhere” was released and that was apparently where it was headed.

East Coast sax player Eddie Platt covered “Tequila” for the formidable ABC/Paramount label, which meant spins on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, part of the ABC combine. Platt’s cover began to hit regionally, so Challenge told DJs to “turn the record over” and play the hit side. Between Feb. 21 and March 14, “Tequila” climbed to No. 1 in New York, L.A. as well as the R&B and Pop charts. An obscure Mexican liquor, tequila sales zoomed to the top just as the record had, causing it to become a popular drink for decades to come.

Soon after “Tequila” by the Champs hit No. 1, the lawsuits between Modern/Kent and Challenge began flying. “I had to change my name anyway, because Modern Records had me as Danny Flores. Challenge told me, ‘you gotta change your name. There’s not too many Mexicans out there,’ so I got my dad’s middle name Simon Del Rio Flores and I dropped the Del, kept the Rio, my mother’s maiden name was Carlos, so I kept the Carlos and became Chuck Rio.” At least a dozen releases by Flores came out under a range of names like the Champs, Danny Boy, Chuck “Tequila” Rio, the Contenders and the Originals, every name but Danny Flores.

But the name change didn’t solve his biggest problem. “Modern already had recorded a bunch of stuff with me, they already had it in the can, they made the connection, ‘Hey this Danny Flores guy is Chuck Rio – the same guy.’ Modern got furious, they really got mad.”

Modern owner “Jules Bihari pulled a gun on me. He came to show me they were going to release that record regardless of what Challenge said. He was real mad. I never saw Jules that mad. He showed me a gun, like, ‘oh really.’ Did Gene Autry try to stop it? They figured they probably would, were going to release it anyway.”

“He was angry because I went with another company and he felt ‘Tequila’ should have been with his company. Modern sued Challenge as I was under contract to them as a vocalist.” When he argued “Tequila” was an instrumental, Modern answered that he punctuated the riff with shouts of “tequila” and thus won the suit.

“There was a big lawsuit. Modern Records ended up with 40 percent of ‘Tequila.’ The one who did the commotion was the one who had the little piece of paper on me that said that Danny Flores, I got him, but as an artist.” And they did. And won.

Les Baxter sued over alleged infringement of the song “Da Rain” in the quickie flick, “Bop Girl Goes Calypso” from 1957. Despite being a marginal cause of action, the label settled for $60,000. “I never saw that movie before until they had me on the deposition and asked me had I been in Bakersfield on a certain date, had I been in San Diego when that movie had been shown, but I had no access to the movie,” said Flores.

In 1959, “Tequila” won the first Grammy for best rhythm and blues song and kept selling through the decades. Flores moved from Long Beach to Orange County in the 1960s, but kept his career alive through frequent bookings at local lounges. One thing he couldn’t quite grab was his rights to his biggest hit. “Every time I got the court on my side, ‘Tequila’ is sold to a new publisher and I have to start all over again.” Flores died on Sept. 19, 2006 in Huntington Beach.

steve@beachcomber.news