Danny Flores, composer of “Tequila,” a huge hit for the Champs in 1958, has died. He was 77.
Flores died in Westminster, about 20 miles from where I live in Irvine. He had been suffering for years from Parkinson’s disease.
He made about $70,000 a year from the European rights to “Tequila” but in one of those “seemed like a good idea at the time” moves that you kick yourself for later, he had long since signed away the rights to U.S. royalties, an error in judgment that the Register attributed to the fact that Flores was — wait for it — a heavy drinker in the early days of the band.