{"id":281976,"date":"2025-11-14T06:15:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T06:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/281976\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T06:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T06:15:08","slug":"the-champs-band-leader-dave-burgess-dead-at-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/281976\/","title":{"rendered":"The Champs Band Leader Dave Burgess Dead at 90"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dave Burgess
\n ‘Tequila’ Hitmaker Dead at 90<\/p>\n

\n Published November 13, 2025 4:50 PM PST
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\n Updated November 13, 2025 6:14 PM PST\n <\/p>\n

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Dave Burgess, the leader of the band behind the hit song “Tequila,” is dead.<\/p>\n

A musician, songwriter and producer, Dave was the band leader for The Champs … and the group wrote the song “Tequila,” which topped the charts in March 1958 and is still well-known to this day.<\/p>\n

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Dave died October 19 in Tennessee … according to his obituary. The cause of death is unclear.<\/p>\n

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In a long and successful career, Dave wrote over 700 copyrighted songs and earned a Grammy at the first ever Grammy Awards in 1958, when “Tequila” won the Grammy for Best R&B Performance.<\/p>\n

In Pee-wee\u2019s Big Adventure, Pee-wee angers a biker gang by toppling their motorcycles but wins them over by dancing comically to “Tequila” on the bar’s jukebox.<\/p>\n

Dave played rhythm guitar for The Champs, which formed in the mid 1950s.<\/p>\n

He was born in Los Angeles in 1934 … and eventually moved out of Hollywood and headed for Montana, where he ran an art gallery with his wife, Deon Adair Raab, a professional dancer and actress.<\/p>\n

Dave stuck it out in Montana for a couple years then moved with Deon and their two kids to Nashville, where he returned to the music industry.<\/p>\n

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When he wasn’t making music, Dave was an avid hunter and fisherman.<\/p>\n

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Dave is survived by his son, David. He was 90.<\/p>\n

RIP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dave Burgess ‘Tequila’ Hitmaker Dead at 90 Published November 13, 2025 4:50 PM PST | Updated November 13,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-281976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}