The Champs: "Tequila"

March 24, 1958 (1 week)

It had been just over a month since The Silhouettes went to number one in Canada with a single that had initially been earmarked as a B-side and now in March of 1958 it was happening again. It's stunning to think that the quintet that made up The Champs as well producer Joe Johnson of Challenge Records sized up the two instrumentals cut on December 23, 1957 and agreed to give the prominent spot to the undistinguished "Train to Nowhere" over "Tequila", a piece of music that is so catchy and iconic that an awful lot of people could still hum its tune.

"Tequila" is the fourth Canadian chart topper to either be an instrumental or be be close enough. I've heard people online say that vocals of any kind should not be allowed for a song to qualify but I beg to differ. If lyrics and a singer aren't there to anchor a record then I think that's good enough to be an instrumental. A great deal of the jazz I listen to is vocal-free but you still might catch Thelonious Monk humming along in the background on some of his extraordinary recordings and Keith Jarrett's massively popular (though slightly overrated) The Köln Concert is littered with the pianist moaning and screeching as he's playing. My favourite example of a jazz musician "singing" along with themselves though is Duke Ellington on the insanely earworm-heavy "Limbo Jazz" from the terrific album Duke Ellington Meets Coleman Hawkins, in which you can hear the legendary bandleader enjoying himself so much that he just has to scat along with it. Fantastic.

So, all of these pieces of music are instrumentals in my book, as indeed "Tequila" is since it's only "lyric" is its title being shouted out three or four times. What was it about the fifties that made it such a friendly era for groups that didn't bother having a singer? It's common for fans of pop and rock to long for a return to the sixties but in this respect I'm all for going back a decade earlier than that. I do love me some Booker T. & The MG's but they had become pretty much a one off by the time "Green Onions" gave them a Top 10 hit. The Beatles released only one instrumental during their day and with all due respect to "Flying" it doesn't add a whole lot to their legacy. It's likely the only reason The Beach Boys put out as many vocal-less tunes as they did — "Summer Means New Love", "Let's Go Away for a While", "Pet Sounds", "The Nearest Faraway Place" — was because they couldn't get a half-decent lyrics out of Mike Love or Tony Asher to fit around them.

To be an instrumental act by choice is a whole other matter. The results could vary but when these sorts of groups were at their best, they could really deliver. It's uncertain if The Champs were up to the task, however. The December '58 session which resulted in both "Tequila" and "Train to Nowhere" actually included two more recordings. One of them is "Night Train" which was even more inconsequential than their spurned A-side while the other, "All Night Rock" has never been heard from since. It was only when all three of these masterpieces by leader Dave Burgess were out of the way that fellow Champ Chuck Rio had the chance to fool around in the studio with his jam piece built around some memorable sax playing that is best described as "dirty".

"Tequila" is one of those songs that feels like it's always been around. Being so familiar to me, it's not the sort of thing I'd normally sit down and listen to. I approached it this week wondering if I'd missed anything by not having ever listened closely until now. A sweet guitar lick perhaps. Or a subtle drum solo. Maybe even something cool in the production I'd never noticed before. Was there anything I missed? Nope, nothing. For sure Chuck Rio's sax is outstanding as it always has been but there isn't a great deal to it otherwise. It sounds exactly how I remember it sounding even when I was a little boy. How we hear some music changes as we get older but not in the case of "Tequila". Now that's what I call being timeless.

Score: 7