Wendell Whitney Thorne

Green Tequila Beach Wendell Whitney Thorne

When Johnny Tropic's debut song sailed to number one on the Pop charts, he realized the bones of musical success had little to do with talent, and instead vastly depended upon the psychological art of Marketing. At which, unlike music, Johnny was a natural. The song itself was uncomplicated; a tropical celebration of underachievement and procrastination, all wrapped in steel drums, ukuleles and acoustic guitars, and fashioned around the singer's preoccupation with a frozen cocktail. The inertia of that first record propelled Johnny into a life of fame and unimaginable fortune, spawned a head-scratching 33 albums, a nationwide chain of bar/restaurants, three (ghost-written) bestsellers, and a product line so vast and gaudy that nobody suspected for a minute that the music and lyrics of that song-as well as all the rest of "his" songs-were not created by the dim-witted fake sailor boy himself. A homemaker from Fort Myers named Helen Taylor knew; she ought to, she wrote "Green Tequila Beach." For decades, she didn't care. Things have changed...