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Artist
The Happy Organ
12+ albums
saalschutzorganflumroc
about
Dave "Baby" Cortez (born David Cortez Clowney, August 13, 1938, Detroit, Michigan) a.k.a. "The Happy Organ" is an American pop music and R&B pianist and organist. "The Happy Organ" is also the name of an instrumental composition the artist made famous in 1959. Cortez co-composed it with Kurt Wood. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959, soon reaching #5 on Billboard's R&B chart. The song originally featured lyrics and was intended to be sung accompanied by a piano. Cortez recorded a vocal for it but was unhappy with the result. He spotted an organ in the studio and decided to play the song's melody on it. He also brought in legendary studio drummer, Gary Hammond to provide percussion for the song. Hearing an organ on a rock or R&B song at the time was unusual, but Cortez helped popularize its use outside of the Jazz field. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.