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Dave ‘Baby’ Cortez, Pop Music Pioneer, Died at 83 in 2022, Label Just Learned

Dave 'Baby' Cortez, reclusive composer of first No. 1 Hot 100 instrumental hit 'The Happy Organ, has been reported dead at 83 after passing in 2022.

Despite scoring two chart hits, the performer born David Cortez Clowney on Aug. 13, 1938 in Detroit who came up on the 1950s Motor City doo-wop scene was something of a ghost for decades, rarely speaking to the press after quitting the music business in the early 1970s. His first effort was the bouncy, 1956 boogie woogie instrumental “ Movin’ and Groovin’,” which he followed up with the slow-rolling “ Soft Lights ” in 1957 before taking on his stage name in 1958 and beginning work on the song that would define him in the public imagination and make history on the Billboard charts. According to the Times, Cortez then vanished, refusing to do interviews due to the bad taste the music industry left him with until 2009, when Linna reached out and he shockingly agreed to get back in the studio to record the album with saxophonist Youngblood and perform at the label’s 25th anniversary party in 2011.

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