I am in such a foul mood today. I’m not really sure why. I have to get out of this foul mood somehow.

Wow. The Happy Organ didn’t work. This is some foul mood I’m in.

Dave “Baby” Cortez, American pop keyboardist

Glasses make you look cool:

You don’t need alcohol to have a good time:

You can’t go wrong with a good organ:

I only discovered yesterday that the version of “The Happy Organ” I had been listening to for this project was actually a 1960 rerecording.  The “Happy Organ” that hit #1 is the version above: tamer, more controlled, less exciting.  In the rerecording, Cortez attacks the tune with the abandon of Jerry Lee Lewis, his organ-playing garnished with a rip-roaring guitar solo.  The guitar in this version, however, is a little too strait-laced, too rock and roll by the numbers.  The tune’s not bad, but it’s a bit anticlimatic after the killer version I’d been used to hearing over the past few weeks.

Then again, Cortez’s tune is credited with introducing the organ – my favorite musical instrument – to rock and roll.  Without it, an integral part of the ’60s might be lost, especially in garage rock.  Would there be “Like a Rolling Stone”? “California Sun”? “Little Bit O’Soul”? “Chest Fever”? Billy Preston?* Well, if Cortez wasn’t the first, someone else would have been.  Still, “The Happy Organ” isn’t a bad start. 6 (for the original; 7 for the rerecording)

*Conspicuously absent from this list is perhaps the most famous organ riff in rock history - for obvious spoilerific reasons.

Hit #1 on May 11, 1959; total of 1 week at #1
13 of 963 #1’s reviewed; 1.35% through the Hot 100