'50s Music Icon Quietly Died Three Years Ago, Daughter Now Revealsoriginally appeared onParade. While some legends go out with a bang, others leave this world as softly as a whisper. Musical icon Dave "Baby" Cortez chose the latter, a passing that served as a stark contrast to the jubilant, soulful and often dance-worthy music he made throughout his life. Though Cortez was born in Detroit, his breakout moment came not through the city's famed doo-wop scene, but as part of the rising R&B and instrumental movement more closely associated with New York. He gained national attention in 1959 with his chart-topping hit "The Happy Organ," which stood out during an era dominated by vocal harmony groups. While Detroit was flourishing musically with the early sounds that would later define Motown, Cortez carved his own path with a distinct organ-driven style that helped shape the sound of instrumental pop and rock. From the '80s on, it was rare Cortez was seen in public, and rarer still that he gave an interview. He never officially quit the music business, but his actions spoke for him. As time wore on, he was spotted less and less frequently, and even his daughter, Taryn Sheffield, lost touch with the increasingly reclusive songwriter. "The music business wasn't very kind to him," Sheffield told Alex Williams in an interview forThe New York Times, "and he was bitter." By the time she was informed of his passing in 2022, Sheffield had not seen nor heard from her father in 13 years. As it turns out, she'd only been contacted at all because BMI, the organization responsible for distributing the royalties from his music, needed to find next of kin in order to issue future payments. At the time of his death in his New York City apartment, Cortez was 83 years old. By that point, he had lost contact with his family, and thus there was no one available to claim his body. He was buried in an unmarked grave on Hart Island, located just off of the Bronx. In 2012, Cortez granted a rare interview to the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), and thevideoremains one of the few pieces of archival footage of the songwriter in existence. In it, he chronicles the moment he found out "The Happy Organ" had become an overnight success. At the time, he was in the midst of touring the country with a number of other acts, including Jimmy Clanton, Freddy Cannon and Fabian. "I was pretty much set, making a pretty good living, but the record came out during the tour," recounts Cortez. "The second week, I got a telegram and bam! So, you got a hit!" "The Happy Organ" was groundbreaking in more ways than one. Not only was it the first instrumental song to reach the top spot onBillboard'sHot 100, but it also marked the first time an organ had been so heavily featured in a hit pop/rock single. '50s Music Icon Quietly Died Three Years Ago, Daughter Now Revealsfirst appeared on Parade on Jul 11, 2025 This story was originally reported byParadeon Jul 11, 2025, where it first appeared.
