Hot Butter ~ Popcorn 1972 Disco Purrfection Version

Описание: This is one of the goofiest yet hypnotizing songs I ever heard, it was only missing a bass drum to help it realize its full potential. Its a dumb fun song and it was quite the diversion in 1972.

As a kid one of the coolest songs I heard was Telstar by The Tornadoes the 121st number one of the rock era released in 1962."Telstar" was the first US communications satellite that relayed television signals between the US and Europe.

"Telstar" was a futuristic sounding synthesizer rock tune that conquered the UK and US charts and made the Tornadoes the first and only British Band to do so before the onslaught of the Beatles in 1964. I mention this as the sound of "Popcorn" owes every thing to the syncopated synthesized music pioneer of "Telstar" and even has a similar synthesizer in the bridge.

There is no way that this song was ever anything but a novelty hit, nothing you could build a career on and with a name like Hot Butter are not many album titles you could come up and not sound corny. And just like that the song burned out at #9 on the Hot100, an amazing feat for a debut single that effectively ended his career. He would have had to keep coming up with new and amazing layered synth rhythms and that was not to be. A true one hit wonder.

"Popcorn" was written by Gershon Kingsley and recorded by Stan Free who played the MOOG synths here. Stan had played on albums by John Denver, Arlo Guthrie and even the Boston Pops and helped to develop their live sound.

Stan was born in Brooklyn, NY April 12, 1922 and became a jazz musician, composer, conductor and arranger who got a classical music education at Julliard. He was a Staff Sergeant in World War II and became musical director on one of the first live television variety shows in New York after he completed his responsibility. His Stan Free Trio played jazz in the 40's and 50's and was a session player on hits by The Four Seasons, The Monkees and The Association. He was married and had grandchildren he left behind when he passed in New York August 17, 1995 at the age of 73.

This is the song Donna Summer was referring to when Giorgio brought her "I Feel Love", she did not take is seriously at first scoffing that it was a "popcorn" tune. She did however, change her mind and professional that she was recorded the greatest dance record ever. Giorgio Moroder had started working on synths in pop music around 1972 but did not get commercially recognized until he started working with Donna Summer in 1974.