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Hot Butter

 
Artist: Hot Butter
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Pop Artists

Similar Artists:

Lieutenant Pigeon

Performed Songs By:

Gershon Kingsley
  • Genres: Easy Listening
  • Representative Albums: "Popcorn

Biography

Hot Butter wasn't so much a group as an alias, for keyboard virtuoso Stan Free, a top session player of the 1960's (with credits including work on albums by the Monkees, Arlo Guthrie, John Denver, et al), and a support musician or two working behind his Moog synthesizer. Free had cut several unsuccessful singles under his own name during the late 1960's, and also had been a member of a Moog synthesizer ensemble, the First Moog Quartet, organized by Gershon Kingsley -- during their 1969 tour of the United States, the group had used Kingsley's dance instrumental "Popcorn" (which he had written and recorded in 1969 on his album Music To Moog By), as an encore, and it elicited some of the most positive reactions from audiences. Two years later, when Free issued a new recording of "Popcorn", he used the pseudonym Hot Butter; this was a shrewd marketing ploy, for not only did that name seem to fit together with the title of the piece better than "Stan Free" would have, but it also made it easier to remember and request the piece at record stores and on the radio -- some accounts say that Kingsley also played on that record, though he wasn't credited. Whoever was on it, the result was a top-10 hit in America and England. Albums and other singles followed, mostly of classical works and familiar pop and movie tunes transcribed for synthesizer, but "Popcorn" remained his sole charting 45. It was popular enough to turn up as theme music and bridge-music for numerous television stations' productions, and is recognized today as an early forerunner of both disco music and synth-pop. In 2000, the collected recordings of Hot Butter were issued on a single CD. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
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Wikipedia: Hot Butter
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Hot Butter
Genres Pop, synthpop
Years active 1971–1978
Labels Musicor
Dynamo
Former members
Stan Free
Dave Mullaney
John Abbott
Bill Jerome
Steve Jerome
Danny Jordan

Hot Butter was an instrumental cover band fronted by the keyboard player Stan Free. The other band members were Dave Mullaney, John Abbott, Bill Jerome, Steve Jerome, and Danny Jordan. They are best known for their 1972 cover of the Moog synthpop instrumental, "Popcorn", originally recorded by its composer, Gershon Kingsley in 1969.[1] The track became an international hit and sold a million copies in France alone, one of that country's fastest million sellers.[1] Sales in the United Kingdom topped 250,000, and with big sales in the United States, the disc amassed over two million globally.[1]

Contents

Career

The liner notes to the CD reissue do not indicate who played what, aside from Free at the Moog synthesizer. Indeed, the notes say the band was Free and "a bunch of fellow players". Based upon the photograph and the sound of the album, the group had two additional keyboardists, two percussionists, and a guitarist. The group released two albums, Hot Butter (Musicor MS-3242; 1972) and More Hot Butter (Musicor MS-3254; 1973), primarily of covers, on LP issued by Hallmark Records. The two albums were compiled on CD as Popcorn on the Castle Music label in 2000 (with an album cover from the 1974 Australian release of More Hot Butter titled Moog Hits, depicting the five other band members immersed in melted butter produced by Free's synthesizer), though several tracks, including Roger Whittaker's "Mexican Whistler", were deleted. The only tracks written by members of the band were "At the Movies" (the B-side of "Popcorn") and "Tristana", by all the band members except Free, and "Space Walk", by Dave Mullaney and his brother. "The Silent Screen (Hot Butter)" is credited to all the members except for Free, but it is actually an arrangement of the main theme of the first movement of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No. 40. Among the other artists covered by the band were Stephen Schwartz, Jerry Lordan and The Shadows, Neil Diamond, Joe Meek and The Tornados, Neal Hefti, Serge Gainsbourg, Robert Maxwell, Piero Umiliani, Jean-Joseph Mouret, Billy Joe and The Checkmates, Joe Buffalo's Band, Teo Macero, Leroy Anderson, Chuck Rio, and Norman Petty and The String-A-Longs. Mullaney and Abbott did most of the arranging. The Jeromes, Jordan, and Richard E. Talmadge produced the albums with MTL Productions for Musicor.

After "Popcorn", their best known track is probably August Musarurwa's "Skokiaan", which was included on RE/Search's compilation album, Incredibly Strange Music. Follow-up singles included The Shadows' "Apache", Chuck Rio's (Danny Flores) "Tequila", Billy Joe and the Checkmates' "Percolator", Joe Buffalo's Band's "Slag Solution", and Gene Farrow With G.F. Band's "You Should Be Dancing".

Discography

Albums

Hot Butter

  • Musicor MS-3242 (U.S.); Pye International NSPL.28169 (UK), 1972

Side One

  1. "Popcorn" (Gershon Kingsley) (2:30)
  2. "Day by Day" (Stephen Schwartz) (3:44)
  3. "Apache" (Jerry Lordan) (2:50
  4. "At the Movies" (Abbott, Mullaney, Jerome, Jerome, Jordan) (2:31)
  5. "Tristana" (Abbott, Mullaney, Jerome, Jerome, Jordan) (3:29)
  6. "Song Sung Blue" (Neil Diamond) (3:54)

Side Two

  1. "Telstar" (Joe Meek) (2:34)
  2. "Tomatoes" (Neal Hefti) 2:27
  3. "Amazing Grace" (Trad. Arr. Abbott, Mullaney) (2:37)
  4. "Love at First Sight" (S. Gainsbourg) (2:38)
  5. "Song of the Narobi Trio" (R. Maxwell) (2:13)
  6. "Hot Butter (The Silent Screen)" (Abbott, Mullaney, Jerome, Jerome, Jordan) (2:04)

More Hot Butter

  • Musicor MS-3254; 1973

Side One

  1. "Percolator"
  2. "Slag Solution"
  3. "Sounds"
  4. "Wheels"
  5. "Skokiaan"
  6. "Pipeline"

Side Two

  1. "Space Walk"
  2. "The Masterpiece"
  3. "Tequila"
  4. "Syncopated Clock"
  5. "Kappa Maki"
  6. "Mah-Na, Mah-Na"

Popcorn with Hot Butter

Side One

  1. "Popcorn"
  2. "Day by Day"
  3. "Apache"
  4. "At the Movies"
  5. "Tomatoes"

Side Two

  1. "Pipeline"
  2. "Hot Butter"
  3. "Telstar"
  4. "Tristana"
  5. "Song of the Nairobi Trio"
  6. "Amazing Grace"

Moog Hits

  • Musicor Records, L34954, 1974 (Australia)

Side One

  1. "Slag Solution"
  2. "Sounds Simple"
  3. "Wheels"
  4. "Skokiaan"
  5. "Russian Whistler"

Side Two

  1. "Space Walk"
  2. "The Masterpiece"
  3. "Tequila"
  4. "Syncopated Clock"
  5. "Mah-Na, Mah-Na"
  6. "Mexican Whistler"

Popcorn (CD)

  • Castle Music ESMCD907 (UK), 2000
  1. "Popcorn" (Gershon Kingsley) Bourne Music
  2. "Day by Day" (Stephen Schwartz) Valando Music
  3. "Apache" (Lordan) Francis Day & Hunter
  4. "At the Movies" (Abbott, Mullaney, Jerome, Jerome, Jordan) AMRA
  5. "Tristana" (Abbott, Mullaney, Jerome, Jerome, Jordan) AMRA
  6. "Song Sung Blue" (Diamond) Ardmore & Beechwood
  7. "Telstar" (Meek) Ivy Music Ltd
  8. "Tomatoes" (Hefti) Famous Chappell
  9. "Amazing Grace" (Trad. Arr. Abbott, Mullaney) ARTAL
  10. "Love at First Sight" (Gainsbourg) Shapiro Bernstein/Britico
  11. "Song of the Narobi Trio" (Maxwell)
  12. "Hot Butter (The Silent Screen)" (Abbott, Mullaney, Jerome, Jerome, Jordan) ARTAL
  13. "Mah-Na-Mah-Na" (Umiliani) Carlin Music Corp
  14. "Masterpiece" (Mouret, Parnes) September Music Corp
  15. "Percolator" (Bideu, Freeman)
  16. "Skokiaan" (Kusarurgwa) Peter Maurice Music Co Ltd
  17. "Slag Solution" (Morgan, Ranzzano) Copyright Control
  18. "Sounds" (Macero) Warner Chappell Music Ltd
  19. "Space Walk" (Mullaney, Mullaney) Copyright Control
  20. "Syncopated Clock" (Anderson, Parish) EMI Harmonies Ltd
  21. "Tequila" (Rio) MCA Music Ltd
  22. "Wheels" (Petty) Campbell Connelly & Co Ltd

Singles

Popcorn

  • Musicor MUS 1458 (U.S.); Pye International 7N.25583 (UK), July 1972

Side One

  1. "Popcorn" (Gershon Kingsley) (2:30)

Side Two

  1. "At the Movies" (Abbott, Mullaney, Jerome, Jerome, Jordan) (2:31)

Apache

  • Musicor 7N.25598, 1972

Side One

  1. "Apache"

Side Two

  1. "Hot Butter"

Tequila

  • Musicor 12 469 AT, 1972

Side One

  1. "Tequila" (1:47)

Side Two

  1. "Tomatoes" (2:21)

Percolator

  • Musicor SMU-88678; Pye 7N.25609, 1973

Side One

  1. "Percolator"

Side Two

  1. "Tristana"

Slag Solution

  • Musicor 1481, 1973

Side One

  1. "Slag Solution"

Side Two

  1. "Kappa Maki"

You Should Be Dancing

  • 12" 45 Dynamo DS 12-DS-603-8, 1977

Side One

  1. "You Should Be Dancing" (Warren/Farrow) (5:13) Hye Fye Music Ltd

Side Two

  1. "You Should Be Dancing" (track without lead vocal) (Warren/Farrow) (4:42) Hye Fye Music Ltd

Arranged by B.K. Bowie; Produced by Jerry "Swamp Dog" Williams, Jr.

References

  1. ^ a b c Murrells, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Discs (2nd ed.). London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. p. 314. ISBN 0-214-20512-6. 

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 
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