Dave Mullaney

American composer, arranger and producer.
Vice-president of Laurie Records.

Born: October 10, 1931 in New York City, New York
Dead: February 21, 2018 in Cadillac, Michigan

Copied from Noise11 website April 13 2018:
David Mullaney produced for numerous artists and was a member of the group Hot Butter who scored with the instrumental “Popcorn”.

Mulaney was born in New York City and was abandoned in a basket in a church pew. He lived at the New York Foundling Home until he was five when he was adopted by Patrick and Catherine Mullaney from Staten Island.

After graduating from St. Peter’s High School, he attended Cooper Union, studying mechanical engineering, before deciding to pursue music.

David played jazz accordion in a number of bands but was not drawn to popular music until he heard the Beatles, according to the Cadillac (MI) News. His son, Jan Fairchild, told the paper “I think he recognized the musicality of the group.”

By the late-60’s, he was vice president of Laurie Records where he arranged for such artists as Dion, the Royal Guardsmen and Melanie. In 1969, he and Jean-Jacques Perrey adopted the name Christopher Scott to record the album Switched-On Bacharach. He eventually became a member of the instrumental cover band Hot Butter.

The group released their first album, Hot Butter, in 1972 on which appeared the song “Popcorn”. The song was first recorded by Gershon Kingsley in 1969 and was covered by Stan Free and Hot Butter, becoming the second pure moog song to chart in the U.S., after Dick Hyman’s “The Minotaur” (1969), and the biggest, going to number 9 on the Hot 100 and number 4 on Adult Contemporary. The record also topped the charts in Australia