Mouse Tracks : The Story of Walt Disney Records

by Hollis, Tim

• ISBN13: 9781578068494
• ISBN10: 1578068495
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-05-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Mississippi

Summary

Around the world there are grandparents, parents, and children who can still sing ditties by Tigger or Baloo the Bear or the Seven Dwarves. This staying power and global reach is in large part a testimony to the pizzazz of performers, songwriters, and other creative artists who worked with Walt Disney Records.Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Recordschronicles for the first time the fifty-year history of the Disney recording companies launched by Walt Disney and Roy Disney in the mid-1950s, when Disneyland Park, Davy Crockett, and the Mickey Mouse Club were taking the world by storm. The book provides a perspective on all-time Disney favorites and features anecdotes, reminiscences, and biographies of the artists who brought Disney magic to audio.Authors Tim Hollis and Greg Ehrbar go behind the scenes at the Walt Disney Studios and discover that in the early days Walt Disney and Roy Disney resisted going into the record business before the success of "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" ignited the in-house label. Along the way, the book traces the recording adventures of such Disney favorites as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Cinderella, Bambi, Jiminy Cricket, Winnie the Pooh, and even Walt Disney himself. Mouse Tracks reveals the struggles, major successes, and occasional misfires. Included are impressions and details of teen-pop princesses Annette Funicello and Hayley Mills, the Mary Poppins phenomenon, a Disney-style "British Invasion," and a low period when sagging sales forced Walt Disney to suggest closing the division down.Complementing each chapter are brief performer biographies, reproductions of album covers and art, and facsimiles of related promotional material.Mouse Tracksis a collector's bonanza of information on this little-analyzed side of the Disney empire.Tim Hollis lives in Birmingham, Alabama. Three of his previous books-histories of tourism and children's television-are published by University Press of Mississippi. Two-time Grammy nominee Greg Ehrbar, a twenty-year Disney company veteran, is a writer of advertising, books, television specials, radio shows, compact discs, and Walt Disney Records Read-Alongs.Learn more about the book and the authors at www.mousetracksonline.com .

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Leonard Maltin
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	3	(2)
Davy Crockett Blazes the Trail	5	(8)
The Mickey Mouse Club Opens the Door	13	(14)
The Stars Shine	27	(16)
Annette to the Rescue	43	(12)
The Buoyant Days	55	(17)
Mary Poppins Blows Off the Roof	72	(15)
In Which Pooh and Friends Come to Disney Records	87	(13)
The Jungle Book Goes for the Gold	100	(17)
The Road to Oz and the End of an Era	117	(14)
Scrooge McDuck Strikes Again	131	(14)
Mickey Mouse Goes Double Platinum	145	(13)
Mickey Makes a Big Splash	158	(12)
It's a Gold Record, Charlie Brown!	170	(11)
You Can Always Be Number One	181	(8)
Appendix: Grammy Nominations and Awards	189	(4)
Bibliography	193	(2)
Index	195