When you think of Disney music, you likely think of things like the Mary Poppins soundtrack, the music of Frozen, or The Little Mermaid. If you’re a Disney Parks fanatic, you might think of some of the wonderful compilations the company has released like the Walt Disney World official album or The Legacy Collection: Disneyland, featuring hits like “Grim Grinning Ghosts” and “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.”
Dig a little further, and you’ll find a fascinating collection of music released through the Disneyland label, and Buena Vista Records (an imprint Disney primarily used for releasing their live-action soundtracks). There are some hidden gems that you should seek out as soon as you get the chance.
Date Nite at Disneyland – The Elliott Brothers Date Niters Orchestra
Early in the history of Disneyland, the park struggled to turn a profit. One of the ideas that the company had to change its financial fortunes was “Date Nite at Disneyland,” a ticketed event that expanded park hours.
Dancing played a major role in the special event, and that required a band. Disney turned to the Elliott Brothers Orchestra (who performed as The Elliott Brothers Date Niters Orchestra). The group performed at the bandstand near Carnation Plaza Gardens.
The Date Nite at Disneyland album was recorded inside the Golden Horseshoe and features the mix of big band jazz, jump blues, and standards that made up the group’s repertoire. Listening to the record feels a bit like time travel, whisking you back to late nights in the park when young couples put on their finest clothes for a night of laughter and music beneath the stars.
Ukulele Ike Sings Again – Cliff Edwards
Before he became a Disney icon voicing Jiminy Cricket, Cliff Edwards was an established veteran of vaudeville and Broadway. He headlined theaters like The Palace in New York City, and even performed in George and Ira Gershwin’s first musical Lady Be Good.
He cemented his place in Disney history with his 1940 performance of “When You Wish Upon a Star” in Pinocchio, a song which was inducted into the National Recording Registry in 2009 and has served as a sort of anthem for Disney since its release.
Released on the Disneyland label, Ukulele Ike Sings Again features Edwards performing songs like “Singin’ in the Rain,” “K-k-k-Katy” and other Tin Pan Alley standards. It’s a brilliant collection that highlights Edwards’s considerable talents, though it admittedly takes you a bit off guard to hear Jiminy Cricket scat singing.
Hawaiiannette – Annette Funicello
Annette Funicello catapulted to fame in the 1950s as one of the original Mouseketeers in The Mickey Mouse Club. She quickly became one of the most popular performers on the show, and transitioned that name recognition into a successful pop music career.
Her first album, Annette, was released in 1959 and featured the song “Tall Paul” written by the Sherman Brothers. It became the first song performed by a female singer to reach the Top 10 of the Rock and Roll charts.
The next year, she released two albums. The first, Annette Sings Anka, featured Annette performing the songs of fellow teen star Paul Anka. Hawaiianette came next, and boasted “Annette Sings the Songs of Hawaii.” While no one would mistake it for a legitimate representation of Hawaiian culture, the album did feature music that captured the popular image of the islands. In a way, it capitalized on the hapa haole genre, which was “a hybrid genre that mixed American jazz and dance rhythms (swing and foxtrot), Hawaiian instrumentation (such as the steel guitar and ukulele), and lyrics in both English and Hawaiian.” However, it also owes much of its feel to early bubblegum rock.
Songs like “My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua, Hawai’i” and “Blue Hawaii” will make you want to lounge on the beach with a drink in hand as the waves roll in. However, the album’s stand out is “Pineapple Princess,” another Sherman Brothers song. Immediately popular on its release, the song reached #11 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
Deep in the Heart of Dixieland – George Bruns and the Wonderland Jazz Band
Over the course of his career, George Bruns would receive four Academy Award nominations and three Grammy nominations for his compositions. Among the many film scores he created are some of the most beloved in Disney history, such as Sleeping Beauty, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Babes in Toyland, Davey Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, The Jungle Book, and The Aristocats. He also co-wrote “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me)” with Imagineer X. Atencio.
Much of Bruns’s early career involved Dixieland Jazz (also known as “hot jazz”) a subgenre that originated in New Orleans during the early years of the 20th century. While living in Portland, Oregon, he performed with the Castle Jazz Band, which achieved worldwide fame as part of the “West Coast Revival” of traditional jazz. After moving to California, he became part of Turk Murphy’s Jazz Band, another traditional Dixieland group.
During his time with Disney, he continued to pursue his love of Dixieland by performing with his Wonderland Jazz Band, and occasionally recording with the Firehouse Five Plus Two, a Dixieland group consisting of members of Disney’s animation department.
Released in 1957, Deep in the Heart of Dixieland feels like you’re walking the streets of the Crescent City after dark. With songs like “Kansas City Stomp” (written by the legendary Jelly Roll Morton), and “Struttin’ with Some Barbeque” (written by Lil Hardin Armstrong and famously recorded by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five in 1928), the record swings from start to finish, and makes you want to go dancing on a riverboat.
Meet Me Down on Main Street – The Mellomen
When Walt Disney created Disneyland, he modeled Main Street U.S.A. after his home in Marceline, Missouri. He wanted to create a romanticized and idealized picture of small-town America. Barbershop Quartets were a natural fit for the space, especially given the Norman Rockwell-like image typically conjured when one pictures these vocal quartets (though it should be noted that, contrary to previous assumptions and depictions which display the quartets as primarily made up of white singers, the music almost certainly traces its roots to African-American performers).
While the Dapper Dans became Disney’s official barbershop quartet, they were not the only group associated with the company. The Mellomen, which included Disney legend Thurl Ravenscroft, frequently worked with Disney. The also performed with a wide variety of musical luminaries, including Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby, Spike Jones, and even Elvis Presley.
The group also performed on Disney soundtracks like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, The Jungle Book, and in shorts like Trick or Treat. Fans of Disney park music may recognize their recording of “Meet Me Down on Mainstreet,” from Disneyland’s 50th anniversary album The Happiest Homecoming on Earth. The song also provided the name for their 1957 album released by Disneyland Records.
Standards such as “Beautiful Dreamer” and “Sweet Adeline” can be heard, as can songs written by the “father of American music” Stephen Foster. The album is a gentle piece of Americana that conjures up images of a Mayberry-esque small-town America that may never have existed, except in places like Disneyland or in musicals and movies like The Music Man.
Make Mine Music 