Music of the Disney Parks: The Ballad of Big Thunder Mountain

Attraction: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Park: Disneyland, Magic Kingdom

Debut: September 2, 1979

If you’re anything like me, when you first heard about “The Ballad of Big Thunder Mountain,” you probably wracked your brain trying to figure out where it plays on the attraction. Do you hear it while on the coaster? As you wind your way through the queue? As you exit coaster on wobbly legs?

The truth is that the tune, which is the official theme song of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, doesn’t play at any point on or around the attraction. So, why include it in a list of Disney Parks music? Well, not only is it the legendary coaster’s official anthem, but it WAS played at the attractions opening ceremony in both Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom (in 1979 and 1980 respectively). 

During a brief period in the 90s, the song could also be purchased on the Disneyland Forever and Walt Disney World Forever CDs. These were introduced as a new marketing concept which allowed Guests to the parks to purchase CDs of their favorite Parks music by using a touch screen kiosk. It cost around $20, and you’d receive a specially burned disc containing your selections. As a 1999 Las Vegas Sun article by Geoff Carter noted, “Drawing from a massive server fatty-packed with the sound effects, incidental music, songs and narration tracks of almost every Disneyland attraction in the theme park’s storied 44-year history, consumers can build a CD of 10 tracks, come back in an hour and claim a custom-made souvenir. For audiophiles, the opportunity to own Paul Frees’ “Pirates of the Caribbean” voices and the “Lanai Music” from the “Enchanted Tiki Room” is too strong a temptation to resist.”

 “The Ballad of Big Thunder Mountain” was available through the program, and copies have since become highly sought after collectors items. 

The song itself was written by Stan Freese, who began his Disney career in the 1970s playing the tuba. He later became the Magic Kingdom’s first band director and led the Disneyland Band. During his time with the Disneyland Band, he began the Disneyland Resort Salutes the American Band concert series, which introduced Orange County second grade students to the history of the American Band. 

Over the course of his career, he would also work as a show director and entertainment producer. When he penned “The Ballad of Big Thunder Mountain” it was originally intended for a television special that would promote its debut. The idea was for John Denver to perform the piece, but the plan was scrapped due to delays in its opening.

 The lyrics to the song tell the legend of Big Thunder Mountain and the dreadful curse that seems to plague it. Over the years it seems that the railroad has been hit by avalanche, earthquake and other disasters, though none quite as dreadful as the crew that disappeared “one foggy night in June.”  The refrain warns:

Hear the legend of Thunder Mountain,

If you’re weak of heart, then stay away!

From Big Thunder, Mountain railroad,

Thunder Mountain Railroad, run away!

The Cosmic Sounds of Disney

Album: Second Star to the Right (Salute to Walt Disney)

Artist: Sun Ra & His Intergalaxtic Arkestra

Label: Leo Records

Year Released: 1995

In the long history of jazz music, there’s never been another musician quite like Sun Ra.  His biography in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame refers to him as an “intergalactic traveler, translator of myths, poet, composer, and visionary…” as well as an “innovator in Jazz.” It’s a description that seems understated when you get to know his life story. 

Born Herman Pool Blount, he was nicknamed “Sonny” at a young age. He began composing music by age 11 or 12. According to stories, he had a virtuosic musical ability and mind, with some stating that as a teenager he could attend a big band concert and make a complete transcript of the music from memory. 

By the time he was 20, he’d begun touring with Ethel Harper’s band, taking over leadership when she ultimately departed. The group toured for a short time as the Sonny Blount Orchestra before breaking up. A few years later, he would have an experience that would change the course of his life. 

As he related it in later years, he was taken on a trip to the planet Saturn. He stated, “My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up… I wasn’t in human form… I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn… they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools… the world was going into complete chaos… I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That’s what they told me.”

After moving to Chicago, he began working with composer Fletcher Henderson, and later with saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. It was during his time with Henderson that he began working as an arranger, and decided to put together a band to play his personal arrangements. The band began recording under the El Saturn label, which he’d formed with Alton and Artis Abraham in 1957. By this time, he’d taken on the name Le Sony’r Ra as a rejection of what he viewed as a slave name. 

It was during his time in Chicago that he became exposed to groups such as the Black Muslims and books like George G.M. James’s Stolen Legacy which posited that Greek mythology had its roots in Egypt. These Afrocentric ideas would begin to pervade his music and work, as did the influence of science fiction that would lead to his status as a pioneer of Afrofuturism, which is defined as, “a movement in literature, music, art, etc., featuring futuristic or science fiction themes which incorporate elements of Black history and culture.”

 He began using the liner notes of his albums to outline what he referred to as an “Astro-Black mythology” that aligned ancient Egyptian history with a cosmic future. As he saw it, life in the world had become untenable and the new “myths” he was creating were meant to guide humanity toward a better future in outer space. He stated, “The impossible attracts me because everything possible has been done and the world didn’t change.”

Aside from his cosmic philosophy, or more accurately because of it, his music became part of jazz’s avant-garde that emerged in the 50s and 60s. He became one of the first jazz musicians to use instruments like electronic keyboards and synthesizers, and dubbed other instruments with new names such as the “space dimension mellophone.” His group was known as the Sun Ra Arkestra, and they established a communal home in New York, where they made a splash because of their colorful and generally outlandish attire. Rather than musicians, members of the Arkestra were known as “tone scientists.” 

As improbable as it seems, Ra also developed a deep admiration for the films of Walt Disney, which would eventually lead to the album Second Star to the Right (Salute to Walt Disney). A 1989 article in the Washington Post, notes that Sun Ra was performing the music of Walt Disney at shows. The band was even known to wear Mouseketeer ears during performances and even had someone show up dressed as Dumbo. As the article states, “Walt Disney and Sun Ra are two of the 20th century’s master fantasists: One asked us to wish upon a star; the other asked us to believe he was born on one. These two manipulators of the imagination finally confronted each other when the avant-garde band leader played a show of songs from the producer’s movies at the 9:30 club Wednesday night.”

That same year, Sun Ra & His Intergalaxtic Arkestra would perform at  Jazzatelier Ulrichsberg in Austria. During the show, they performed songs like “The Forest of No Return,” from Babes in Toyland, “I’m Wishing” from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and “Second Star to the Right” from Peter Pan. The show was recorded, but would not be released as an album for another six years.

The songs are recognizable, though they frequently drift into what The New Yorker referred to as “anarchic, noisy space music.” Tracks like “Someday My Prince Will Come” begin with delicate piano that follows the traditional melody, before drifting into a screeching, occasionally atonal, saxophone solo. The vocals, specifically those of James Jacson, sound like a more grizzled version of Louis Armstrong, while the group’s interpretation of “Second Star to the Right” sounds like an intoxicated second-line brass band performing at a jazz funeral. 

Your enjoyment of the album will largely depend on your propensity for freeform and experimental jazz, but for those who enjoy it, there are treasures to be found on the disc. 

Suggested Listening:

Song: Door of the Cosmos

Artist: Sun Ra and His Intergalactic Myth Science Solar Arkestra

Label: El Saturn

Year Released: 1979

Song: Jupiter

Artist: John Coltrane

Label: Impulse!

Year Released: 1974

Song: All My Life 

Artist: Ornette Coleman

Label: Columbia Year Released: 1972

Music of the Disney Parks: I’m Walking Right Down the Middle of Main Street USA

Attraction: Disneyland is Your Land, Main Street Trolley Show

Park: Disneyland, Magic Kingdom

Debut: 1985

In the 1970s, pop music saw an explosion of singer songwriters. Artists like James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, and Janis Ian to name just a few. Stu Nunnery, a graduate of Princeton, was among their number. 

While working in the Berkshires, he began performing weekend gigs at The Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. As he recalled, “Every artist of any kind passed through that thing during the years that I was there.” It was fertile ground for an aspiring artist and in 1973, he released a self-titled album consisting of nine tracks. Two of the songs, “Madelaine” and “Sally from Syracuse,” reached the Top 100 in the United States. A third track, “Lady It’s Time to Go,” hit the number one spot in Brazil. 

Later in the decade, Nunnery moved to New York and began writing commercial jingles. During this time was given the opportunity to write a song intended for Disneyland’s 25th anniversary celebration. 

The result was “I’m Walking Right Down the Middle of Main Street USA.” According to Nunnery, the music of Randy Newman influenced the song’s composition. He wanted it to have the “edge” of some of Newman’s songs (which he admitted did not end up being the case), and even had Newman’s distinctive vocal delivery in mind when he thought about how the song should be sung. 

Unfortunately, it would not be included in the 25th celebration, and would not make its debut until 1985 when it was performed by Marie Osmond as part of Disneyland’s 30th anniversary.

Shorty after composing the song for Disney, Nunnery’s life would take a dramatic turn. He woke up from a nap one day in 1978 to blaring sounds on the left side of his head. Doctors would later speculate that a blood vessel burst in his ear causing hearing loss. The damage complicated his musical career, but did not end it.

That changed two years later when the same thing happened in his right ear. While doctors were able to save some hearing in the ear, it completely ended his life in music. Though he couldn’t know it at the time, as one chapter of his musical life was ending another was about to begin.

“I’m Walking Right Down the Middle of Main Street USA” became a part of the show “Disneyland is Your Land.” In 1990, it was included in the VHS release Disney Sing-Along-Songs: Disneyland Fun, and it’s safe to say that this tape introduced the song to a whole generation of Disney fans. 

Over the years, the song became a staple at Walt Disney World as well, appearing in the Magic Kingdom’s daily opening ceremony, as well as in the Main Street Trolley Show. It is also one of the songs regularly performed by Disney’s legendary barbershop quartet The Dapper Dans. 

As for Nunnery, though his hearing loss seemingly ended his musical career, that all changed when he had a return performance in 2015. New technology and rehabilitation exercises got him to the point where he was able to perform a house concert in front of a small crowd. A handful of shows followed, and in 2018 Nunnery even released a new song titled “Take to the Harbor.” 

Music of the Disney Parks: Mama, Don’t Whoop Little Buford

Attraction: The Country Bear Jamboree

Park: Magic Kingdom

Debut: October 1, 1971

Earlier this year, the stars of The Country Bear Jamboree took their final bow before heading out on a well-deserved vacation. As an opening day attraction at the Magic Kingdom, Big Al, Teddi Barra, and the rest of the gang entertained Guests for half a century.

Not to worry! They’ll be back in the Country Bear Musical Jamboree this summer, a show inspired by the old musical revues in Nashville and featuring beloved Disney classics in a downhome style. In the meantime, let’s look back at some of the bears’ greatest hits.

One of the most peculiar numbers in the show was “Mama, Don’t Whoop Little Buford” performed by the characters of Henry and Wendell. As performed by our ursine friends, we hear:

Mama, don’t whoop little Buford

Mama, don’t pound on his head

Mama, don’t whoop little Buford

I think you should shoot him instead…

Surprisingly dark for a family attraction, no?

As with the other numbers in the show, “Mama, Don’t Whoop Little Buford” predates The Country Bear Jamboree. It first appeared on the 1964 album Fractured Folk Songs by country music duo Homer and Jethro.

Henry D. “Homer” Haynes and Kenneth C. “Jethro” Burns met at age 16 while attending a radio audition in Knoxville, Tennessee. Initially dubbed “Junion and Dude,” their name was suddenly changed when radio director forgot what to call them during a 1936 broadcast.

The pair initially performed “hillbilly” versions of pop standards, until a producer suggested they start creating musical parodies instead. Their 1959 release “The Battle of Kookamonga” (which won a Grammy Award) was a clever parody of Johnny Horton’s “The Battle of New Orleans,” Others, like “Good Night, Irene” retained the original title, but changed the lyrics to the truly absurd. In a way, they were like a Appalachia version of “Weird” Al Yankovic, just a few decades before he got his start. 

“Mama, Don’t Whoop Little Buford” was a teasing take on the 1960 song “Little Benny” released by the Stanley Brothers. A note in Billboard Magazine summarized the original track writing, ““This unusual country song implores an irate father not to whip ‘Little Benny’ for using nasty language. Tune has an authentic folk charm.”

The Stanley’s version of the song starts with a little boy praying by his bed side. As the lyrics recount:

One night as the stars were all shining

Little Benny knelt down by his bed

He asked the dear Lord to forgive him

For all the bad words he had said

Please papa don’t whip little Benny

Please papa don’t whip little Ben

He’s little and wants you to love him

Please papa don’t whip little Ben

Under Home and Jethro’s treatment, the subject of the song is a bit less innocent than a boy who used a little foul language.

Buford brought home his report card

Buford was proud as could be

At last he had passed through the 3rd grade

And Buford is just 23

Mama, don’t whoop little Buford

Mama, you’ll just be a wreck

For Buford is studying Judo

And he’ll break your scrawny ole’ neck

For their illustrious contributions to the world of music, Homer and Jethro were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1971. As of this writing, Henry and Wendell of the Country Bears have not received the same honor.