Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records [Paperback]

Tim Hollis (Author), Greg Ehrbar (Author), Leonard Maltin (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2006

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 Records chronicles 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 Tracks is 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Long before synergy became a corporate watchword, Walt Disney parlayed his animated films into successful comic strips, toys, and phonograph records. Initially, the studio licensed music from the films to other companies, but after the TV show Disneyland spawned a hit in 1955 with "The Ballad of Davy Crockett," the company launched an in-house record outfit headed by noted big-band arranger Tutti Camarata. Besides soundtracks, read-along "Storyteller" LPs, and other children's releases, Disney lured Mary Martin and other adult-oriented singers and scored hits with such early '60s teen stars as Annette Funicello and Hayley Mills. Disney's labels cashed in on '70s fads with the double platinum Mickey Mouse Disco LP and the Mousercise workout album, rode into the CD era successfully, and now offer songs for download on iTunes. Hollis and Ehrbar obviously know and love Disney's music; what's more important is their thorough research. Besides detailed accounts of the diverse Disney releases, they provide sidebar biographies of dozens of performers. Though it lacks a discography, this is a valuable, highly readable addition to Disneyana. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

An amazing, enjoyable read... brings back a terrific lot of memories... I congratulate Tim Hollis and Greg Ehrbar for it. -- Roy E. Disney

An outstandingly well researched, exceptionally well organized, and very capably written history...The best Disney related publication in recent memory. -- Rhett Wickham, laughingplace.com, June 19, 2006

Fills in a missing piece of the Disney legacy... and if you're a fan of Disneyana, this is a must-have. -- Jerry Beck, cartoonbrew.com, June 23, 2006 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 221 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (May 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578068495
• ISBN-13: 978-1578068494
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #416,269 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding and fun, August 21, 2006

By 

J. Smith "JThree" (Williston, North Dakota United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records (Paperback)

There is so much information in this book, I had to go through it three times to make sure I gleaned everything I could from it.

Well-researched and organized, Mouse Tracks is essential for Disney scholars and pop culture fans of the sixties if they want to find out more about the uncredited people who contributed so much not to just Disney, but to American film, tv and music of the past fourty years.

Reading this text, I learned a bit about the men's group who sang the theme song from Gilligans Island during its final two years, the beautiful Robie Lester (who just recently passed away), who with only a few minutes preparation came up with so many different voices as she did Disneyland's story reader series in the sixties, or the fact that she sang the title tune for Disney's "The Three Lives of Thomasina."

It was great to get some history on the late Jimmy Dodd, I never knew he was in the Lub and Abner films, or that Hal Smith (Otis from the Andy Griffith program) did the original "Whit" on Adventures in Odyssey. And even the fact that it was Ms. Jean Norman, who helped sing the themes for Star Trek and Flipper, or Gene Merlino who did likewise for Rawhide, The Road Runner Show, and Alien Nation, all added to this text.

Also, discovering who wrote some of my favorite Disney Christmas songs was a real treat: "The Sound of Laughter," and "Here He Comes," sung so marvellously by Pete Renaday, and released every so often on a seasonal Disney album made my day. You can really tell the emotion in his voice as he sang these carols.

The book tells a straightford history of Disney Music, broken up with profiles of the many people who contributed to the Music of the Mouse. So if you want to know who Dal McKennon, Lucille Bliss, or Dick Beals are? Or just who sang the theme from "Old Yeller"? Read this book. You'll be surprised at just who did what done.

Lastly, Hollis and Erbear need to continue their research talents into other Disney and non-Disney entertainment avenues. Their skills cannot be allowed to go to waste.

P.S. Tell Disney I still want Alan Youngs audio version of "A Christmas Carol" reissued on CD. My old 8 track is shot.

Sincerely,

Jthree
[e-mail]

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of Facts but An Incomplete History of Disney Music, April 26, 2010

By 

Mediaman "TVviewer" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records (Hardcover)

This somewhat disappointing history of Disney's record company presents lots of facts but not as many stories as claimed in the title. It rushes through record after record and fails to take much time to discern which records or stars had the most impact. Intended to be a type of encyclopedia of Disney records, it doesn't provide a discography, has a confusing layout and devotes only a brief chapter at the end to the CDs that have been released the past 15 years. It's baffling that they would choose to skip over most of the releases since about 1991.

The book starts with a very brief history of how the company got its music on records. It goes by so quickly that it is often confusing because the writers treat everything with the same short synopsis. They fail to help the reader understand what were the important moments in the history of the company's recorded music and instead overpraise pretty much everything.

The layout of the book is a mess and the writing style is pretty dry. Records are given short sections of four to eight paragraphs, then abruptly stop. These sections are often interrupted by sidebars devoted to performers. But often the sidebars are out of order or come long before or after the performer is even mentioned in the record section.

Certainly Disney fans will enjoy the photos and some of the details behind who did the voices on certain recordings. And the authors did apparently directly interview some involved like Fess Parker. But when Annette's sidebar gets the same amount of space (two pages) as does those for Gloria Wood and Roberta Shore, you know the authors had trouble pulling together a cohesive narration that focuses on the most important aspects of the record company. Many of the "stories" are taken from other dated published sources and the writers fail to follow up on the people today.

In the end it's purely for Disney music fanatics who want a very basic reference book on the subject. But the detailed "story" of Disney's music company still needs to be written. The high-selling years since 1991 have been too important to receive so little attention as they do in this 2006 publication. It's like the book was put together in the 1980s and then the authors tacked on the CD chapter without doing the work necessary to provide a comprehensive look at the company.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Solid Gold Hit by Greg and Tim, June 28, 2006

By 

T. Brooks - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records (Hardcover)

An Avid Disney LP Collector, I've Been Anxiously Awaiting "Mouse Tracks" since News Came These Two Exceptional People and Disney LP Fans, Ehrbar & Hollis, were Writing It. "Mouse Tracks" is Filled w/Fascinating Information Leaving You Begging for More (I'm Hoping Follow-up Letters will lead to a Sequel). "Mouse Tracks" is a Wonderful Tribute to Many Who Contributed To the Tracks We Enjoy So Much. I Highly Recommend you Buy and Read this Book. It Will Deeply Enhance Your Enjoyment of The Disney Legacy. Thank you Greg and Tim for writing it. Sincerely, Tom SLC, UT