How Walt Got His Groove Back

10.23.09 - We've seen multi-million-seller, chart-topping success over the past several decades with Walt Disney Records soundtracks like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, pop gold such as Hannah Montana and High School Musical and a legacy of audio classics like Mary Poppins and The Jungle Book. Perhaps you'd think the Walt Disney Company has had its own record division — with hit after hit — since the early days, right?

Jimmy and assistant Rose Mussi admire a Record Industry of America Gold Record award for Mary Poppins.

Actually, no and no. Walt and Roy Disney didn't get into the record business until more than 30 years after they opened the studio. After Disneyland Records started business in the late 1950s, it lost money for a few years — so much so that Walt himself considered shutting it down. One person who always believed in the Disney name becoming as much a leader in recordings as it was in films and theme parks was Disney Legend James A. "Jimmy" Johnson.

Jimmy told the story of his 27-year Disney career in a 1975 memoir called Inside the Whimsy Works. But even though it has been an excellent resource for various articles and books, particularly the book I wrote with Tim Hollis (Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records), Jimmy's book has never been published. Of course, this is D23 online, so you're going to get a glimpse into this "lost" book for the first time ever!

The Secrets Inside the Lost "Works"
A UCLA grad, Jimmy started in the Publicity department, assembling a book of press clippings about the then recently released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was then that Jimmy befriended people who would later make a major impact on Disney or elsewhere, including one of the key people he knew in Publicity, Richard Condon, who later authored the cold war novel The Manchurian Candidate.

Another friend was assistant animator and carpool buddy Steve Bosustow, who would leave the studio during the bitter strike of the 1940s and later head United Productions of America (UPA), the acclaimed modern art animation studio that created Mister Magoo. Jimmy, who thought of Steve as a "kind of a poor man's Walt Disney," remained a lifelong friend.

Seeing Walt Disney in Action
The up-and-coming Jimmy also toured VIPs through the studio and witnessed Walt's dynamism up close. "I was with [Walt] him for probably an hour and a half and he was doing one of the things I am sure he likes to do best: show off the work his studio is doing," Jimmy recalled. "His rapid speeches on a sequence from Pinocchio came tumbling one after another. These were punctuated by quick quizzical 'You know what I means.' Not waiting for an answer he would 'pour on,' tremendously enthused about it all, acting it all out as he went."

The Disney studio was a different place upon Jimmy's return from World War II service. Many artists had departed and there was a more businesslike, less familial atmosphere. But there were some great exceptions, like Kay Kamen, the Disney character merchandising pioneer.



Among other projects, Kay assigned Jimmy to handle a Disney partnership with Mattel, which first advertised its new Barbie doll on the Mickey Mouse Club TV show. Kay's untimely death in a plane crash left Jimmy in the midst of company politics, which Roy solved by separating Character Merchandising from Publications and assigned Jimmy to head the latter.

Jimmy with the first lady of Disney pop, Annette Funicello.

One of Jimmy's favorite Publishing successes was editing Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Club Magazine (later Walt Disney's Magazine). If you enjoyed Gulf Oil's Wonderful World of Disney magazines in the 60s or those Comet cleanser Disney Magazines in the 70s, you've seen reprints of these popular features and activities. His other favorite was coordinating the publication of the landmark Walt Disney, The Art of Animation by Bob Thomas, a book that inspired many a hopeful young animator.

Glass Slippers and Gold Records
Not long after Music Publishing was added to Jimmy's plate, he attended a meeting at which the rough cut of Cinderella was screened for Company executives who might create toys, books and records. One of the standout results was an RCA storybook and record set based on the film that sold 75,000 copies and was the No. 1 album on the Billboard charts.

Jimmy began urging the Disney brothers to start making their own records, rather than sharing the profits with outside record labels like RCA, Golden, Columbia, Decca and others. In 1954, he sat in on a meeting about a proposed TV project about Davy Crockett.

Jimmy recalled Walt saying, "We need a little song to bring it all together. It should have a lot of verses to tell the history and a short chorus like 'Davy Crockett, Davy Crockett best frontier man of them all…' something like that." The song became a No. 1 hit, but without a record company, Cadence Records scored the larger success.

Meeska-Mooseka-Mousekonvinced!
Jimmy was still unable to convince Walt and Roy to take the recording plunge until the Mickey Mouse Club came along and again, millions of records were sold, this time on the Golden and ABC-Paramount labels. Disneyland Records was launched in spring 1956. Their first album was A Musical Tour of Disneyland (a.k.a. Walt Disney Takes You to Disneyland), the only disc Walt personally recorded for his own label.

With accomplished composer/conductor Salvador "Tutti" Camarata in place as the Artists and Repertoire (A&R) Director, Disneyland Records released Disney film soundtracks, of course, but also classical, jazz, country/western, Dixieland and Broadway music albums on the label. The roster was magnificent but the sales weren't.

"Walt was angry at the money our record business was losing," wrote Jimmy. "He reasoned that he could make better use of the money in motion pictures and in television. He suggested to Roy that we should take our losses and bow out of the record business. Roy felt that records were a very legitimate diversification for Walt Disney Productions and argued that we should stick it out. Walt didn't win all the arguments. Roy won this one and we stayed in business."

In addition to redesigning the soundtrack albums to target them specifically at children, and issuing more "Storyteller" albums with books, the record company also created a second label, Buena Vista, for non-Disney music and records aimed at older audiences, particularly teens.

"Chalk on the Sidewalk, Writing on the Wall…"
Annette Funicello had become the breakout star of the Mickey Mouse Club and her "How Will I Know My Love?" single sold 100,000 records from popular demand alone. When she was teamed with Tutti Camarata and fledgling songwriters Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, the result was a string of hit singles and albums starting with "Tall Paul."

At international conferences like this one, circa 1967, people from around the world met to create ways to transform new Disney creations and beloved into toys, books, records and more.

An often-told story recounts how Walt and the Shermans connected through writing a song for an Annette film called The Horsemasters and how they ended up writing for The Parent Trap. What Jimmy adds in his memoir is that he was there too and suggested that the brothers write the extra songs. That success led to the Shermans' staff positions and of course, Mary Poppins.

Then Jimmy produced the Mary Poppins soundtrack album and that was that, right? Uh-uh. Poppins created such an industry buzz that Columbia and RCA wanted to release the soundtrack instead, and it was only after an impassioned plea that Jimmy nudged Roy to allow the soundtrack to be released on Buena Vista Records, resulting in Gold Records, Grammy awards and, for the first time, a firm footing for the record company.



Making a Mark in the Park
Disney Parks also benefitted from Jimmy's musical touches. When Walt decided to include a music store on Main Street, U.S.A. at his new Disneyland Park, Jimmy was tasked with getting it up and running. The Wonderland Music Store featured records, sheet music and even a player piano with music rolls for sale. Walt was pleased.

One of Walt's last attraction concepts before his passing in 1966 was an Audio-Animatronics® attraction featuring a bear band. "Someone suggested that the bear band play in a Dixieland style," Jimmy wrote. " When I first saw [Disney Imagineer Marc Davis's] sketches, I said 'Those aren't Dixieland bears, they're country bears and they should play country music.' So they became the Country Bear Jamboree. My assistant, Rose Mussi, and I flooded Marc Davis and [Imagineer] Al Bertino with literally hundreds of country records to help them make the final selection." To this day, the Country Bear Jamboree entertains Walt Disney World Guests; it was also a much-loved Disneyland attraction.

The same thing happened when Marc conceived America Sings for Disneyland Park. "Rose and I again scoured the rare record shops, as well as the regular shops, and furnished Marc and Al with a ton of records. They put together the first three acts of the show but asked us to help in the selection of the tunes for the last act, Modern Times.' Using some of our Disneyland Records, as well as records from other labels, we put together a little rough soundtrack. We both got a great kick out of the fact that many of our suggestions wound up in the final show, from 'Ja Da' to 'Hound Dog.'"

Jimmy worked with many of the greatest names in entertainment for Disney records, from Louis Armstrong to Mary Martin, but all his recollections circle back to Walt and Roy.

"What was it like to work for the Disney brothers?" wrote Jimmy. "It was always very exciting. One felt a part of something very important. And it certainly helped to be on the right wavelength with Walt and Roy, though sometimes they weren't on the same wavelength with each other."

Inside the Whimsy Works is planned for release in book form in 2011. And what about the phrase "Whimsy Works" itself? That's a nickname that Jimmy Johnson and his co-workers coined in 1938 to describe the Disney studio. Little did they know how much was in store for the studio — nor could Jimmy himself dream what a major label Walt Disney Records would become!



By D23's Greg Ehrbar