-Walt Disney
The music history did actually begin with Walt writing one song. He joined his then musical directory Carl Stalling (who then went on to do "Looney Tunes") and wrote the words to "Minnie's Yoo Hoo" and Stalling wrote the music. This is the only time Walt took and credit and writing music. The "Silly Symphonies" came about because in regular cartoons the music would go with the action, but Stalling wanted something where the action would have to follow the music. The most famous of the "Silly Symphonies" was Three Little Pigs with the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" This was written by Frank Churchill, who came to Disney after Stalling left. This song came to the American people during the Depression, so this was a welcome cheering-up.
The next major part of the music history came with the full-length animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Walt was afraid that the music in the movie would be used without regard to the story. He said, "We should set a new pattern, a new way to use music. Weave it into the story so somebody doesn't just burst into song." This has been the philosophy of Disney music ever since. Frank Churchill and Larry Morey got the job of writing this type of music. When they were done, they had written 25 songs, of which 8 appear in the movie. With the film being a hit, so was the music. Disney began to set a tradition for good movies and music with Pinocchio, Dumbo and Bambi. With the beginning of World War II, the Disney Studio's productions were put on hold. All efforts were put into making short films to aid the war effort. After the war, Disney didn't go right back to animated features. He concentrated on "package" films, with more than one animated short put into one film. He also worked on live action mixed with animation. An example of a live action/animation package film is the newly released Fun and Fancy Free. But the music didn't stop. There was music all throughout this time including the popular "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" from Song of the South.
Walt Disney came back to animated features in 1950 starting with the release of Cinderella. For his next movies he turned to a different set of musicians. He turned to Tin Pan Alley in New York. Tin Pan Alley was the largest group of song publishers in the U.S. and each publisher had a mess of writers and musicians. These were the people Walt used in his films Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmations. During this time, Walt's studio composers were working on Disneyland(which became The Wonderful World of Disney), The Mickey Mouse Club, and other live action movies. George Bruns' "Ballad of Dave Crockett" for the Davy Crockett TV series was the fastest selling record of 1955.
In the Disney music history, the '50s were the days of Tin Pan Alley and the '60s were the days of Richard and Robert Sherman. The Sherman brothers wrote more than 200 songs, many of which have become classics. The list of their songs is a long one, including theme parks (The Enchanted Tiki Room), the New York World's Fair (Carousel of Progress, It's a Small World), live-action and animation (Bedknob and Broomsticks), live action (The Happiest Millionaire, That Darn Cat, and others), featurettes (Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree), and of course animated features (The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book and The Aristocats). But the greatest one of the Sherman's projects may be Mary Poppins. They won 2 Academy Awards, one for Best Song Score and the other for the Best Song, "Chim-Chim-Cheree." The Shermans were the ones who gave us all "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." Mary Poppins proved also to be the top of Walt's career when he died on December 15, 1966.
People weren't sure if the studio could go on without Disney. I think that it is obvious that Disney so influenced everyone not only in his studio, but in the world that it he will continue to make movies and music. In the '70s
and '80s the Disney Studio made movies like Robin Hood, Pete's Dragon, The Rescuers and The Fox and the Hound. In these movies, with the exception of Robin Hood and Pete's Dragon, the music didn't play a very important part. There was very little of it and it didn't play a very essential part of the story.
All of this changed with the release of Oliver and Company in 1988. The music history continues today with Alan Menken, Howard Ashman, and others. Please follow the rest of the Disney musical history with that link.
I got all the information above from The Illustrated Treasury of Disney Songs published by Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation and Hyperion. ©1993 by the Walt Disney Company. I did NOT simply copy the information however. I arranged it in an original manner, so I should (again) not get tossed into the slammer. I'm not paranoid about this, I just don't want to do time!