JUNE 2008 - THE OFFICIAL ALBUMS OF THE DISNEY RESORTS

SW: You're the executive producer on two new Official Album sets of Disneyland and Walt Disney World, but when did the first official album debut?

RT: The first official album was in 1980. There had been attraction albums like "Great Moments with Mister Lincoln," "Tiki Room," Small World" which were released in the '60s and '70s, but those were full attraction albums as opposed to a greatest hits kind of thing.

The first official album was the Official Album of Disneyland AND Walt Disney World, reflecting both parks. At that time there were just the two parks... the Magic Kingdom in Disney World and Disneyland, then Epcot opened in 1982 and it received its first album because it was so completely different than the rest of the other parks and it was all new material. They had that album out there for a couple years and then 1988 is when the first CD was done. The stuff that was on the Disneyland & Disney World album was combined with what was on the Epcot album, plus or minus a few tracks here or there.

Pretty much those albums stayed the same, just repackaged for a number of years. It wasn't until later on, particularly when some of the attractions started leaving Epcot that tracks were being pulled off the albums but nothing was being put in to replace them and it remained stagnant.

When I got the opportunity to work on the official albums in the late '90s there was a lot of work ahead of me. There were tons of tracks I felt weren't representative enough of the tastes of the audience... I wanted to expand the "Grim Grinning Ghosts" track and the "Yo Ho" track. The "Splash Mountain" tracks that we had were from temps because when the first CD was put together they were working on the attraction and as part of a preview thing they gave us some temp tracks that they were doing and those sort of remained on the albums even after the attraction was finished because it was looked at as kind of a souvenir, there just really wasn't an interest at the time even from the Guests. It was just a nice cute little album.

SW: Yeah, when you compare those early albums to your latest, it's a much more musical experience. Like I love having the "Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage." It's really beautiful music and not just a simple song. You're not hearing the voices and dialogue so you can really hear the music which you can't hear on its own in the attraction.

RT: It's not like it's a big master plan where I want everybody to exercise their imaginations, but I've always viewed the official albums as a musical impressionistic view of what the parks are, because there's absolutely no way to recreate the feeling of being at the park outside of being at the park.

With the narration, sometimes I don't have the rights to some of the voice over work because those are different contracts and those kinds of things. Things like the Ghost Host in the “Haunted Mansion” would be an okay thing to put on the album but I want to focus on what Buddy Baker's music is and hear the music in a way that you can't in the park. By the same token, though, there are those iconic speeches and sounds that help trigger those full memories. The Ghost Host's opening speech in the parlor, that's one of them. The "Dead Men Tell No Tales" in "Pirates of the Caribbean," that's another thing that's important. That's all part of it, just those little nuances. But, the focus in my mind for the official albums has always been the music. If I had my way I would have named the albums, "Music from the Parks" but “Official Album” has been established for over 28 years now, so don't knock tradition.

SW: Is it ever a challenge to figure out what to use or leave out of a particular attraction soundtrack?

RT: One of the things about the theme park material is that those recordings were designed and built and constructed for the attractions and they never thought there would be a record release for them because it's a very complicated system. It's not a standard way of recording for the theme park attractions. "Haunted Mansion" is a good example. These are one minute music loops and they're expertly created to work within the attraction and they weren't thinking about putting it on an album because that's a secondary thing and it's more important to get the attraction right. So that's why "Haunted Mansion" was only a one minute clip on the official album for all those years. Because that's really how long the "Grim Grinning Ghosts" theme song is. It's only a minute long.

SW: And it just repeats over and over in the attraction.

RT: Yeah. The Parlor cue is a minute long and the Portrait Gallery cue is a minute long. "Small World" is even different than that, where you have the full music bed, the underliner of the full orchestra doing "It's a Small World' but there are overdubs of an ethnic variation arranged by Bobby Hammock that you hear as you go thru the different regions. If you were to sit at like that section where the French Can Can girls are dancing you hear that over and over, but as you move through the attraction you are experiencing these other versions. In essence it's all these different loops playing all at the same time and you just move through the audio in three dimensions, whereas when I'm doing it on an album, you're static, you're not moving. Neither is the music, so I try to include the full music loops as often as possible to get a full musical experience.

When I recreate the tracks for the albums, I want beginnings and middles and ends to get the full experience, like the ride-through I did for both "Pirates" and "Haunted Mansion" on the Disneyland box set back for the 50th. Actually, those tracks are longer than your experience when you actually ride the ride because I'm playing the full loop as if you were to go to each room and just sit there and listen to the whole thing.

I want to create this musical experience and having a music background I can't just fade the stuff out as if you were going through the attraction. I want the musical thing. Plus it also gives you as a listener something that you can't hear every time. In all the times that you've gone through the "Haunted Mansion" you've probably heard enough sections of the ballroom sequence to construct in your mind the full loop but you never hear it in one sitting. So it's a different way of working and looking at things.

SW: What’s been changed on these latest releases?

RT: One of the things that was building up to this... when I started working on the albums I realized that there were so many attractions that had not been added in all that time or attractions that were overlooked in musical experiences, because a lot times people look for the songs, things that are catchy. It's more than that. The scores are great. The "Submarine Voyage" is the perfect example. I wanted to get these things on the album, but there was so much I wanted to do and so much of this music had not been cleared for a record that there was no way it was financially feasible to put them on at once. So I figured over a couple years things would just evolve. I'd pay for the conversions for these tracks this year and do some big name stuff and a couple obscure things and just sort of meter it out over this period of time. Now nearly ten years later I've finally gone through and replaced every track. This year saw the holdout from the 1980 version which was "Canada (You're a Lifetime Journey)" from Epcot.

SW: Yeah, I love that song and it’s the one that's now in Florida.

RT: Right, there's a new version and that was the last song. I replaced "Grim Grinning Ghosts" and "Haunted Mansion" and all the other attractions have been redone, revamped, cleaned up and restored so from here on in it's all gonna be new tracks. That was kind of the impetus about releasing so many albums so close together.

I know it's a little frustrating for some of the fans when they see an album released year after year and it pretty much stays the same except for a few tracks here and there. That's mainly because it's not a new official album, it's an updated official album.

There isn't another product model like this on the market today. Even greatest hits albums aren't done this way.

The albums have to reflect the way the parks are as they stand now. Even though a lot of the fans, myself included, go to the parks quite often, most people don't. They work real hard and they save up their money and it's an event and they want to take something home that will remind them of their time at the parks. I know fans say things like, "Small World's on there again." Well you can't take "Small World" off, you can't take "Grim Grinning Ghosts" off. There'd be an uproar.

SW: Right, if it's the first time you're buying this and those park standards aren't on there I imagine your typical Disney park Guest would be upset.

RT: It's not laziness or just trying to get everybody's money for a couple of tracks but it's to represent the park as it stands at the moment. Sure, I'd love to be able to do expansions and full attraction CDs but the fact is that we've been able to expand these so much and after eight years every track has been completely replaced or restored and cleaned up. They're in much better condition now. We're not going to be doing an official album every year like we've been doing for the last eight years because we're pretty much caught up with everything so far, although there are always things to go back and add to.

SW: Sure, and with this one you've got the new “Canada” as you've said, the "Three Caballeros Grand Fiesta Tour..."

RT: And the new "Spaceship Earth" track. The "Toy Story Mania" and the "Midway Mania" attractions, we'll eventually get to that. But the music for most of those attractions are mainly underscore whereas in the grand tradition of "Pirates" and "Small World" those are actual songs and those really stick with you more. Even though we might miss the "Toy Story" stuff next year, I would like to use that opportunity for other things. There's other things that a lot of fans want out there. I'd love to see events... parades and shows.

SW: I agree with that! You have one on the new Disneyland set with the "Grand Marshall Pre-Parade" song. I love that because even if you have never seen it it's a great song. In fact, it's such a minor thing in the park when you see it, but it's a great song.

RT: That was the first step. I know a lot of fans wanted parades but there were never any record rights for it and that's all been worked out and hopefully we can get some of these things going. Again, it's all economics. It depends how many units people can sell. You have to consider the market for it. If we put out CDs that ten out of eight million people want, it's nice that it's out there but we won't be having a company. It has to all balance out. It's all balance, but to make some of these things available is great.

I didn't want to take the time for medleys when there's multiple songs in a single track like parades because those are very expensive tracks to clear and they're also very long. You can get "When You Wish Upon a Star" in a number of places and "Part of Your World" in a number of places. Even though it's originally done and arranged for this parade, do I sacrifice putting on an attraction that nobody has for a collection of songs that people might have copies of even though it may not be particularly that parade and would then only be a twenty or thirty minute album. If you cut it down, then everybody's going to know that it's been cut down and it should be done right.

If you dedicate a CD to a parade or something like that then it makes it much more feasible to put it out there and you'll be able to get the whole thing, whatever we can clear. I've always hesitated in putting those kinds of things on, however hypocritically I've always loved having the fireworks show.

SW: And this current one, "Remember: Dreams Come True" is incredible to hear.

RT: It's just brilliant. I always put the fireworks at the end of the album because it's the finale, it's almost mimicking your day in the park as well.

SW: Do you still enjoy working on the official albums?

RT: Yeah, at first when I started doing this stuff I started doing it because there were specific things that I wanted. I wanted "Haunted Mansion" longer than a minute long and I wanted to hear the parlor music and I wanted to hear the ballroom music. For "Pirates" I wanted to hear the "Pirate" overture, I wanted to hear that bass flute. Coming up the lift and getting off the boat and heading out to New Orleans Square after getting off the attraction and hearing that bass flute come in with the "Yo Ho" theme just brings back so many memories. That's something that very few record labels have, that kind of attachment and emotional attachment and there's a great responsibility with that.

I think the official albums have really grown and I've had a great bunch of people working with me and helping me fight to get this stuff out there and the guys over at Imagineering, I just can't say great enough things about them. They bent over backwards and they weren't clearing their stuff for records before because nobody was asking for it, but the moment I started asking for it and laying out plans for what I wanted to do, they bent over backwards to do everything they can to help the process go smoother and even thinking of special record endings sometimes on some of the tracks they're working with which is great because ultimately it comes down to they have to work on their attraction first and work on their attraction.

It's really an honor to be able to do this.