SEPTEMBER 2008 - WORKING ON RE-RELEASING VINTAGE RECORDS

Scott Wolf: You do so much work on the classic vintage Disney albums, is that officially part of your job?

Randy Thornton: No. It started because I just had a passion for it and I was the one that was pushing for them. Ted Kryczko, my patron saint, he's the business guy. He's also creative, but he's the one I directly answer to and he understands the passion, he understands the history, and he also understands how to run a business. If I ran the record label all that vintage stuff would have been out ten years ago but the record company would have been out of business ten years ago as well. It's a balance.

The record label has had some really great successes and because of those successes we've been able to spend the money and restore a lot of these old masters and transfer them so it all kind of balances out.

I get a lot of credit for doing a lot of things with Disney music but I just happen to be the gatekeeper at the moment. I feel I have a responsibility to these people that inspired me and so many others. Being the guy to keep this stuff around and having it restored and having it protected is an incredible honor.

To have this stuff back out there and people listening to them again, it's really great. I guess the whole responsibility of it evolved into what I do. It's part of what I do and to me it's the most fun part. Now I've been there, it'll be twenty two years in January. I have all that history of being there at the label plus my Disney fandom and knowing the history beforehand, it just made me the person to do all of this stuff. A lot of it is me going, "Hey, how about releasing Ukulele Ike?" We've had some great artists. Louis Armstrong, Mary Martin, Louis Prima, Darlene Gillespie, Annette, Hayley Mills, a lot of really great stuff.

SW: So what's coming out next?

RT: Well, one that's coming out in October is the only new recent iTunes that I was able to do because of other projects was the WDL version of the "Sleeping Beauty" soundtrack. (NOTE: The WDL Series was marketed as a premium line of soundtracks rather than children's albums.)

I had restored the soundtrack from the original recordings back in '96 I believe. Those elements that I used for that is what prompted them to redo the orchestra and score for the new Blu-Ray disc as well.

SW: So there's that restored soundtrack that was released but the one on iTunes is going to be the original soundtrack from the record?

RT: Yes, because Tutti (Camarata) had Mary Costa (the voice of Princess Aurora) come in and re-record her songs for the album. It's different than what'sin the original soundtrack. Some of the orchestra pieces are the same as what's in the original soundtrack but they're edited differently, but her songs were re-recorded specifically for the album. Like "I Wonder" is much more of a song listening experience on this album than it is in the movie or in the soundtrack.

So I figured with the Blu-Ray coming out and the "Sleeping Beauty" soundtrack is already up on iTunes and we're also re-releasing the physical product again, but now this version of the "Sleeping Beauty" soundtrack is available again.