Walt Disney Records producer Randy Thornton recently finished three projects at Soundworks based on the “Lost Chords” books by Russell Schroeder. The hard cover books (available from Amazon.com) contain songs from classic Disney animated films that were never recorded. Producer Randy Thornton searched the Disney vaults and found rare original demos of the songs. These demo recordings are included on the products along with the new recordings, and in the case of Cinderella (The Collectors Edition), the original Soundtrack is also included. With the help of arranger Jerry Cleveland the songs were brought to life just as if they had been recorded for the movie. Cinderella was the most recent release, available as a collectors edition CD or as download content from iTunes and Amazon. Engineer Jeff Sheridan and producer Randy Thornton decided that real instruments were to be used in these recordings to capture the feel and sound of these classic songs. We were privileged to work with the incredible vocal talents of Kate Higgins, Jennifer Paz, Juliana Hansen, Jeff Gunn, Rob Paulson, Corey Burton and Ty Taylor, these singers “put the icing on the cake” with their vocal talents and we feel that each one of them made these recordings sound just like they would have had they been released with the movie. In the case of The Aristocats, we were once again blessed with the talents of composer Richard Sherman who helped direct the musicians and singers for his two song contributions to the Lost Chords, How Much You Mean to Me/Court Me Slowly and Le Jazz Hot. Richard’s visits to Soundworks are always special, he is inspiring and full of life, we are so lucky to have the original composer of the songs right here in the studio to help us with the history and the original intent of the song in the animated feature. With the Cinderella, Aristocats and Resuers albums behind him, Randy was asked which one was his favorite and he responded by saying “I can’t pick just one, it seems that my favorite is always the song we were working on last”. Engineer Jeff Sheridan agrees, “these sound just like classic Disney songs, I guess that is because they are!”. We hope to continue with this product line with Randy and Walt Disney Records, it is like unearthing a rare artifact from the past and bringing it back to life!
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