Biography
By the late 1940s Disney already ranked among the leading producers of family and children’s films when it launched the Walt Disney Music Company in 1949. That publishing arm began handling the studio’s film scores the following year with Cinderella. During the 1950s the company created two in-house labels: Disneyland Records, devoted to soundtracks, narrated stories, and selections tied to The Mickey Mouse Club, and Buena Vista, which issued material performed by Disney contract players including Fess Parker, Annette Funicello, and Darlene Gillespie along with individual tracks drawn from its theatrical releases. In 1989 the separate imprints were merged under the single banner Walt Disney Records, an entity that both re-released vintage scores and introduced read-along and sing-along sets, anthologies spanning older and newer Disney compositions, and original albums for current productions. Several of those contemporary soundtracks achieved multi-platinum status, among them The Lion King, Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin, and The Little Mermaid. Cinematic and musical momentum carried forward into the twenty-first century, fueled by the acquisitions of Pixar, The Muppets, Marvel, and Star Wars.
Albums
Singles
