Disney Music Group
Disney Music Group is the music recording and publishing arm of Walt Disney Studios, a division of Disney Entertainment, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. It is located at the studio's headquarters in Burbank, California. The division's subsidiaries consist of two owned record labels—Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records—along with Disney Music Publishing, the publishing entity that administers the company's music, as well as Disney Concerts. Disney Music's Vevo account on YouTube is currently one of the most-viewed YouTube channels as of June 2023.
Background
From the founding of The Walt Disney Company in 1923, music has been key to the success of the organization. Both public-domain and original music were used for the initial cartoons, but, since neither Walt Disney nor Roy O. Disney had any music industry experience, the studio had to rely on outside music publishers. In 1928, Walt Disney released the first Mickey Mouse motion picture, Steamboat Willie, which became the first animated short-subject film with sound. Two other unreleased Mickey Mouse shorts had been previously produced and were subsequently given soundtracks prior to their eventual premieres. In 1929, Walt Disney and Carl Stalling wrote "Minnie's Yoo-Hoo", the first song from the Walt Disney Studios, for Mickey's Follies. On December 16, 1929, the Disney Film Recording Company, Limited was incorporated as a subsidiary of Walt Disney Productions.Saul Bourne at Irving Berlin Music approached the studio after seeing Three Little Pigs with interest in the publishing rights for its theme song, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?". With Disney partnering with Bourne and Berlin, this partnership led to the song being recorded twice by the Don Bestor Orchestra and Bill Scotti Orchestra. The song was a hit and a Depression era anthem.
Walt Disney Productions then began licensing out its music with the record company either selecting its own or Disney's talent to record the music. Until 1936, no one had issued an actual song track recording on disc. RCA's Victor label released a selection of Disney short film music in England with the US release a year later. The Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs soundtrack album released by Victor was the first feature film soundtrack. Disney had sold its rights to the Snow White music to Bourne Co. Music as they needed more funds to complete the film.
In 1938, Fantasound—the first Surround sound system—was designed and tested by Walt Disney Productions for the release of Fantasia. In 1943, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated Walt Disney Productions for two Academy Award categories in recognition of Bambi; Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture and Music, Best Song for its song, "Love is a Song".
In addition to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney also sold the music publishing rights to Pinocchio and Dumbo to Bourne. To date, all attempts to reacquire the music rights to the three films had failed. After Bambi, the effects of World War II reduced the production of new feature length animation, with Disney either making feature length live films with some animation or themed short film into anthology films like Make Mine Music. The latter films contain the bulk of the more commercial music which was done by recording stars thus released by their record company.
In April 1947, the Walt Disney Music Company was incorporated, with Fred Raphael putting the company together in late 1949 to publish and license songs from Cinderella. Cinderella records appeared in stores along with other merchandise in 1949 before the 1950 release of the movie. The original RCA 78 RPM multi-disc-album release was number 1 on the Billboard magazine pop charts and as a result, Disney Music was moving rapidly into the Big Business category. While WDMC did not produce the records, Raphael did handle the selection, performance and recording.
James Alexander "Jimmy" Johnson, Jr., a fired Disney publicity staff member who wanted to stay at Disney, moved through a series of jobs there in the traffic department, and then accounting. After a stint in the military, he became assistant to the corporate secretary, then handled merchandising issues among other additional duties. With Roy Disney's split of the merchandising division from Walt Disney Productions, Johnson became head of the merchandising division's publication department in 1950 and took on managing business affairs for the Walt Disney Music Company.
Raphael took the WDMC into creating original non-film music. WDMC had several successful songs outside of the films, including Mule Train by Frankie Laine, "Would I Love You " by Patti Page and "Shrimp Boats" by Jo Stafford, however for every non-film hit there were a score more that flopped. While Alice in Wonderland was a first run failure, its songs became evergreen for the music company with multiple stars performing the music. Raphael moved his office off lot to Hollywood and opened a WDMC in New York.
Walt Disney Productions formed the Wonderland Music Company in 1951.
Disney's next push into music came from The Mickey Mouse Club as eight 6-inch 78 RPM records for the show hit shelves the week it premiered on television. Normal 7-inch 45 RPM versions were cut and released later, both through manufacturing partners of the Walt Disney Music Company. After a year, Golden Records and Am-Par Records turned over production of the show's music back to Disney, leading to the creation of the Disneyland Records label in 1956.
History
The Walt Disney Company traces the Disney Music Group back to the founding of Disneyland Records on February 4, 1956. In that year, the Walt Disney Music Company's Disneyland Records record company was founded on the strength of Fess Parker's 1954 hit recording of the "Ballad of Davy Crockett" using the Disneyland label, which was licensed to Columbia Records. The Disneyland label issued its first album, A Child's Garden of Verses. Also, Disneyland Records issued Parker's "Wringle Wrangle" single from the "Westward Ho the Wagons!" film within a year of starting operations; the single became a hit.In 1959, Walt Disney Productions founded Buena Vista Records as a Disney-endorsed sub-brand without the "Disney" name; the inaugural release from the label was "Annette", the self-titled album featuring vocalist Annette Funicello.
In November 1989, The Walt Disney Company founded Hollywood Records after acquiring the valuable Queen catalog.
The Lyric Street Records label was founded in July 1997 as a division of Hollywood Records. In August 1997 Mammoth Records was purchased for $25 million to act as an independent music label within Disney.
Buena Vista Music Group
The industry recognized founding of the group was in March 1998 with the reorganization in Disney that brought all Disney music labels into one unit, Buena Vista Music Group, in the Walt Disney Studios. The group consisted of Hollywood Records, Buena Vista Records, Lyric Street Records and Mammoth Records with Walt Disney Records and Disney Music Publishing transferred out of Disney Consumer Products.In September 2005, BVMG signed with EMI for distribution of its albums in the UK, Europe, South Africa and the Middle East replacing Warner Music Group. In November 2006, Disney Music Publishing and Warner/Chappell Music Inc. agreed to a licensing agreement for Europe and South America major markets. In 2006, BVMG launched a concert production arm, Buena Vista Concerts starting with The Cheetah Girls: The Party's Just Begun Tour and High School Musical: The Concert.
Disney Music Group
In April 2007, Disney decided to semi-retire the Buena Vista brand from the group's name. In November 2008, Disney Music Group formed the Disney Pearl label in conjunction with a multi-part deal with Yanni.Lyric Street launched a subsidiary label, Carolwood Records, in October 2008 which was soon shuttered in November 2009. On April 14, 2010, Disney Music Group announced the closure of the Lyric Street label with some bands transferred to other branches of Disney Music Group and others dropped altogether.
On January 31, 2012, DMG chair Bob Cavallo retired with Ken Bunt succeeding him as head of DMG with a promotion to executive vice president from his post as senior vice president of marketing. Bunt became president on March 27, 2013. A unified licensing department was formed with in Disney Music Group by December 2012 under vice president of licensing Dominic Griffin.
Lucy Hale signed with Hollywood Records' Lyric Street sublabel in June 2012 indicated a return to country music changed to DMG Nashville with her single release "You Sound Good To Me" in the 2nd quarter of 2014.
In February 2016, Disney Music Group, in collaboration with Philips Lighting, launched LightVibes. In January 2017, DMG acquired the distribution rights to the entire Star Wars music catalog from Sony Classical; the soundtrack albums were then released by Walt Disney Records in digital formats the same day. Disney digitally remastered and reissued the original Star Wars soundtrack albums in physical formats on May 4, 2018.
In early April 2017, DMG and Universal Music Group Nashville relaunched Buena Vista Records as a joint venture label for country music and worldwide country music genre projects with the label's first signed act of CB30 duo of brothers, Christian and Brody. The company and DigiTour Media formed in June 2017, RMI Recordings, a new label for "digital-first" talent.
During American Idol's Disney Night on April 29, 2018, DCappella, Disney Music Group's new a cappella singing group, made their debut. On Friday, August 23, 2019, Disney Music Group debuted their first podcast, For Scores, a composer interview series, and kicked off at D23.