29 replies to this topic

[DavidG]

Eddie Sotto once mentioned in an interview that his Main Street USA featured 11 channels of background music. They're all individual loops, many of which play in more than one place. Thanks to Eddie, Eyore's blog on this site and a few personal visits I believe that I've finally figured out how they're distributed. I post it here as it may help future playlist research!

In no particular order:

• A.M. Area Loop -- Plays at Station Plaza, on Town Square, Main Street and Central Plaza.
  
• P.M. Area Loop -- As above.
  
• Arcade Loop --  Plays in Liberty and Discovery Arcades.
  
• Stride Piano Loop --  Town Square Photography, Main Street Motors, Market House Deli.
  
• Band Organ Loop -- Boardwalk Candy Palace, Disney & Co., Plaza West Boutique.
  
• Slow Ragtime & Waltz Loop --  Emporium, Disney Clothiers, Ribbons & Bows, Storybook Store, Plaza East Boutique.
  
• Disney Loop -- Walt's Restaurant, Lilly's Boutique.
  
• Ragtime Piano Loop -- Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlor, Cable Car Bake Shop.
  
• Player Piano Loop -- Casey's Corner.
  
• Country Heartland Loop -- Victoria's Restaurant.
  
• Elegant Waltz Loop -- Plaza Gardens, Harrington's/Disneyana, Salon Mickey.

That should cover it...

[eyore]

Looks like a visit to Victorias Restaurant may be in order (I've never been in it).
Wonder what a "country heartland loop will contain.
It's designed to be a mid-western Victorian boarding house. Can't even guess at the audio!

[DavidG]

Heh, well, that's the term Eddie Sotto used. It's a music loop that wouldn't feel too out of place in Frontierland and includes "Battle Cry of Freedom" as heard on the Disneyland box set.

[needmagic]

What ... no visit to Casey's and break a tradition?  Shame on you!  Seriously, there was only one active speaker in May this year ... you guessed it, right above the entrance from Main Street.  Mmm hot dog with cheese!

[eyore]

I did see some photos of croques served at Victoria's - they looked rather nice
Alternate suppers maybe.

If the rest of the audio is similar, it may be the Ken Burns Civil wars series then. Eddie Sotto  bought the entire series for DLRP as mentioned in this thread here
Battle Cry of Freedom - The Blockade House
That, however, throws up a problem. The Musical History of Disneyland lists it as from the Blockade House and is a guitar instrumental. The Ken Burns version appears to be a piano.
The Civil War (samples here)
That thread does remark that it's from the unreleased music from that film (now owned by Disney).
That's bad news. No commercial sources so no reconstruction.
Guess I'll have to try for a live recording next month

[eyore]

Thinking about this, could the loop be the American Adventure loop? I notice Battle Cry of Freedom is in that too and those tracks would fit the theme of Victoria's.
I really need to get that live recording (if only to make me feel less bad about having visited the park at least once a year since opening and never having been in there)!
What's the betting it's closed at the end of July!

[Filmographik]

Eddie Sotto, you're my champion :-)     Thank for "The List" !

[eyore]

Needmagic spotted something interesting.
We have a full recording from the Cable Car Bake Shop and can confirm that it does play ragtime piano (which does sound a little "player piano" style with lots of medleys in there - a usual thing with player piano rolls). However, a partial recording of Casey's shows that it also shares the loop with the Gibson Girl/Cable Car Bake Shop.

Now that raises a question - Did Eddie Sotto decide that, as both were similar types of loops to use the same one for both sections in the above list or has one of the loops changed since 1992?
If so, which is the original that now plays in all three locations? Did they move the Casey's loop to the Gibson Girl/Cable Car or the Gibson Girl/Cable Car loop to Casey's.
I tend to lean to the idea that, as the remit was so similar in style, he used the same loop for both areas rather than make a separate loop and combined the two ideas (ragtime piano/Player piano) into one.
Any thoughts on this?.It seems unlikely that he would use some tracks from one for a second, similar loop. True we don't have a full recording of Casey's to confirm every track is identical (yet) but enough to use as a pointer to them being the same.

[DavidG]

Hmm… interesting. I'll admit that it crossed my mind ("why didn't they just make one loop?") but I hadn't actually gotten around to comparing them. I suppose that it's possible that Eddie misremembered after over 20 years but he did seem to have some record of the process. I'll have to see if I can find out more! Like you said, it's completely possible that they replaced one of the loops as they did with Walt's and Salon Mickey's loops.

[DavidG]

Aaand an hour after posting that I read Eddie Sotto commenting on the Gibson Girl loop on another forum. Apparently last week when he was in the park he recognized a particular track they recorded specifically for that loop ("The Gibson Bathing Girl") so if the two loops are identical it's definitely still the original Gibson Girl loop.

[eyore]

That's good to know. We dug out another short clip of Casey's (again, so noisy it was decided it wasn't worth spending any more time there) and identified more GG tracks so it's possible that either (a) he fulfilled his remit as the two were so similar or (2) the Casey's loop has changed at some time.
It's also good (!) news that he recorded tracks specifically for the loop which will answer why we can't ID some of them from commercial sources.
Shame we don't know which track it is!
Here's the sheet music (public domain now - this is from a public library)  1907
https://jscholarship...le/1774.2/12848
Doubt I can play keyboard well enough to get the tune but I may be able to input into some music software I have note by note and play it as a midi file!
At least it was recorded for the loop, not written for the loop.
Thank you for this extra information. I don't think a recording of this tune exists (I can't find one anyway).

[eyore]

Managed to notate it in midi so now to listen to the loop to see if it's the same and if I can find it
Ah, the things we do for our hobby.

[DavidG]

So, did you manage? I'll have to try and play it myself some time.

[eyore]

I'm pleased to say that I was able to clearly identify the Gibson Bathing Girl playing in the live recording
Without your information DavidG, that would have remained an "unknown" as I have been unable to find any recording of it at all.
It was written in 1907 so fits perfectly with Main Street. Thank you.
Just the other dozen to find now. I wonder how many more obscure tracks he recorded (that aren't on CDs). This is going to be a toughie I think.

Re Casey's, I seem to recall hearing Take me out to the ball game playing in there at one time but it certainly now shares at least four of the Gibson Girl tracks and in order. One I shall be checking this year.  As a thought, I wonder if the player piano in there played a loop originally? I'm sure it appeared to in the early days (not live, of course, but a recording similar to the way Disney & Co worked with the organ). My wife and I recall (going back to the very early days of the park) that the music played in the back room but not in the serving area - in fact we remember looking for where the music was coming from and expected to see either a player piano or a live pianist playing in there. Can't think why we would go looking for the music if it was coming out of speakers above our heads? We found, of course, the player piano. Looking at videos on Youtube, the player piano seems to have been removed. It was just on the left as you entered the back room. Seems to be extra seats there now. Maybe they changed the loop when they removed it? Speculation I know but seems logical. Take the piano out to make extra room, remove the loop as it's no longer there, play the Gibson Girl loop as it's similar. Guess we may never know now. I'll check on the piano and see if it really has gone.

[DavidG]

I guess I was too young to have paid enough attention to those details... Take Me Out to the Ballgame does seem to ring a bell in connection with Casey's Corner, though.

So does the Gibson Girl loop include any needledrop tracks at all? On another blog, Eddie noted that the loop's music was inspired by "Crazy Otto." The post didn't specify if that meant they simply hired a performer to play in that style or if they used any commercially released tracks.

[eyore]

We've yet to ID a single source for this loop (bad enough just getting the titles)  so we are thinking "Disney made" at the moment.
We've been through everything we can find by him and in his style and no cigar! Music ID software (usually great on loop tracks) ID nothing at all.

Unfortunately I was too busy enjoying the park to pay much attention to the loops for the fist 10 years so often have to rely on my video clips for early days. There were a lot of changes 93-95 when they were fighting for survival and the changes (although subtle) were quite widespread especially in the restaurants and souvenir shops. Every shop was themed as was every restaurant (the beef sandwiches and trifle at Toad Hall were nice). One of the few survivors was the glass blowing shop in the Castle. The small atalls in the lands sold land-exclusive things only (each plush toy followed the theme so a cowboy Mickey only available in Frontierland etc). They also stopped the Disneyland (the Eurodisney) labelling on things like the paper covers of drinking straws, character head teaspoons and, possibly the biggest change, the free salad carts in most of the restaurants. Now, as you know, most shops and restaurants share what they offer . Small changes but a lot of them. I really wish digital cameras had been more available back then. You thought twice before taking photos with 24 or 36 on a roll plus the cost of printing. I bring back 400+ photos now! It's also difficult to pinpoint which year you recall hearing the music - 1995 or 2005 ? I didn't start recording until 2001 and then on a tiny tape recorder (the ones you used in an office).

[DavidG]

Yeah, similar here. In the first years, photos were more of the most obvious parts of the park, and we never thought to take pictures or video of too many of the details which would start disappearing soon after. I did start audio recordings in 1998 (on my dad's DAT, later on MiniDisc) but I still didn't bother with the more obscure area music loops.

So it looks like the Gibson Girl loop is custom-recorded then. That's good to know.

[eyore]

Good news/Bad news.
The good news (and the bad) is that we have IDed 3 tracks on the Gibson Girl/ Cable Car loop which are needledrop and from the same CD.
Ragtime Classics
The IDed tracks are
Springtime Rag
Topliner Rag
The Pearls.

Looks like this may be a combination of needledrop and specially recorded (or it's been altered over the years).
Just a thought but I wonder if they did a Colonel Hathi with this (retain some of the original loop and add others to make a new one). That "could" explain why the same loop plays in Casey's as well although it should have had its own - maybe a new combination of both loops.
The Gibson loop is a little odd with tunes like You Made me Love You/ Oh You beautiful Doll/  Shine on Harvest Moon / In the good old Summertime and By the Light of the Silvery Moon mixed in with classic ragtime tunes. The former would sound more like what should have been playing at Casey's. I don't see them as ragtime. The Wally Rose items however are classic ragtime along with about half of the loop.

[SoundmanG]

I may be able to add to the fun here.  I'm not sure where it plays (or played) but I did record a tack piano track that was to be used somewhere on Main Street at DLP.  I understood that it was going to be played at one of the restaurants however I'm not sure where it actually ended up.  What I do know is that we hired a piano player,  rented an old tack piano, set up the mic's and hit record.  He played for a couple of hours almost non-stop while we recorded everything.  There was no music, no list or anything written down, just a guy, a piano and a lot of blank tape.

For the trivia buffs out there this session was recorded on Thursday, September 12th, 1991at Lions Share Studios here in L.A. (for some reason I kept notes and pictures from this session).

[DavidG]

Oh, awesome! That must be the Gibson Girl loop we've been talking about as it seems to be the only custom-recorded piano loop on Main Street.    The description seems to fit as well.

It would be great to learn more if you have any further notes.