Most of the work Randy Newman did was for Pixar and not for Disney. But they were both named Disney legends in 2001, so I think it is fair to list them together nevertheless. Leigh Harline and Ned Washington were not a regular Song Writing team, as far as I know this was the only project they worked together on for Disney. Considering that Harline did score a best film music nomination for “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” and won the award for “Pinocchio”, I guess it is no wonder that he didn’t see eye to eye with Disney on that matter. And while Leigh Harline’s work on animated shorts, especially the Silly Symphonies, left quite a mark, he left the studios in 1941 after a row with Walt Disney, who allegedly didn’t like the music for “Pinocchio”. One certainly can’t make a list like this without mentioning the two minds responsible for When you wish upon a star, Disney semi-official anathema, which resulted their first academy award for best song. The only reason those two are not higher is because I am not sure how great their overall influence on the movies actually was. Ned Washington was a very talented lyricist, who was also responsible for the text of Baby Mine, but he rarely worked for Disney. There are even some Disney Legends which didn’t make the cut, either because they only worked on one single (alas remarkable) project, or because they, for some reason or another, didn’t work on that many animated movie projects. There are a lot of famous musicians who didn’t end up on the list at all or in a very low spot. I also did the ranking based on the contribution for Disney specifically, with an emphasis on the animated features, and not based on their overall body of work. In a lot of the old productions it is a little bit sketchy which musician did what, and some stayed unaccredited for their work.įor this list, I only ranked musicians which worked on multiple projects for Disney – so as much as I dig Jerry’s Goldsmith’s work on Mulan, or Peggy Lee’s contribution to Lady and the Tramp, they were not considered. If you don’t count the package movies and Fantasia (which I only took into account as secondary achievements for this list), there are only 20 movies made before the Disney Renaissance, as opposed to 30 to consider for the time after, due to the increased number of movie releases.Ģ. That is not a slight to the musicians from the older movies, but a result of two factors:ġ.

You’ll notice that most of the composers I listed are from the 1990s onwards.

On the other hand, though, it might be a good idea to introduce some of the most prolific Disney Composers and Songwriters before discussing their work. Perhaps I should discuss some of the soundtracks first before making the list. This article might be a little bit premature.

Randy newman movies