Search - Rex Allen :: Archive Collection - 16 Golden Hits

On Walt Disney Records Label, historic

microjoe | 08/26/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In addition to his other country singing work, the great Rex Allen lent his unique deep western voice to the Walt Disney Company on many occasions. He was a favorite narrator for Walt in their studio theatrical movies such as "The Legend of Lobo", nature featurettes, and television episodes like "Run, Appaloosa, Run", along with storybook LP records, many that recreated movies such as "Old Yeller". Rex was inducted into Disney's version of a hall of fame, Disney Legends, in 1996.



He also recorded music for Disney like this CD, which is from an LP originally released in 1965 through their "Buena Vista Records" label, catalog #BP-3307, and re-released here on CD for the first time in 1998 under catalog #60409. The re-release producer Randy Thornton, ensured that the quality of sound is even better than the original release. Rex recorded a whopping 11 LP's for Walt Disney.



This CD features a total of 16 tracks, some country standards like "Lazy River". But it features official Disney material too like the title song from the 8 episode TV series "Swamp Fox", and a cover of "Pretty Irish Girl" from the Disney movie, "Darby O'Gill and the Little People".



Most amazing of all is the original recording of "Who Shot a Hole in My Sombrero" that was used 10 years later in the "America Sings" attraction at Disneyland. This was a revolving carousel theatre in the 1970's that showed the history of American music, performed by audioanimatronic animals, from the revolution up to the Bicentennial. Many of those animals are in "Splash Mountain" show now. During the western music portion of the show, the song was a comedy break. But after it had been in awhile, someone decided that the heavy Spanish/Mexican accent and some of the lines might be considered politically incorrect, and they changed the song. Rex re-recorded it without the offending lines or the accent, and the show went on. This is the only place you can still hear the original song in it's entirety.



Good luck finding this CD, they were made in a limited edition of I think less than 10,000 every CD case is numbered. Mine is #492. They were in very few stores and you had to know where to go to order this and a few other by mail or by calling 1-888-WDR-SING. This was part of a campaign called "Disney's Archive Collection" to test the market to see if there was an audiance for re-releases of the huge stable of records that Disney has in the vaults. The other 4 released at the time were from Burl Ives, Hayley Mills, Louis Prima, and Ukelele Ike. They did not sell well, so Disney halted the campaign. Now they sell the titles through kiosks at Disneyland that print dozens of titles on a CD on Demand system. Many of those may turn up here at Amazon in the used CD's, we can hope."