Coming soon to my bookshelf and probably yours is a book called The Walt Disney Records Story, detailing the history of Disney record albums. It's by Tim Hollis and Gregory Ehrbar, and I am delighted to reprint this e-mail from Gregory telling me more in my eternal quest to find out about the Sandpipers…
As it happens, I can add to the Sandpipers story. Bob McGrath is a friend of mine and he said Mike Stewart was not the Broadway librettist, but a vocalist and vocal contractor who was responsible for getting him early work. Mitch Miller directed the early Golden Records with a group called The Sandpipers or the The Sandpiper Quartet. Mitch also played oboe occasionally on them. Jimmy Carroll was the arranger for Golden Records and Miller's Columbia sing along LP's.
The singers' names you have listed are accurate. Sally Sweetland, by the way, is now in her 90's and along with her husband Lee, still teaches and sings in California. Tim Hollis and I contacted her for our Disneyland Records book.
I think many of the Bugs Bunny vocals were done in NY also by Gil Mack, who was a frequent actor on the CBS Mystery Theater radio show. Frank Milano (Odie Colognie on King Leonardo) did a couple of Yogi Bear LPs too.
When Miller went on to great success at Columbia, Jim Timmens conducted most of the early 60's Golden records with a group either called the Sandpipers, the Glow-Tones, or the Golden Singers/Chorus. They are distinctive by the Timmens sound he used for Terrytoons and some Lantz TV stuff. Listen for lots of woodwinds and a mellower tone. One of his frequent singers was Rose Marie Jun, whose Broadway demos for some huge shows are now on CDs called Broadway First Takes. She was also in Needles and Pins with Streisand.
Speaking of CDs, your readers will be delighted to learn that many Golden Records were reissued on CD. Drive Entertainment bought the library and worked with them on compiling discs and writing notes. They actually did about two dozen, but only a handful were released initially. You can find an my amazon listmania list at this address.
When Drive Entertainment folded, Image Entertainment / Liberty International got the masters and released even more Golden LP's, but were not told about my involvement (that's showbiz), so their CDs were retitled and contain little clue about which Golden Records were their sources. They're on amazon and towerrecords.com too, almost all under confusing and inaccurate names.
All interesting…but I was under the impression that Allen Swift was the voice of Odie Colognie and that Frank Milano was Mr. Wizard the Lizard in the "Tooter Turtle" cartoons on the King Leonardo show. I do own at least one Yogi Bear record from the Golden folks that credits Milano for voices. Anyway, thanks to Gregory for the info and when his Disneyland records book is available, I'll sure plug the hell out of it here.