Winnie the Pooh - Mike Curb Congregation



Born on this day in 1882 was famous writer Alan Alexander Milne, better known as A.A. Milne, author of the classic Winnie-the-Pooh children's books. (The hyphens in Winnie-the-Pooh were dropped by Disney, but I am keeping them in this post since we are going to talk about Milne's work.)

Do you know how Winnie-the-Pooh go his name? Way back in World War I, a Canadian Lieutenant named Harry Colebourn bought a little black (female) bear cub from a hunter in Ontario for $20. He named her "Winnie" after the bear's hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Colebourn was on his way to England to fight in the War and brought the bear along with him. While he was fighting in France, he left Winnie in the London Zoo and ultimately ended up donating her to the zoo.

The Milne family took many trips to the London Zoo and A.A. Milne's son, Christopher Robin Milne, loved the little black bear so much that he named his own stuffed bear after her.

The "Pooh" part of Winnie-the-Pooh comes from a swan named "Pooh" that the Milne family met while on a vacation. Pooh the Swan actually makes an appearance in one of the poems in Milne's When We Were Very Young, which coincidentally is also the first appearance of Winnie-the-Pooh.

Milne has a little different explanation of where Pooh got his name, as written at the beginning of Winnie-the-Pooh:

But his arms were so stiff... they stayed up straight in the air for more than a week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off. And I think — but I am not sure — that that is why he is always called Pooh.

Today's cover is Pooh's famous theme song, written by the Sherman Brothers, arranged by MIKE CURB and performed by the MIKE CURB CONGREGATION for their 1995 album, WALT DISNEY'S GREATEST HITS. The song refers to a few new characters, a Horsey named Hee-Haw, a birdy and Chippy the Chipmunk, which as far as I know, have nothing to do with the books or the movies.

Labels: many adventures of winnie the pooh, mike curb, mike curb congregation, showtunes, walt disney's greatest hits, winnie the pooh, winnie the pooh and the blustery day

  ¶ 7:51 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

  Winnie the Pooh - Shanghai Quartet
Way back on April 14 in 1969, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day was awarded an Oscar for Best Short Subject. The short, which originally aired in 1968 before The Horse in the Grey Flannel Suit, is an important one in history because it is the first appearance of Tigger in a Disney production. The story of the storm that floods the 100 Acre Wood and destroys Owl's house was later compiled with the other Pooh shorts to create the feature film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

I have chosen to post this classical version of the Winnie the Pooh theme by SHANGHAI QUARTET. The track comes off HEIGH-HO MOZART, an album in which Disney songs are interpreted in the styles of famous classical composers. Winnie the Pooh is arranged in the style of the famous Russian composer, SERGEI PROKOFIEV.

Sergei Prokofiev was a child prodigy. In 1896, he composed his first piece when he was five and he asked his mother to write it down because he couldn't do it himself. He continued to pursue his music and composed many symphonies, operas and even a film score for the 1938 film Alexander Nevsky.

Prokofiev's life got harder after WWII when the Soviet government decided that his music was a form of Russian Formalism and needed to be censored. This caused Prokofiev to withdraw from society in order to work on his music. It soon became common for theatres to refuse to play his compositions causing Prokofiev to withdraw even further. His health suffered and soon he was only working on his music for about an hour a day.

His last public presentation of his work was his Seventh Symphony in 1952 which he was asked to rewrite the ending to make it more cheery. He died a year later of a cerebral hemorrhage. Prokofiev's life and his work have become important in Russian history as he is considered to be one of the greatest composers in the 20th century.

Winnie the Pooh Shanghai Quartet 1995

Labels: classical, heigh-ho mozart, many adventures of winnie the pooh, sergei prokofiev, shanghai quartet, winnie the pooh, winnie the pooh and the blustery day

  ¶ 7:22 AM 2 Comments Links to this post

  Hip Hip Pooh-ray - Domino & Stormy Seven
Today is the 31st anniversary of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the feature film that took the three Winnie the Pooh short subjects, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, and tied them together in a seamless package.

Today I have chosen to celebrate this anniversary with a song heard at the end of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day from 1968. Hip Hip Pooh-Ray was sung to Pooh after he 'saved' Piglet from almost certain death and to Piglet after he gave up his home for Owl. It was written by the Sherman Brothers and is one of the lesser known Pooh songs.

In 2000, Eurobeat record label A-Beat-C released a series of Eurobeat Disney albums. The fourth in the series focus on Pooh and featured a few obscure Pooh songs, all by Eurobeat's top talent.

One of most recognized names in the Eurobeat is DOMINO who has recorded a number of Disney songs. Domino, whose real name is Allesandra Mirka Gatti, was part of the duo Dave and Domino with her husband until they divorced in 2004. Together, they were one of the top Eurobeat groups and have made a name for themselves since their split.

Thanks to Jamie for turning me onto this album! He doesn't think it's that great (I do agree that it is super cheesy and can get quite annoying a few songs) but the Eurobeat albums are far greater than any of the American produced Dance remix albums.

Hip Hip Pooh-Ray Domino & Stormy Seven 2001

Labels: domino, eurobeat, eurobeat pooh, hip hip pooh-ray, many adventures of winnie the pooh, techno, winnie the pooh and the blustery day

  ¶ 7:10 AM 4 Comments Links to this post