Buddy Baker

Born

  • January 4, 1918
  • Springfield, IL

Died

  • July 26, 2002
  • Sherman Oaks, CA

Real Name

  • Norman Dale Baker

Marriages

  • Charlotte

Buddy Baker

Composer and orchestra leader Buddy Baker had a long and illustrious career. His resume included some of the top names in show business, but he is perhaps best known today for his work with Walt Disney. Over the course of 28 years he composed and conducted for some of the most memorable Disney films, television programs and theme park attractions.

Born and raised in Springfield, Illinois, Baker learned to read and play music at an early age. He studied piano at age four and trumpet at age eleven. In high school he formed his own group. He also played in the school band and the Boy Scout band. He went on to study music at Southwest Baptist University, where he received a doctorate, devising his own system of harmony.

In 1938 he moved to Los Angeles and began writing arrangements for commercial orchestras. He was so in demand that he gave up performing altogether. In the early 1940s he landed the job of musical director on Bob Hope's radio program, where he brought Stan Kenton on the show. Baker's arrangement of ''And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine'' became Kenton's first big hit. Baker also worked on several other radio shows, including those of Jack Benny and Eddie Cantor.

In the late 1940s Baker began to teach arranging and orchestration at Los Angeles City College while still keeping busy recording with various orchestras and singers. In 1954 he began his long association with Disney when former student George Bruns, who was working as a composer at Disney, found himself overloaded and asked Baker to help out with the show Davy Crockett. Baker soon was put in charge as musical director of a new television show called The Mickey Mouse Club, which required new material to be written and learned in a day. He also worked on several other Disney television programs, including Zorro and Swamp Fox.

In 1960 Baker worked on his first of many feature films, Toby Tyler. His work can also be heard in such Disney classics as The Gnome-Mobile, $1,000,000 Duck, The Fox and the Hound, The Apple Dumpling Gang, the Merlin Jones films, and the original Winnie the Pooh features. He also composed music for the Cannes award-winning featurette, Donald in Mathmagicland. For his work on the film Napoleon and Samantha he received an Academy Award nomination. He also composed the music for several theme park attractions, most notably ''The Haunted Mansion,'' ''It's a Small World,'' and the Epcot Center.

In 1985 he began teaching a class in scoring for animation at the University of Southern California and in 1987 took over as head of the program. Buddy Baker passed away in 2002.