On Wednesday, the Periscope community had the opportunity to “visit” the New York Botanical Gardens with Clay Aiken. While following the stream on the grounds, Clay sang some Disney music to us. He sounded great as he walked by the water!
On Thursday, one of his friends who visited the grounds with him, sent a tweet and Clay answered:
#Disney songs in my head this morning. @clayaiken, this is your fault. #MULAN #beaman
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The hashtag says it all!!
Silly? Yes…but I couldn’t help but think about Clay and Disney. I can hear Clay in my mind as he performs the song, Proud of Your Boy.
It reminds me of an interview with Alan Menken, the man who is said to be the musical genius of Disney productions. Besides writing the music for The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, Alan wrote the music to Aladdin.
Scott Wolf at Mouse Clubhouse asked Menken many questions about his career as a composer. The answers allowed the readers to get to know more about the beautiful music and the composer behind it.
One of the last questions and its answer was wonderful to read:
Question: Do you have any favorite memories from all your work with Disney?
Answer: There’s so many, but I remember when we went in and they were re-releasing “Aladdin” (on DVD) and we went in and did “Proud of Your Boy” with full orchestra. It only existed as a piano vocal demo for like fifteen years, and then Danny Troob came back to do the orchestration and Clay Aiken came in and they started playing this song. You could feel it; it felt right out of what we had done for “Aladdin,” I was emotionally blown away.
I have always wished that Clay could sing more for Disney!
So…lets go back to 2004 and hear Clay sing Proud of Your Boy
Recording Proud of Your Boy
Rehearsing With Menken
