June 12, 1928 – Disney Legend and Songwriter Richard M. Sherman is Born
“I was all of seventeen in a terrible, terrible depression, and I decided to take a walk. And as I walked, I was hearing music, and I was wondering, ‘Where is this music coming from?’ And I realized it was coming from my own head. So I darted back to the apartment where we had a little piano, and started picking it out on the piano. There was this feeling I had. I’d never done that before…and my father said, ‘What are you doing here? What is this?’ and I said, ‘This is something I felt, I had to say it. This is what I feel.’” – Richard M. Sherman
Born on June 12, 1928, Richard M. Sherman was the youngest son of Rosa and Al Sherman, the latter a songwriter in what was known as “Tin Pan Alley,” an area in New York City that published popular music that dominated the market from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. The Shermans moved to Beverly Hills, California, in 1937. Richard’s interest in music developed in school, where he studied several instruments, including the flute, the clarinet, the piccolo, and the piano.
In 1958, Richard teamed up with his brother Robert, writing the song “Tall Paul” for Disney star Annette Funicello. It was a top-ten hit, eventually peaking at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, which caught the attention of Walt Disney. He contacted the Sherman Brothers and hired them to write for the Disney Studios as staff songwriters. The brothers wrote several songs for Disneyland, including their most well-known song “it’s a small world (after all).” They reached their greatest success with the film Mary Poppins, writing the hits “Feed the Birds,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and the Oscar winning “Chim Chim Cher-ee.” The brothers worked for Walt Disney until his death in 1966, and left the company in 1982 after writing songs for Epcot.
Richard playing one of his compositions in the documentary The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story
The brothers worked on many projects outside of Disney, including the songs for the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Charlotte’s Web, as well as the hit song “You’re Sixteen,” notable for being a Top Ten hit twice, first by Johnny Burnette in 1960 and Ringo Starr in 1973. Although the brothers had their greatest successes as a team, individually they have contributed greatly to the fields of music and literature. Richard released a CD in 2010 called “Forgotten Dreams,” a compilation of his piano compositions. One of his compositions, titled, “Make Way for Tomorrow Today,” was used in the movie Iron Man 2. The brothers were honored in 1990 as Disney Legends, and were awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2008. As Richard once put it, “We both really didn’t necessarily want to be songwriters. What I wanted to be was a great symphonic composer.” The brothers’ life story was chronicled in the 2009 documentary The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story, which told the tale of how they ended up bound together and delighted the children of the world with their fantastical songs.
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