``Mannheim Steamroller Meets the Mouse''; Walt Disney Records and Mannheim Steamroller Put a New Spin on Disney Classics.

BURBANK, Calif.--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--March 9, 1999--Walt Disney Records is partnering with American Gramaphone to develop an adult contemporary album that will feature the unique sound of Mannheim Steamroller interpreting classic Disney songs.

The album, titled "Mannheim Meets the Mouse," is scheduled for a March 1999 release.

Mannheim fans can get a special preview of the new music in Mannheim Steamroller's current Christmas concert tour, in which one of the songs from the upcoming album will be showcased.

Consumers can place advance orders on the CD in a special pre-sell offer communicated in the Fall Mannheim Steamroller catalog (and inside every Mannheim catalog order shipped to consumers) for a numbered, collectable picture CD and limited-edition "Mannheim Steamroller Meets the Mouse" lithograph produced by Walt Disney Art Classics.

The pre-sell offer is also available through Walt Disney Records' exclusive online retailer, N2K.

"To be associated with a company like Disney, whose catalog of music is so rich and spans so many generations, is an arranger's dream," said Chip Davis, the creative force behind Mannheim Steamroller, as well as the founder and president of American Gramaphone.

"The children of yesterday are the parents of today. By refreshing these songs in the contemporary, high-tech Mannheim Steamroller style parents have enjoyed for so many years, we hope to create music that adults and children can listen to together."

One of the most successful innovators in music, the Grammy Award-winning Davis has helped transform instrumental music (introducing adult contemporary or New Age more than 20 years ago), pop music (by mixing classical and rock), and even Christmas music (with the biggest-selling series of Christmas albums in history).

Each of his seven adult contemporary "Fresh Aire" albums has been certified gold while "Mannheim Steamroller Christmas" and "A Fresh Aire Christmas" are each quintuple platinum, "Christmas In the Aire" is quadruple platinum and "Christmas Live" is gold. "Fresh Aire VII" was awarded the 1990 Grammy for Best New Age Recording and "Stille Nacht (Silent Night)" from "Mannheim Steamroller Christmas" was Grammy-nominated for Best Instrumental Arrangement.

"The opportunity to introduce the genius of Chip Davis and the innovation of Mannheim Steamroller to the Disney music audience is a dream come true," stated Liz Kalodner, vice president, Walt Disney Records. "We are thrilled to be entering into this partnership with American Gramaphone and look forward to an exciting year."

As the leader in family audio entertainment, Walt Disney Records consistently dominates Billboard magazine's "Top Kid Audio" chart and has earned more than 200 gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards from the R.I.A.A. for albums including "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," "Aladdin" and the top-selling album of 1994, "The Lion King" (now certified at 10 million units).

In 1998, Walt Disney Records became part of The Buena Vista Music Group headed by industry veteran Bob Cavallo. In addition to WDR, The Buena Vista Music Group includes Hollywood Records, Mammoth Records, Lyric Street Records and Disney Music Publishing. Experience the magic of Walt Disney Records online at www.Disney.com/DisneyRecords or direct by telephone: 888/WDR-SING.

                       MANNHEIM MEETS THE MOUSE
                             TRACK LISTING

"Chim Chim Cher-ee" -- From "Mary Poppins"

"Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" -- From "Song of the South"

"Under the Sea" -- From "The Little Mermaid"

"Hakuna Matata" -- From "The Lion King"

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" - From "Mary Poppins"

"Go The Distance" - From "Hercules"

"The Ballad of Davy Crocket" - From "Davy Crocket"

"Heigh-Ho" - From "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"

"You've Got A Friend in Me" - From "Toy Story"

"When You Wish Upon a Star" - From "Pinocchio"

"Reflection" - From "Mulan"

"Mickey Mouse March" - From "The Mickey Mouse Club"

CHIP DAVIS

Biography

One of the most successful innovators and entrepreneurs in music, Grammy Award-winning Chip Davis has helped transform instrumental music (when he introduced what is now called Adult Contemporary or New Age more than 20 years ago), pop music (by mixing classical and rock), country music (creating progressive country) and even Christmas music (with the biggest-selling series of Christmas albums in history).

Each of his seven "Fresh Aire" albums has been certified gold while "Mannheim Steamroller Christmas" and "A Fresh Aire Christmas" are each quintuple platinum (sales of five million copies), "Christmas In The Aire" is quadruple platinum and "Christmas Live" is gold. Since the mid-Eighties, Mannheim Steamroller has also been one of the highest-grossing concert attractions at Christmastime.

"We've captured the hearts of people who love Christmas," said Davis. "There's no star name, people can't relate to the time period the music comes from, and it's instrumental. Most don't even know how to pronounce Mannheim. But the music touches a nerve. It's an emotional experience."

Yet though the musician-arranger-composer-songwriter-producer has enjoyed one of the most intriguing careers, from music teacher to No. 1 hit-maker to the man behind Mannheim Steamroller (whose albums have sold more than 28 million copies) to founder and president of American Gramaphone, a phenomenally successful independent record company, Davis has largely remained an enigma.

Undoubtedly one explanation for his relative anonymity is that he's based not on the east or west coasts but rather right in the middle of the country, in Omaha, Neb. Another reason is a low-key, down-to-earth personality forged in a small Midwest town. But the most important reason is passion. For him, music is what matters, not ego.

Louis Davis Jr. grew up in Sylvania, Ohio, and was indeed a "chip" off the old block. His father was a high school music teacher, his mother Betty a former trombone player with Phil Spitalny's All Girl Orchestra. One grandmother was also a music teacher and, in fact, his first, giving him piano lessons at age four.

He composed his first piece, a four-part chorale appropriately enough about his dog Stormy, when he was six. He also began singing at age 10 in his father's boys choir. When it came time for college, he was admitted to the music school of the University of Michigan, where both his parents had gone and played in its famous marching band.

Though he grew up in musically and socially turbulent times, Davis said he was "completely insulated from the Sixties, not really aware of pop music. I was completely focused on classical music because I was going to play bassoon in symphonies."

He indeed played bassoon in the university concert band but also percussion in the marching band. While not permitted to major in both composition and performance, he took composition lessons outside the school. "I wanted to write music but universities tend to teach the avant-garde rather than classical composition. But it was a very exciting, romantic period."

He earned his degree in 1969 and was soon hired to tour with the internationally-renowned Norman Luboff Choir. "He was such a moving force with me musically because he was really the one who opened my mind about being eclectic. I was very, very classical before that and would never have thought of adding synthesizers."

After five years of playing the spectrum from classical to pop, Davis exited to teach junior high in Sylvania. "I thought I'd settle down and get a life," he said. Following a year of teaching, he briefly returned to Luboff. He also traveled to Omaha for a workshop at the University of Nebraska in the early Seventies.

There he accepted an offer to arrange and conduct a local production of "Hair," a dinner theatre version that nevertheless sounded like Broadway. The show was such a success that the original eight-week commitment became six months. "But I promised myself that I'd never live permanently in Nebraska, it was too flat -- and that I'd try anything, but I'd never write country music."

After the show's run was over, he worked as a jingle writer for a local advertising agency. One of the 2,000 musical snippets he wrote was for Old Home Bread with ad exec Bill Fries. The radio and TV commercials revolved around fictional truckdriver C.W. McCall, his waitress girlfriend Mavis and the Old Home Filler Up And Keep On Truckin' Cafe.

The ads were so popular (winning a Clio award for advertising excellence) that listeners called radio stations to request them as they would a pop song and at one point their broadcast times were listed in local editions of TV Guide.

When MGM asked them to cut a single, C.W. McCall and the Old Home Band debuted with "Old Home Filler Up And Keep On Truckin' Cafe." The song made the Billboard charts, followed by an album. Davis dubbed it technocountry or progressive country -- country music with French horns and big-voiced backup singing groups.

In late 1975, the group's second album, "Black Bear Road," shot to No. 12 on the pop chart and the single "Convoy," written by Fries and Davis, went gold in two weeks, selling more than a million copies within two months. One of the early crossover country hits, "Convoy" eventually sold 10 million singles and even inspired a 1978 motion picture starring Kris Kristofferson.

But all the while C.W. McCall recorded nine albums and sold 20 million records, Davis -- named Country Music Writer of the Year (1976) -- was refining the classical pieces he'd written while a teacher. As music director at Sound Recorders, owned by Don Sears, he'd trade his work hours for studio time and record his own material at night, music he called "18th century classical rock" that combined classical composition with rock energy, harpsichords and recorders with electric bass and synthesizers.

"I don't believe in all-acoustic or all-electronic, all-digital or all-analog," he explained. "My place is where they meet. Music takes place in time; it doesn't stay on a wall. But if it doesn't work in black and white, on a piano, it doesn't work. Technology hasn't changed that."

Davis tried to sell the album that resulted, "Fresh Aire," to mainstream record companies. "They said, 'Well, we really like the music but we can't sell it because it doesn't fit any category. And besides that, you don't have a group.' But they'd buy a couple of boxes for friends and the secretaries outside the office would ask, 'Can I have a copy of what you were playing?'"

He solved the group problem by calling the "band" Mannheim Steamroller. "It sounded modern but it's a classical term. It seemed to embody what I was doing, mixing the classical with rock elements." The Mannheim crescendo was named after an 18th-century orchestra known for building intensity by adding layers of sound, color, texture, other instruments and volume. Davis jokingly referred to it as "the steamroller."

He tackled the marketing problem with equal creativity. In 1974, he founded American Gramaphone Records with Sears (who sold his share 10 years later). The name echoed the prestigious classical label Deutsche Gramophone -- the art director who designed the title logo misspelled gramophone. Then he distributed the albums not in record stores but in stereo showrooms.

Used to demonstrate home stereo equipment, the first few hundred pressed suddenly brought orders for 20,000 more. Listeners said, "I like the turntable but I really want what's playing on it."

"Fresh Aire" became an audiophile hit. Now called "Fresh Aire I" (1975), an instrumental exploration of Spring, it was followed by Autumn-inspired "Fresh Aire II" (1977), the Summer of "Fresh Aire III" (1979), the Winter of "Fresh Aire IV" (1981) and "Fresh Aire V" (1983), a musical portrayal of Johannes Kepler's mythical trip to the moon in 1609.

With the latter, Davis finally revealed to the public at large that he was responsible for both "Convoy" and "Toccata," a track that anecdotally has blown out more speakers than any in recorded music.

When Davis announced that his next project was going to be a Christmas album, the industry was less enthusiastic. The perception was that Christmas albums were not big sellers, were not played on radio, and were hardly a creative challenge.

Davis disagreed, and "Mannheim Steamroller Christmas" (1984) infused new life into traditional Christmas music. Its "Deck The Halls" became a Top 40 Adult Contemporary hit and "Stille Nacht (Silent Night)" was Grammy-nominated for Best Instrumental Arrangement. A "Fresh Aire Christmas" (1988) then duplicated its sales.

Expressing a concern for the environment often reflected in his music, and Davis premiered "Saving The Wildlife" in 1986. The soundtrack to a PBS special, the album benefited the Species Survival Program, dedicated to continuing the bloodline of endangered species. Another such project was instigated by devastating fires at Yellowstone National Park. Davis created a concert tour and a gold album, "Yellowstone: The Music of Nature" (1989), that to date has contributed $500,000 to the park.

The "Fresh Aire" series also continued: "Fresh Aire VI" (1986) was inspired by Greek mythology. An exploration of the nature of the number "7," "Fresh Aire VII" (1990) was awarded the Grammy for Best New Age Recording -- and became the seventh "Fresh Aire" album to be officially certified gold. So too has "Classical Gas," a late Eighties collaboration with Mason Williams.

The early Nineties brought a new series, called "Day Parts," designed to enrich the mood of daily activities. Conceived by Davis, it's comprised of contributions by him and other American Gramaphone artists. "Sunday Morning Coffee," "Romance," and "Party" (each also with a sequel album), and "Dinner," are what Davis terms "gourmet music for the four basic mood groups."

He admits he used to be offended when his work was described as "mood music." "But creating a mood is part of the function of music. I try to stimulate the head and the heart. But how people use my music is up to them -- as long as they're listening and enjoying, I'm happy if they vacuum their floors to it."

In 1994, Davis was commissioned to write the broadcast theme and other music for the Goodwill Games in St. Petersburg, Russia. The album, "To Russia With Love," prompted a tour of 11 U.S. cities. For the 1995 holiday season, "Christmas In The Aire" was released and, in 1997, "Christmas Live," as well as a children's pop-up book (with accompanying CD) called "My Little Christmas Tree."

For Christmas 1998, he's produced a TV special, "The Christmas Angel," broadcast on NBC and featuring the music of Mannheim Steamroller. In 1999, "Fresh Aire 8," whose theme is infinity, will be the final album in that series to be released. 1999 also brings a new adventure for Davis, as he teams with Walt Disney Records for the March 1999 release of "Mannheim Meets the Mouse," an album of Mannheim Steamroller's interpretations of classic Disney Songs.

Residing with wife Trisha, seven-year-old daughter Kelly (by a previous marriage) and two-year-old son Evan in a house he designed and set on 100 acres outside Omaha, Davis continues to create new music. "Here I can dream without looking over my shoulder to see what everyone else is doing."

For nearly 25 years now, when it comes to innovation in music -- and the business of music -- Chip Davis has chosen to lead rather than follow.