Buddy Baker was Disney music. Mostly known as the composer of the Haunted Mansion song and score, he was also a composer of films (Wicked Woman, The Fox and the Hound), television shows (the original Mickey Mouse Club), and numerous theme park attractions (World of Motion, Wonders of China, Kitchen Kaberet, Impressions de France) around the globe.

From a humble beginning in Springfield, Missouri, Buddy Baker began composing and arranging music at an early age. He worked for many of the top big bands, then began arranging music on hit radio shows (the Bob Hope show, the Eddie Cantor show, the Jack Benny program) before getting into film. His thirty-plus-year career with the Walt Disney Company put him at the top of his field, working alongside many of the greats, including Walt Disney himself.

This is Buddy’s story–not a book on Disney music, but a tribute to one of the greatest musical minds the world has ever known. His music will play on forever.

A must for any fan of the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters!

His voice can be heard in countless classic animated cartoons, still seen on TV daily around the world. He was Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Baba Looey, Super Snooper, Blabbermouse, Snagglepuss, Augie Doggy, Mr. Jinks, Wally Gator, Elroy Jetson, Cap’n Crunch and hundreds of others. He worked with nearly every major animation director, including Messers Hanna and Barbera, Jay Ward, Walter Lantz, Chuck Jones, and Tex Avery. He worked puppets for Bob Clampett (Beany and Cecil). Fans included Groucho, Harpo, Lionel Barrymore and even Albert Einstein. His collaborations with satirist Stan Freberg sold millions of records. Yet you have probably never heard of him. His name is Daws Butler.

Dawes Butler, Characters Actor brings you up close and personal into the life of the man who many consider to be the greatest voice actor of the 20th Century.

This audio biography is lovely narrated by Daws Butler protege Joe Bevilacqua (Joe Bev), who co-wrote the book with Ben Ohmart. Joe Bev also demonstrates many of Daws’ character voices along the way.

This authorized biography includes detailed eye-witness accounts and personal reminisces by his colleagues. Best of all, the book includes the words of Daws Butler himself telling his own story.

How did Daws create the voice of Huckleberry Hound? What did comedian Bert Lahr think of Snagglepuss? Who made the first Cecil puppet? What was the Daws Butler Workshop? What was it like having Yogi Bear as a dad?

“Is there any question the name Daws is plural? No single human being could have created so many amusingly convincing voices as did the talented, singularly plural Daws Butler. For Daws, the term ‘genius’ must perforce be exponentially multiplied: voices times voices times voices, and so on. I am flattered and honored that he based Fibber Fox on me.” Shelley Berman, actor (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”), Standup Comedy Pioneer and founding member of Chicago’s “Second City”.

Everyone was “In the Mood for Love,” when Frances Langford, renowned Big Band singer with a rich contralto voice, rose from performing at hometown parties in Mulberry, Florida, to Broadway, Old Time Radio, and movies during Hollywood’s Golden Era. Her signature song carried her from turntables to troops in World War Two, and then into the stuff of legends.

From the airwaves on Louella Parson’s Hollywood Hotel, Rudy Vallee’s The Fleischmann’s Yeast Hour, and Dick Powell’s Campana Serenade (1942-1943), Frances achieved nationwide fame as Don Ameche’s insufferable wife, Blanche, on The Bickersons (1946-1951).

Her beauty eclipsed her broadcasts, when the movies plucked her from speakers to screens. Her film debut in 1935 in Every Night at Eight led to Broadway Melody of 1936, in which she popularized “Broadway Rhythm” and “You Are My Lucky Star;” Born to Dance in 1936; and in 1942 in Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney, in which she sang the rousing “Over There.”

For the first time, her personal interviews with author-publisher Ben Ohmart bring the treasured memories from her past to light. Return with her to the front lines from 1941 into the 1980s with Bob Hope and Jerry Colonna on USO tours through Europe, North Africa, and the South Pacific, entertaining thousands of GIs throughout the world.

Frances Langford. More than a voice. More than the GIs’ choice.

Diana Canova delightfully reads Singin’ in the Corn!, the biography of her mother, Judy Canova.

Judy Canova was a popular American comedienne, actress, singer, and radio personality who appeared on Broadway and in films.

The popularity of the Canova family led to numerous performances on radio in the 1930s, and they made their Broadway debut in the revue Calling All Stars. During her career, Judy recorded for the RCA Victor label and appeared in more than two dozen Hollywood films, including Scatterbrain (1940), Joan of Ozark (1942), and Lay That Rifle Down (1955). In 1943 she began her own radio program, The Judy Canova Show, which ran for twelve years.

Teeming with family interviews and Canova’s own writing, Singin’ in the Corn! is the only book that will ever need to be written about “everyone’s favorite rube.”

Never before have the infamous love letters between John and Blanche Bickerson seen the light of day. This amazing testament to the strength of marriage at last shows the true depth of feeling the squabbling couple felt for one another. And no, it wasn’t always bickering!

Now you can find out who they are, how they met, and what their backgrounds are. And you can experience, for a change, the love shared between a couple that was obviously made for one another.

He was Disney’s Haunted Mansion Ghost Host, Boris Badenov, Professor Ludwig von Drake, Pillsbury Dougboy, Toucan Sam, the Green Lama, and thousands of voices you have heard on records, radio, television, and in films. He was voice acting genius Paul Frees.

Paul’s son Fred Frees reads this second edition of author Ben Ohmart’s biography.

Fred Frees is a successful voice actor in his own right, who has been called upon to recreate his dad’s characters and create new ones all his own. Ben Ohmart says, “He has inherited his father’s amazing, weird gifts.”

Fred admits, “I certainly had mixed feelings reading this audiobook about my dad. Of course, there was the inherent pride I always feel about my father’s accomplishments. And a certain awe at the obstacles he overcame in his life. And then, there was this feeling of deja vu. It was like living parts of my life all over again and revisiting the emotions I had when we didn’t always see eye to eye, or when he was taken from us. But, in spite of everything, my father was always a source of inspiration to me, to appreciate my life. And in that, he never failed me.”

Bonus Track: An interview with Fred Frees, conducted by Joe Bevilacqua an Lorie Kellogg, for The Voice Actor Show, heard on the BearManor Radio Network.