Main Street USA BGM [1976] - PM

Status: Retired. Heard from ca. 1976 through 09/1991.

Running time: ~59:00

Playlist

01. And the Band Played On [Edited] [1] 
02. Saxema [3]  
03. Saddle Back [3]
04. Poison Ivy Rag [6] 
05. Goodbye Broadway, Hello France [4]
06. Rose of No Man's Land [4]  
07. Everybody's Rag [6]  
08. The Old Grey Mare [3] 
09. Down at the Barbecue [5]
10. I've Got Rings on My Fingers [6]  
11. Bedelia [6]
12. Unknown  
13. Unknown 
14. Medley [6] 
        a. Billy Boy
        b. Tavern in the Town
        c. Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight  
15. Grizzly Bear Rag [5]  
16. Honey Rag [6]
17. Geraldine [5] 
18. Man on the Flying Trapeze [6] 
19. At a Georgia Camp Meeting [5]
20. Smokey Mokes [5]  
21. Ida [6]  
22. Good Old Timers [2]
23. Silver Heels [Edited] [2]  
24. Black and Blue Rag [Edited] [6]  
25. Polka by Request [5]

[1] Gay Nineties Waltzes by the Gaslight Orchestra (Somerset, P-3400)
[2] Your Father's Moustache, Vol. 1 by Albert White and the Gaslight Orchestra (Barbary Coast, M-33002) 
[3] Your Father's Moustache, Vol. 2 by Albert White and the Gaslight Orchestra (Barbary Coast, M-33008)  
[4] Your Father's Moustache, Vol. 1: Over There by Albert White and the Gaslight Orchestra (Fantasy 3273)  
[5] Your Father's Moustache, Vol. 2 by Albert White & the Gaslight Orchestra (Fantasy 3292)

[6] 30 Barbary Coast Favorites by San Francisco Harry & the Barbary Coast Bandits (Fantasy 3270)

Notes

Preliminary playlist compiled by wedroy1923, based on a source recording of unknown origin.

As per Foxx Notle on Passport to Dreams Old and New, 04/20/2013: "The question of why the PM loop is so obscure is harder to answer definitively, although it's not hard to guess. This was an era when theme park music was still run on 1" magnetic tapes and played out of speakers that were placed somewhat randomly around the park. EPCOT Center's BGM was far more sophisticated than Magic Kingdom's in that you could hear it almost everywhere and at consistent levels. In 1990, Magic Kingdom was just on the cusp of a wide-ranging refresh of their area music delivery system, switching to CD playback as well as replacing many vintage Wagner tracks with more modern loops from Tokyo and Paris.

This really just means that Magic Kingdom's system was low tech. Very low tech. By 1990, it was basically antiquated compared to new systems in place at EPCOT Center, Tokyo Disneyland and Disney-MGM Studios. It's highly, highly doubtful that Disney synchronized two 1" magnetic tape machines to a clock just to play different pieces of music on Main Street at day and night back in 1976. This means that the playback probably had to be manually switched, perhaps by a Maintenance guy or a Parade tech. If we assume that human error was just as likely to forget to switch the BGM as not, and sometimes forget to switch it back in the morning, then the obscurity of the loop and the fact that we have some evidence that it sometimes played at times when it wasn't supposed to becomes less mysterious. As a result of all of the preceding, I'm comfortable labeling the 'Disneyland 1969-1975' Main Street music loop sourced from UAB as being the authentic Magic Kingdom Main Street USA PM Loop."

Last updated 12/06/2022.