Posted by Aubrey on 10/30/2022
Some notes on the Enchanted Tiki Room Lanai music —
There have been three versions of this “Lanai” track, which has historically played in the courtyard of the Enchanted Tiki Room between garden pre-show showings [3].
Most of the information I’ve managed to gather on this loop is thanks to Mike Cozart/DL FLIGHT 295 of the TOMORROWLOUNGE from his early posts on the Magic Music forum.
In 1963, Disneyland used a reel of Martin Denny exotica/tropical music in the garden show area. All of the Martin Denny group’s bird calls on the tracks were left intact and (to Mike’s ears, as he apparently owns a show copy of the music reel) the loop sounded more South American in style than Hawaiian [4]. Although the exact date is unclear, the music was changed to a slower set of tracks (v.2). Mike postulates that this was done in the late 60's to early 70’s, as United Airline changed its corporate logo and marketing at this time*, a major rehab removed the Martin Denny tracks. He also mentions that these tracks would have been rather dated to people by that time as Martin Denny was also very well-known [4].
<aside> 📝 As an aside, it looks like United changed their logo of ten years slightly in 1971, and again (more boldly) in 1974. Also, they ended their sponsorship of the Enchanted Tiki Room in 1975. Dole took over in 1976. It is possible that the loop did not change until the refurbishment that changed sponsors, which was also a possibility suggested by Mike [3].
</aside>
Now, I haven’t tried to follow up on this yet, but it does seem that Mike Cozart has a copy of this original reel. He provided some specific details in one of his posts [1] (lightly edited):
The original, from a bi-directional 10" Tape-Athon reel track is timed at 80:30 (that is, 01:20:30) each direction. (Note: A Tape-Athon was a reel that would play one direction, and while it was basically rewinding, could play again and again… This is how most of the parks area music was done for many years). Original Tiki Background (80:30) bi-directional no date listed
Mike does note that it is possible that this reel may have been from WDW, as apparently the WED guys would sometimes refer to Tropical Serenade as the "Tiki Room" [1]. However, djali999/Foxx over on the Passport to Dreams Old and New blog believes it’s fairly likely that the same waiting area loop played from 1971 to 1998 [5]. So, there is a very plausible chance that Mike’s reel is the correct loop for the Enchanted Tiki Room.
Finally, a quick search on “Martin Denny” + “Disneyland” revealed this gem: “Some time after the album was released I visited Disneyland,” says Denny. “I was waiting outside the Jungle Cruise and I heard this music that sounded vaguely familiar. Suddenly it dawned on me that they were playing ‘Lotus Land.’ Much to my amazement, that song was used by choreographers and even massage parlors.” [2]
So until we make contact with Mike to learn more about the specifics of the loop tracks, you can place a good bet that Lotus Land (from Martin Denny’s debut LP, “Exotica”) was played, as well as several other tracks from his albums released before 1963.
The second version of the garden show music only contained a few short selections that had no bird calls and was much slower in tone; these were selected by Jack Wagner [1, 4]. It seems that by this point, the garden area was now called the lanai.
A reel transfer of this music can be heard in the Disneyland Collection torrent -- the track is labeled “Pre-Show Back Ground Music” and runs 16:33.
A well-researched tracklist of this music was posted by TheTikiGod in 2018, with additional work done by Michael Sweeney.
Re: Enchanted Tiki Room Lanai Area Loop - ca. 1976-ca. 2004 Complete Tracklist
https://mousebits.com/smf/index.php?topic=9880.msg92928#msg92928
The third, and current, installment of the Lanai loop was installed during the 2004-2005 refurbishment [3]. This listing was compiled over on Magic Music back in 2009 by C33, allthingsmustpass, MightyTriton, and others.