#louis prima

Louis Prima and Phil Harris - I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song) 1967

The Jungle Book is a 1967 American animated musical adventure film by Disney. Based very loosely on the "Mowgli" stories from Rudyard Kipling's 1894 book of the same name, it is the final animated feature film to be produced by Walt Disney, who died during its production. It was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman and written by Larry Clemmons, Ralph Wright, Ken Anderson, and Vance Gerry. The film's plot follows Mowgli, a feral child raised in the Indian jungle by wolves, as his friends, Bagheera the panther and Baloo the bear, try to convince him to leave the jungle before the ruthless tiger Shere Khan arrives. The early versions of both the screenplay and the soundtrack followed Kipling's work more closely, with a dramatic, dark, and sinister tone, which Disney did not want in his family film. The Jungle Book was released on October 18, 1967, to positive reception, with acclaim for its soundtrack. With a gross of $23.8 million worldwide, the film initially became Disney's second-highest-grossing animated film in the US and Canada, the ninth-highest-grossing film of 1967, and was also successful during its re-releases. The film was also successful throughout the world, becoming Germany's highest-grossing film by number of admissions.

Louis Prima was an Italian-American trumpeter, singer, entertainer, and bandleader. While rooted in New Orleans jazz, swing music, and jump blues, Prima touched on various genres throughout his career: he formed a seven-piece New Orleans–style jazz band in the late 1920s, fronted a swing combo in the 1930s and a big band group in the 1940s, helped to popularize jump blues in the late 1940s and early to mid 1950s, and performed frequently as a Vegas lounge act beginning in the 1950s. From the 1940s through the 1960s, his music further encompassed early R&B and rock 'n' roll, boogie-woogie, and Italian folk music, such as the tarantella. Prima made prominent use of Italian music and language in his songs, blending elements of his Italian and Sicilian identity with jazz and swing music.

"I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)" was written by songwriters Robert and Richard Sherman, and was performed by Louis Prima as King Louie, with Phil Harris providing additional vocals as Baloo the bear. The Sherman brothers were tasked with coming up with "crazy ways to have fun with [the music]" so working with concept art of what the monkeys would look like, Richard Sherman said he and his brother aimed for a jazz sound, with a Dixieland-like melody. He added that "when we first got an idea for 'I Wan'na Be Like You', we said an ape swings from a tree, and he's the king of apes. We'll make him 'the king of the swingers'. That's the idea, we'll make him a jazz man." After suggesting that Louis Prima could play the part of King Louie, Walt Disney Records president Jimmy Johnson and music director Tutti Camarata asked the Sherman brothers to fly to Las Vegas and perform the song for Prima. Once Prima was invited to do the song, he mockingly responded to the Shermans with "You want to make a monkey out of me? You got me!" The instrumentals were originally recorded by Prima - who also played the trumpet - and his band, Sam Butera & The Witnesses, but the music was replaced by one written by the film's composer, George Bruns, and orchestrated by Walter Sheets. The "scat dialogue" between Baloo and King Louie was the result of two recording sessions. Louis Prima recorded first, with the intent that Baloo would simply repeat what Louie scatted, but Phil Harris decided not to imitate Prima's recording and made up his own. The song was released the same date as the motion picture itself.

The Jungle Book 2, released in 2003, featured the band Smash Mouth playing the song during the end credits of the film; the song also appeared on the film's soundtrack. King Louie is one of the characters that doesn't appear in the second film. Christopher Walken performs the song as King Louie in the 2016 live-action adaptation, with new lyrics written by Richard M. Sherman to reflect the character of Louie being depicted as a Gigantopithecus.

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