Well, when I was talking about the music loop cues for main street, I remember, in the past, hearing songs like "Minnie's yoohoo song" or old 1890's music, and the barbershop quartet, things like that. Now they have music from the "music man" (alot) and stuff like that. I know that it's not the original music from the films, but a redo. Music from tomorrowland had a kind of space mountain sound to it, and in Frontierland they had banjo music, theme from "Davy Crockett", and similar music by the waterfront, now they play the themes from "Magnicient seven" and other non-disney films like that. I was just wondering how they can play music that is not Disney copyrighted! They must have to dish out a ton of royality payments.
Got it in one. It's far cheaper to license the music than record it yourself.
Most of the Main St loops were performed by Albert White or the Paragon but (certainly with the Paragon) they won't touch anything after a certain date (I know, I wrote to them to ask).
http://www.magicmusic.net/blog/2/entry-134-main-street-usa-area-music/
The DLRP loop now includes some tracks from Ragtime (Randy Newman) although still the same idiom.
The DL loop hasn't had Minnies Yoo-ho since at least 1971 (all Albert White tracks then) and I think the WDW loop played from 1992 (as did the DLRP loop when the park opened)
http://www.magicmusic.net/blog/2/entry-232-frontierland-area-bgm/
Has that changed to the movie theme loop as used in DL and DLRP now then? (they do use sections of this one in DLRP in various locations within Frontierland but the main area is the movie theme loop and has been since 1992).
I think it's fair to say that Disney has used Licensed music from CDs since at least 1992 and probably much further back than that (they certainly did at Anaheim as the Main St loop from 71 - 92 was from the Album Your Father's Moustache vol 2 by Albert White and the Gaslight Orchestra).
My particular interest is in DLRP so I can't go by personal recordings etc but I'm fairly sure that Minnie's Yoo Hoo has never played in Main street although it may have played in a nearby loop (as used in the Walkways of DLRP) which was all Disney music. Possibly the esplanade loop?
Does this loop ring a bell at all
http://www.magicmusic.net/blog/5/entry-108-parking-lot-walkway-loop-dlrp/
This is used from the parking lot to the park at DLRP and may well have come from another park in 1992 when DLRP opened (lots of second hand loops there).
Can you say what years you are remembering back to? If it's within the last 20 years you could check the running dates in the blogs here or if it's not there, at www.disneymusicloops.com but that's not totally accurate and is badly out of date in some places (you can guarantee that the blogs here are accurate as far as the loops go).