Baloo's birthday

Born June 24, 1904, Phil Harris would be 99 today. He's also one of our Hoosier heroes, born in Linton, Indiana. He was an active bandleader and actor, with movie credits going back to the early 1930s.

He became best known, however, for his work in Disney films. He had just a perfect voice, rough and manly, but playful. His iconic, immortal personnae came as Baloo in The Jungle Book. Particularly, he is the voice of "The Bare Necessities," which certainly rates as one of the top ten Disney songs ever.

He also took centerstage in some sly racial pride as J Thomas O'Malley in The Aristocats. As all us lame white boys know, "Everybody Wants To Be a Cat."

Somewhat lesser known, he was Little John in the 1973 Disney animated Robin Hood. This got him the lead vocal on the really outstanding and underappreciated original Roger Miller song "The Phony King of England" which takes mockery of Prince John downhome to New Orleans.

Article Author: Al Barger

Unreformed hawkish Hoosier hillbilly Al Barger runs the still squeezin' down the psychodelic Kentucky moonshine at More Things. What with the paranoid religious visions, the Pentecostal music, visions of God and anarchy running amok and such, somebody …

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