Part of Your World | Howard Ashman Directs Jodi Benson | The Little Mermaid | Recording Session

Here is video footage of Jodi Benson's recording session for "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid. The project was lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken's first collaboration with Disney, and Jodi and Howard's second collaboration. (The actress had previously been cast in Howard's short-lived Broadway musical, Smile.)

This footage comes from the special features of the 2010 DVD release of the documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty, Though the on-screen credit gives the date for this recording as August 16, 1989, that's possibly a mistake, as the final film would be released three months later on November 17.

Though totally done from scratch, this video was partially inspired by a similar video by RPGTancasis09. To view their video, click here:    • The Little Mermaid - Jodi Benson reco...  

According to Jodi in a 2011 interview with Howard's sister Sarah, no one expected much to come from the project, saying, "You get a paycheck to show up at work for seven days, you’ll disappear into oblivion, no one will ever know, there’ll be no publicity and you’ll get your residual check every seven years. I thought it was really cool that we weren’t going to be revealed. They were just going to run our names at the end of the credits. That was it."

Fondly remembering Howard's directing style, she stated, "He directed me all the time in the booth. Now that’s unheard of. You never have anybody inside the booth with you because they make too much noise. But he stayed with me the whole time inside. I mean all of my lines, all of my vocals he was right on my left side. Whenever I’m crying and I’m doing my scene it’s because he’s looking at me, playing Triton. And then he’d get me to that point and he’d slip out and go behind the glass so that his motion wouldn’t be heard. So he’d get me to that pivotal point of the emotion and he’d slip out and he’d come back and we’d keep going.”

Still singing the song in almost every concert she performs at, Jodi makes sure to remind her audiences of where her performance comes from. "I give Howard all the credit and I’m very plain about that. I’m very clear, you know, every nuance, everything you hear, everything you like about Ariel is because of one man. [...] If you like the giggle or you like this or you like that – that’s Howard. That’s his interpretation that he gave me to read and then translate. So I don’t take that performance of Ariel as mine. It’s not mine, I just got to embody it as an actress but it was handed to me, spoon-fed on a platter by my director.

“I never get tired of singing Part Of Your World. I’m honored to sing it. I’m truly blessed. And I look back to that day with Howard Ashman standing at my left hand side in the studio whispering every line to me as I’m singing it. That’s where I go every time I hear the overture of that song starting so it’s a real wonderful memory that I get to relive every time I get to sing it with a symphony.

“So for me, Howard is alive and well and in my heart and in my performance. I feel very thankful that I get that. I can hear him, I can hear that going on in my head. It’s wonderful. It’s really neat for me, I’m very thankful.”

Talking With Jodi Benson – Part Two - HowardAshman.com
http://howardashman.com/blog/talking-...