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(Left to right) Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman on the cover of the 1991 publication: "The Sherman Brothers Songbook", published by Hal Leonard Music.

More people today know and love the music of Richard M. Sherman than perhaps any other popular composer of our time, and he'll be the first to disagree with you. During my recent interview, he sincerely and humbly told me that composers like Jerome Kern, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and Cole Porter will always be the kings.

While those composers and other greats like George Gershwin and Irving Berlin are the masters, even in my book, I have to put the music of Richard and his brother Robert B. Sherman right up there with the best. And I still hold to my story that their music is more popular perhaps any other American composer.

Who doesn't know "It's a Small World" which is the most translated song in the world, or any of the songs from the original "Winnie the Pooh" featurettes? How about all the music from "Mary Poppins?" "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," "Spoonful of Sugar," and the Academy Award® winning "Chim Chim Cheree" were written for the 1964 film but remain just as popular in the Broadway revival that was nominated for seven Tony® Awards.

Richard and Robert wrote a song entitled "Tall Paul" which was recorded by a former Mouseketeer of Walt Disney's "Mickey Mouse Club" television show, Judy Harriet, but when another Mouseketeer, Annette Funicello sang it, it sailed to new heights. The songwriting duo ended up writing an astounding thirty six songs that Annette recorded over the next seven years.

When Walt Disney planned to use Annette in his upcoming film, "The Horsemasters," he found it logical to use the talents of the Sherman brothers to pen the song and that is what paved the way for the Shermans to eventually be hired on staff.

(Left to right) Robert B. Sherman, Richard M. Sherman and Walt Disney sing "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow"

While Walt was well-aware of the songwriting talents of the Sherman brothers, he must have sensed thru their songs that they had a knack at storytelling. Richard told me, "Every time we wrote a song we'd always have to have a reason for it, and a period for it, and a style for it. We didn't just write songs, we wrote songs that fit into stories and expressed either a story point or a personality quirk or a desire or something that has to do with the character, and (Walt Disney) knew that's the way we catered every song we wrote."

After having them write music for some of his films including "Parent Trap," he handed them a book and wanted to know what they thought of it. That book was "Mary Poppins."

While any fan of the Sherman brothers is aware that they wrote all the music for the original "Mary Poppins" film, even some of their biggest fans may not be aware at how involved they were with the story in the film.

The original stories of "Mary Poppins" were just stories where she would fly in on the east wind and out on the west wind and have some wonderful adventures with the children.

It was the Sherman brothers who came up with the idea of choosing the turn-of-the-century for the time period of the film, incorporating five or six chapters into one continuous story instead of just little segments, and having a need for Mary Poppins to come, and to repair the family conflict thru her magical ways.

After a story meeting with Walt regarding "Mary Poppins," he told the brothers that they "think story" and invited them to become staff writers. Once on staff, the Sherman brothers continued to write hugely popular songs but also served as Walt's troubleshooters.

Two examples of this were for Walt's park, Disneyland. For his "Enchanted Tiki Room" show, Walt showed the brothers his "jungle room" with singing birds and flowers and chanting tikis. It was impressive, but there seemed to be no reason for the whole shebang. That's what Walt sought help for. The Sherman brothers solution was in their song, explaining to the audience that they're putting on a show, it's a big performance… and thus everything that happened made sense. It was all for a "show."

The original concept for the "It's a Small World" attraction was to have all the little dolls sing their various national anthems of their home countries. It sounded great on paper, but when it became a reality it was an audio mess where you couldn't make out any anthem and everything blended together. Walt approached the Sherman's to come up with a song to fix the problem, and thus the song "It's a Small World" was born, sung in many languages and styles.

Richard and Robert continued working for Walt Disney and composing music for the company after Walt's death in 1966, as well as working on non-Disney projects. For example, they wrote the music for the original animated version of "Charlotte's Web."

Though still collaborating on music, Richard also writes music on his own. He penned the music for a new song on the Peter Pan DVD which was released just last February. He has a wonderful stage presence and continues to enchant audiences with his live performances and his appearances on DVD's.

After 43 years since both "Mary Poppins" and "It's a Small World" debuted, Richard M. Sherman is still going strong with no signs of stopping, much to the delight of us fans.