Hercules

“Hercules” represented many important things to me, when it was offered to me in 1995. It was my first collaboration with David Zippel, a brilliant lyricist who I’d wanted to write a musical with since we’d met in the early 80’s. It was a return to working with John Musker and Ron Clements, with whom I’d written “Mermaid” and “Aladdin”. And it was my first opportunity working with Greek mythology in a musical context.

When we started out I was thinking we would write a very classically influenced score; thus the musical style of our lamented cut song, “Shooting Star”. But the request from John and Ron was to have this be a “gospel” score. I asked them “Why gospel?” And their logic was, “Gospel music is written to sing about God, just as our Hero is one of “the gods”. Okay… I was skeptical. But I was game to try anything. In the end, I think that choice worked well.