Meanwhile, he paid a few more visits to Knott’s Berry Farm and rode the Calico Mine Train Ride, where he found that the wonderful organ music in the Cavern Room had become less than heavenly over the years. “It sounded like it had been edited, and was very weak.”
Bill decided it needed improving, so he paid a visit to his friend Lonnie Lloyd, who was shop foreman for the legendary ride designer Bud Hurlbut. (Bud had designed and built the Calico Mine Train Ride. Walt Disney admired Bud’s ride designs and met with him several times.) Even though Bud had passed away, Bill was able to get a copy of the original sheet music for the Caverns Room from Lonnie and set about recreating it from scratch. “I am not an organist,” Bill said. “I’m more of a technician. But I wanted to do it as a tribute to Bud.”
The original organ music had been recorded more than 50 years before on a real organ. While Bill did not have access to the original, he did have a scratchy copy of it and started working on a new recording. Because he was not an organist, Bill took more of a technical approach, recording digital samples of organ music and matching them to the sheet music on his computer. It took several months of finding and getting organ samples, plugging them in, listening, and adjusting before he finally got it finished. “I played it for Lonnie and he thought it was a new recording of the original.”
Bill’s work didn’t end there. When he heard that Knott’s Berry Farm was going to completely refurbish the ride, he wanted them to have the new recording and offered it to them gratis.
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