Composer. Born Norman Dale Baker in 1918 in Springfield, Illinois. At age of four he studied piano and at the age of eleven adopted the trumpet, forming his own group in high school in addition to performing with his Boy Scout troop band. Buddy studied music at Southwest Baptist University. In 1938 Buddy relocated to Hollywood, he abandoned his own performing career, working with big band stars including Harry James, Stan Kenton, Jack Teagarden and Bob Crosby. He also penned arrangements for radio programs including "The Bob Hope Show," "The Jack Benny Show," "The Eddie Cantor Show," "Kay Kyser's "Kollege of Musical Knowledge" and Robert Armbruster's "Standard Symphony Hour." During the 1940s, he also taught arranging and conducting at Los Angeles City College; in his first class was Jerry Goldsmith. In 1954, Buddy was contacted by another former student, George Bruns. George asked his former teacher to assist him on the TV series Davy Crockett; Buddy would remain with the Walt Disney studio for close to three decades. He was soon named musical director of a new series called The Mickey Mouse Club, the show was produced five days a week for four years, and Buddy was required to write and teach his group new material on an almost daily basis. He made his first foray into scoring live action feature films with 1960's Toby Tyler, going on to score over 50 features in all and in 1972, he earned an Academy Award nomination for his work on Napoleon and Samantha. Buddy also scored over 150 Disney television features, as well as the "Disney on Parade" arena show. As the chief composer and musical director of Disney's design branch WED Enterprises, he authored much of the music for Disneyland, Disney World and Epcot Center. Buddy retired from Disney. He would occasionally return to work on theme park, film and television projects, he spent the majority of his later years teaching film scoring at the USC Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles. He held that job until his death. In 1995, Buddy was the recipient of the National Fantasy Fan Club's "Disney Legend Award," and four years later was honored with the ASCAP Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award. He died of natural causes at his Sherman Oaks, California home at the age of 84.