Mumford was born in the U.S., but his family returned to England. So he is English, and his group’s big album was mostly designed and written in Edinburgh, Scotland. The big single off of that album is Little Lion Man, which reached a lousy, laughable #45 on the Billboard Hot 100, which is why hardly anyone with an actual brain listens to radio stations which use a playlist off that particular chart. On the Alternative Chart, however, it easily hit #1, and DJ’s in my area yell out “Mumford and Sons!” when introducing the group’s songs. Their music has a distinctive Irish or Scottish folk sound which is normally quite unlikely to be heard on U.S. airwaves, except that this group is very, very good.
But buyer beware! From what I’ve read over at Disney’s cd store they are only on one song, albeit an original tune, and they only perform the instrumentals. You have to ask, does Mumford and Son’s going to Scotland from England to record music that sounds Scottish folksy have anything to do with Doyle and Co. staying there (instead of all coming here, 7,000 miles away) to record tracks for a popular Scottish fairy tale? It’s the atmosphere one would suppose, and convenience for all those British Isle boys and the lassies too and we can be glad for it. It would be hard for them to come over here, depending on their schedule, for just one song and just the instrumental part of that one song.
I really enjoyed the music part of the film and watched carefully when the credits rolled. The good quality of the music was very apparent during those credits, when there wasn’t any action and you could concentrate easier. After previewing the 20 songs available at the Disney store, I’m not sure if it’s worth the purchase price, but I did see the movie for a 2nd time and continued to be impressed at how the music meshed nicely with it.