Carwardine Colony Album

The  is a 1981 studio album recorded for Carwardine Colony in, and the first of the Carwardine Parks albums.

Most of the album was recorded at Riverway Records' studio in. The backing band was the Carwardine Colony Orchestra, which was comprised of a mixture of members of the and  orchestras, as well as session musicians (including several singers that make up a SATB choir) who worked on the recordings by Riverway's artists at the time. The Carwardine Colony Song itself and its reprise were recorded at Masterfonics in in November 1979 with a different backing band that included members of the  orchestra.

All the songs' lyrics were written by Ed Wickens, Helene Touchard, Frank W. Carroll and Marv Simpleton (the latter two of which also arranged and composed the songs, respectively), except for the "Carwardine Colony Song", which was written solely by Simpleton and Carroll. Wickens and Touchard produced all the songs except for the "Carwardine Colony Song" and it's reprise, which were produced by. Wickens' company, Ed Wickens Productions, went on to produce a large amount of music for Carwardine Parks.

The album went Double Platinum in 1987 for selling 2,000,000 copies, the same year it's sequel album More Songs About Carwardine Colony went Gold. The award went to Christopher R. Carwardine.

Tracklist

 * 1) "The Carwardine Colony Song" -
 * 2) "Carwardine Mines" - Andy Griffith
 * 3) "The Flying Turns" -
 * 4) "A Ladybug's Flight" -
 * 5) "Flash Forward" - Andy Griffith
 * 6) "Around the Carousel" - Tiny Tim
 * 7) "Carwardine Mover" - Sandy Duncan & Andy Griffith
 * 8) "Sky Whirl" - Tiny Tim
 * 9) "The Carwardine Colony Song (Reprise)" - Andy Griffith
 * 10) Bonus Track: "The Carwardine Colony Song (1980 Commercial Version)" - Andy Griffith

Trivia

 * The Carwardine Colony Song was used to test out the mp3 function of Carwardine Forums when it (The function) was introduced in 2002.
 * The album was re-released on CD in the late 1990s.
 * A cassette release was planned around the same time but was cancelled due to dwindling sales of the format at the time.
 * The reprise of the Carwardine Colony song is more slow and (arguably) moving, as well as mostly instrumental (not counting the vocalizations of the SATB choir), with Andy Griffith only singing towards the end (with just one singing of the song’s chorus); this reprise is played throughout the park as the last song played before the park closes for the night (or day, depending on conditions, etc.).