We Speak Music
Lee Mendelson Film Productions Celebrates 75 Years of Vince Guaraldi with Exclusive Record Store Day 2026 “Baseball & Glove” Soundtrack Release
Fresh off the success of Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, Lee Mendelson Film Productions is continuing its celebration of Vince Guaraldi’s musical legacy with a standout Record Store Day 2026 exclusive: the soundtrack release of two beloved Peanuts® television specials, It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown and Charlie Brown’s All Stars!. The special Record Store Day edition arrives April 18, 2026 at participating stores.
This collectible “Baseball & Glove” edition is exactly the kind of thing fans and vinyl collectors go nuts for. It includes two uniquely designed 45 RPM records packaged together in a PVC gatefold: a 10-inch clear “baseball” LP of It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown and a 12-inch brown die-cut glove-shaped LP of Charlie Brown’s All Stars!. The release also includes a 6-page tri-fold insert with artwork from the specials and liner notes by Sean Mendelson, Jason Mendelson, and Derrick Bang, author of Vince Guaraldi at the Piano.
The release marks the 50th anniversary of It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown and the 60th anniversary of Charlie Brown’s All Stars!, presenting complete scores that frame the first decade of Peanuts® television music. Charlie Brown’s All Stars!originally aired June 8, 1966 as the second prime-time Peanuts® special after A Charlie Brown Christmas, while It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown aired March 16, 1976 as Guaraldi’s 15th and final Peanuts® special.
There’s also real emotional weight behind this release. Arbor Day contains the final recordings by Vince Guaraldi, recorded on February 6, 1976, the day he died at age 47 in Menlo Park, California. That alone gives the set a kind of gravity beyond nostalgia. It’s not just a reissue. It’s a preservation piece.
Charlie Brown’s All Stars! features performances by the Vince Guaraldi Sextet: Vince Guaraldi on piano, Eugene “Puzzy” Firth on bass, Eddie Duran on guitar, John Coppola and Frank Snow on trumpet, and Lee Charlton on drums. The score is presented in seven tracks, with some selections restored from 35mm negative soundtrack tape. It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown features the Vince Guaraldi Trio: Guaraldi on piano, Seward McCain on bass, and Jim Zimmerman on drums. That “baseball” LP includes 14 tracks, among them “Young Man’s Fancy,” “Jay Sterling Morton Jazz,” “Sprinkle Your Bird,” “Rain, Rain, Go Away (Rain, Gentle Rain),” and “Happy Arbor Day, Charlie Brown.”
The production side is as lovingly handled as the music itself. Clark Germain mixed Arbor Day at WonderWorld Studio, while Vinson Hudson restored and mastered the recordings. Sean Mendelson and Jason Mendelson produced the release.
And there’s a nice environmental angle here, too. The records are pressed on bio-attributed vinyl said to reduce carbon footprint by roughly 90% compared with standard LP manufacturing. The packaging uses sustainably forested paper and recycled materials, and in partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, Lee Mendelson Film Productions says it will plant one tree for every copy sold in 2026, with a minimum commitment of 12,000 trees.
For longtime Peanuts® fans, jazz lovers, and serious soundtrack collectors, this one feels less like a novelty and more like an event. It celebrates two classic specials, honors one of the most distinctive composers ever connected to animation, and packages it all in a format that actually feels worthy of the music.
Release Information
Record Store Day Exclusive: April 18, 2026
The official website for Lee Mendelson Film Productions may be found at https://www.mendelsonproductions.com
Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.
‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.
The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.
The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:
Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”
About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.
We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”
The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.
Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.
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