Peabo Bryson, the two-time Grammy-winning R&B singer whose Disney duets helped push “Beauty and the Beast” and “A Whole New World” onto pop radio during the Disney Renaissance, died Tuesday at 75, his family said.
The Associated Press reported that Bryson died Tuesday evening, days after having a stroke. His death gives Disney music fans a clear reason to revisit a very specific lane of early 1990s soundtrack history, when the studio paired animated feature songs with adult-contemporary R&B and soul voices for end-credit singles.
That part matters. The title song from “Beauty and the Beast,” recorded by Bryson and Céline Dion for Disney’s 1991 animated film, reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal at the 35th Annual Grammy Awards. A year later, Bryson and Regina Belle recorded “A Whole New World” for “Aladdin,” taking Disney’s pop-single strategy even further when the track reached No. 1 on the Hot 100 for the week of March 6, 1993.
Those weren’t background extras. They were radio records, built to keep the songs alive after the credits rolled and to place Disney animation inside the same pop-radio space as the big soundtrack ballads of the period. Bryson gave that strategy an adult R&B center, with Dion still early in her English-language career on “Beauty and the Beast” and Belle arriving with an established gospel and R&B foundation on “A Whole New World.”
“We are tremendously moved by the outpouring of love, prayers and support from fans, friends, and colleagues around the world,” Bryson’s family said in a statement shared with People. The family added that they found comfort in knowing “how deeply Peabo was loved.”
Dion paid tribute Wednesday, looking back at the recording session that helped introduce her voice to many Disney listeners in the United States. “He made me so comfortable, as I was just learning to sing in English,” Dion said in a message shared on Instagram Stories and reported by People and Entertainment Weekly.
Belle’s tribute was even more personal. People reported that Belle visited Bryson in the hospital on May 31, held his hand and quietly sang “A Whole New World” and “Total Praise.” “I considered Peabo my official duet partner,” Belle said.
Before Disney, Bryson had already spent years as an R&B balladeer, recording with Roberta Flack, Natalie Cole and other artists after coming out of Greenville, South Carolina. People reported that he released 20 studio albums, while the Recording Academy lists eight Grammy nominations and two wins, both tied to the Disney duet recordings that brought him a new crossover audience in the early 1990s.
Disney returned to Bryson again in 1997, when he and Flack recorded “As Long as There’s Christmas” for “Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas.” It made the pattern plain by then: Bryson’s voice had become part of how Disney translated animated movie songs into adult radio ballads. Memorial and celebration-of-life arrangements will be announced at a later date.
