How do you sum up the work of songwriter Robert B. Sherman? Try one word: "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." 
 
 FILE - In this April, 5,1965 file photo actress Debbie Reynolds poses with Academy awards winners for best music Richard M. Sherman, right and Robert Sherman, left, who received the award for Mary Poppins... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Nov. 17,2008 file photo President George W. Bush, right, greets song writer Robert Sherman, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, as he presents him with the 2008 National... (Associated Press) 
 
 The tongue-twisting term, sung by magical nanny Mary Poppins, is like much of Sherman's work _ both complex and instantly memorable, for child and adult alike. Once heard, it was never forgotten. 
 
 Sherman, who died in London at age 86, was half of a sibling partnership that put songs into the mouths of nannies and Cockney chimney sweeps, jungle animals and Parisian felines. 
 
 Robert Sherman and his brother Richard composed scores for films including "The Jungle Book," "The Aristocats," "Mary Poppins" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." They also wrote the most-played tune on Earth, "It's a Small World (After All)." 
 
 Sherman's agent, Stella Richards, said Tuesday that Sherman died peacefully in London on Monday. 
 
 Son Jeffrey Sherman paid tribute to his father on Facebook, saying he "wanted to bring happiness to the world and, unquestionably, he succeeded." 
 
 Jeffrey Sherman told The Associated Press that his father had learned the craft of songwriting from his own father, Tin Pan Alley composer Al Sherman. 
 
 "His rule in writing songs was keep it singable, simple and sincere," Jeffrey Sherman said. "In the simplest things you find something universal." 
 
 Robert Sherman knew another truth, his son said: "What seems so simple is really very complex. 
 
 "He was a very simple guy _ complex but simple. If you ever want to know about my Dad, listen to the lyrics of his songs." 
 
 Robert A. Iger, president and CEO of The Walt Disney Co., said in a statement that the company mourned the loss of "one of the world's greatest songwriters and a true Disney legend." Three Broadway marquees _ including The New Amsterdam Theatre, where "Mary Poppins" is playing _ will dim their lights Tuesday night in Sherman's honor. 
 
 The Sherman Brothers' career was long, prolific and garlanded with awards. They won two Academy Awards for Walt Disney's 1964 smash "Mary Poppins" _ best score and best song, "Chim Chim Cher-ee." They also picked up a Grammy for best movie or TV score. 
 
 Their hundreds of credits as joint lyricist and composer also include the films "Winnie the Pooh," "The Slipper and the Rose," "Snoopy Come Home," "Charlotte's Web" and "The Magic of Lassie." Their Broadway musicals included 1974's "Over Here!" and stagings of "Mary Poppins" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" in the mid-2000s. 
 
 "Something good happens when we sit down together and work," Richard Sherman told The Associated Press in a 2005 joint interview. "We've been doing it all our lives. Practically since college we've been working together." 
 
 The brothers' awards included 23 gold and platinum albums and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. They became the only Americans ever to win First Prize at the Moscow Film Festival for "Tom Sawyer" in 1973 and were inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 2005. 
 
 President George W. Bush awarded them the National Medal of Arts in 2008, commended for music that "has helped bring joy to millions." 
 
 Alan Menken, composer of scores for Disney films including "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Aladdin," said the Sherman brothers' legacy "goes far beyond the craft of songwriting." 
 
 "There is a magic in their songs and in the films and musicals they breathed life into," he said Tuesday. 
 
 Robert Bernard Sherman was born in New York on Dec. 19, 1925, and raised there and in Beverly Hills, California. 
 
 The brothers credited their father with challenging them to write songs and for their love of lyrics. Al Sherman's legacy of songs includes "You Gotta Be a Football Hero," "(What Do We Do On a) Dew-Dew-Dewy Day" and "On the Beach at Bali-Bali." 
 
 Robert Sherman's affection for Britain was nurtured during his service with the U.S. Army in World War II. One of the first American soldiers to enter the Dachau concentration camp _ and, his son said, the only Jewish serviceman there _ he was shot in the knee in Germany in 1945. 
 
 Recovering in hospitals in England, he developed a fondness for and familiarity with the country that stuck with him. He wrote for British characters in "Mary Poppins," "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "Winnie the Pooh," and spent the last years of his life in London. 
 
 After the war, the brothers started writing songs together. They began a decade-long partnership with Disney during the 1960s after having written hit pop songs like "Tall Paul" for ex-Mouseketeer Annette Funicello and "You're Sixteen," later recorded by Ringo Starr. 
 
 Though they were estranged for a number of years, the brothers never completely broke ties. When asked about that, Richard Sherman said: "We're human. We have frailties and weaknesses. But we love each other very much, respect each other." 
 
 They wrote over 150 songs at Disney, including the soundtracks for such films as "The Sword and the Stone," "The Parent Trap," "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," "The Jungle Book," "The Aristocrats" and "The Tigger Movie." 
 
 Most of the songs the Shermans wrote _ in addition to being catchy and playful _ work on multiple levels for different ages, something they learned from Disney. 
 
 "He once told us, early on in our career, 'Don't insult the kid _ don't write down to the kid. And don't write just for the adult.' So we write for grandpa and the 4-year-old _ and everyone in between _ and all see it on a different level," Richard Sherman said. 
 
 The Shermans teased songs out of each other, brainstorming titles and then trying to top each other with improvements. "Being brothers, we sort of short-cut each other," Richard Sherman said. "We can almost look at each other and know, 'Hey, you're onto something, kiddo.'" 
 
 Most of their songs were written quickly, but others took longer. The pair spent two weeks trying to nail down a snappy title for a song sung by the nanny in "Mary Poppins." They considered, and then nixed, "An Apple a Day" and "A Stitch in Time." 
 
 "Nothing was coming," Robert Sherman recalled. Then one day his then-8-year-old son came home from school. "I said, 'How was school?' He said, 'Great. We got the (polio) vaccine today.' I said, 'Oh, did it hurt?' He said, 'No, they just stuck medicine on a lump of sugar.' I went, 'Ohhhh!' That was it!" 
 
 "He came in the next day all glassy-eyed," Richard Sherman recalled. The final lyric would become world famous when it emerged from the lips of Julie Andrews: "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." 
 
 Another of their songs _ "It's a Small World (After All)" _ has become one of the most translated and performed songs on the planet. It plays on a continual, multilingual loop every few minutes at Disney theme parks across the world _ a fact that Disney employees are only too well aware. 
 
 "We've driven teenagers crazy in every language," quipped Robert Sherman. 
 
 Away from the piano, the two raised families and pursued their own interests, yet still lived close to each other in Beverly Hills and continued working together well into their 70s. When "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" came to Broadway in 2005, they added new lyrics and four new songs. 
 
 Robert Sherman moved to Britain in 2002 after the death of his wife Joyce. He is survived by his brother and four children: Laurie, Jeffrey, Andrea and Robert. 
 
 _____ 
 
 Kennedy reported from New York. ||||| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin cleared of stealing riff for Stairway to Heaven Los Angeles jury finds Robert Plant and Jimmy Page did not steal the most famous passage from the 1971 anthem from the band Spirit Led Zeppelin win copyright case over intro to Stairway to Heaven – video 
 
 Led Zeppelin has defeated a lawsuit that accused the band of stealing the opening riff in Stairway to Heaven, and cemented its place in rock’s pantheon. 
 
 A jury in Los Angeles on Thursday cleared Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of pinching arguably the most famous riff of the most famous anthem in rock. 
 
 The singer and guitarist were in the US district court for the climax of a six-day trial that gripped the music industry and put the band’s history and credibility under a forensic microscope. 
 
 Plant, 67, and Page, 72, denied lifting Stairway to Heaven’s opening passage, which evokes Renaissance folk music, from an LA-based psychedelic band called Spirit. 
 
 The estate of Spirit’s guitarist Randy Wolfe, also known as Randy California, had sued for recognition and a share of the proceeds on the grounds the 1971 mega-hit ripped off Taurus, an instrumental composed in 1967. 
 
 
 
 Wearing sharp suits with their hair pulled back in ponytails, Plant and Page left court without speaking publicly, but issued a brief statement later that said they were grateful to the jury and look forward to putting the matter behind them. 
 
 
 
 Francis Malofiy, the estate’s attorney, said he was sad and disappointed by the jury’s decision. 
 
 
 
 “The reality is that we proved access, but they could never hear what they had access to,” Malofiy said. “It’s bizarre.” 
 
 “This case is about one thing, one six-letter word – credit,” Malofiy had told the jury of four men and four women during the trial. He likened the case to a David and Goliath battle. 
 
 Peter Anderson, Led Zeppelin’s attorney, said the case was really an attempt to rewrite history – “to take an iconic song … and [say] it’s got a new parent”. 
 
 Yes, Led Zeppelin took from other people's records – but then they transformed them Read more 
 
 The trial wrapped on Wednesday and the jury retired to deliberate. When it returned to courtroom 850, a marble and wood-paneled arena in the Edward Roybal federal building, Goliath prevailed. 
 
 The verdict spared Led Zeppelin the humiliation and type of financial loss which befell Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams in a separate plagiarism case last year when Marvin Gaye’s family won a $7.4m award for the song Blurred Lines infringing on Gaye’s Got to Give it Up. 
 
 The music industry, still reeling from the Blurred Lines verdict, will be relieved, said Larry Iser, a lawyer and copyright specialist who was not involved in either case. “Today’s verdict is a vindication of copyright, which only protects an original expression of music.” Led Zeppelin showed that the disputed chord progression was a common building block of classical and popular music dating back centuries, he said. 
 
 Journalists and Led Zeppelin fans packed the public gallery for a trial which veered from surreal to nostalgic to belligerent as Plant, Page and other witnesses testified about what did and did not happen between 1967 and 1971. 
 
 This was a bacchanalian rock’n’roll era famed for sex and drugs but Judge Gary Klausner, a stern presence, kept testimony focused on money, memory and music. The case hinged on two questions. Did Led Zeppelin hear Taurus before composing Stairway? And is Stairway substantially similar to the Taurus sheet music submitted in 1968 to the US copyright office? 
 
 Wolfe, a guitar prodigy who wrote the instrumental for his girlfriend, drowned in 1997 saving his son in Hawaii. Shortly before his death, in a magazine interview quoted in the lawsuit, he made his resentment plain. “If you listen to the two songs, you can make your own judgment … I’d say it was a rip-off. And the guys made millions of bucks on it and never said ‘Thank you,’ never said, ‘Can we pay you some money for it?’ It’s kind of a sore point with me.” 
 
 The lawsuit alleged Led Zeppelin had a deep-rooted history of lifting composition from uncreditd blues artists and other songwriters. It cited disputes over 16 other Led Zeppelin songs, including Whole Lotta Love and Babe I’m Gonna Leave You. 
 
 Stairway to Heaven, one of the most played songs on radio, is estimated to have generated more than $500m over the decades. Damages, however, can extend back only three years and into the future. 
 
 In defending themselves Plant and Page, chipped their own mythology about Stairway being composed at Bron-Yr-Aur, a remote Welsh cottage. 
 
 Page said he in fact wrote the music at Headley Grange, a recording studio in Hampshire. Plant said he had been toying with a lyrical couplet inspired by Welsh lore and scenery and realised it could combine with Page’s notes. 
 
 “Do you remember what that couplet was?” asked Anderson. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A courtroom sketch of Plant (left) and Page. Photograph: Reuters 
 
 Into a hushed courtroom Plant, half-speaking, half-singing, responded: “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven.” 
 
 The singer dismissed any influence from Taurus. “I didn’t remember it then, and I don’t remember it now.” 
 
 Led Zeppelin’s bass player and keyboardist, John Paul Jones, testified in the band’s defence but was not a defendant. 
 
 Malofiy, a hard-charging lawyer with a bruising reputation, sought to pierce any reverence for the British rockers by calling them session musicians who played other people’s music, including that of Spirit, with whom they shared concert billing in the late 1960s. 
 
 Page admitted Led Zeppelin used to play one Spirit song, Fresh Garbage, because back in the day the band would “chip a wink to what’s hot”. 
 
 But he insisted he had not heard Taurus, part of Spirit’s debut album, even though it was in his collection of 4,329 LPs and 5,882 CDs. He heard it only after his son-in-law told him about internet chatter making comparisons with Stairway, he said. “I don’t do the internet, so he played it for me. When I heard the orchestral part at the beginning, I knew I’d never heard it before.” 
 
 A witness for Wolfe’s estate testified about seeing Plant attend a Spirit gig and socialise with the US group at Mother’s, a Birmingham club, during its visit to England 1970. The singer shrugged that off. “I really don’t recall any of the bands I saw there or everyone I ever hung out with.” 
 
 Malofiy accused Plant and Page of having selective memory. Unable to play recordings of Taurus to the jury, the attorney summoned musicologists who said the instrumental’s copyrighted sheet music shared with Stairway a descending A-minor chord progression, notes of the same duration, arpeggios and similar pairs of notes. 
 
 The courtroom crackled when the attorney asked Page to analyse Taurus. “You want to step through it?” 
 
 “Not necessarily,” Page replied. 
 
 Page carried a guitar into court but was not asked to play. He did, however, mime air guitar and a dance move. 
 
 Musicologists summoned for the defence said the descending chromatic minor line progression shared by both songs had been a common musical device for centuries. One example cited was Chim Chim Cher-ee, from the 1964 Disney musical Mary Poppins. 
 
 Anderson said Wolfe’s estate was overreaching. “He didn’t create the key of A-minor.” 
 
 The lawyer urged the jury to not let Michael Skidmore, trustee of the late musician’s estate, usurp history. “Randy California is entitled for credit for what he did, but not what he didn’t do. [The plaintiffs] are asking you to take this iconic song, ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ and say it has a new parent in Mr Skidmore.” ||||| Photo: Disney 
 
 The new Disney version of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is what this franchise-tentpole-universe-theme-park factory does best. The film is a triumph of technology and safe “family” storytelling. It’s dazzling — almost no one will dislike it. Its director, Jon Favreau, knows his audience, and he has enough skill and honest enthusiasm to win over all but the most determined skeptics. 
 
 The gimmick is that the movie uses a real actor, Neel Sethi (pronounced Sett-ee), as Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves. But Sethi is surrounded by brilliantly computer-animated wolves, panthers, tigers, and bears. At times, they look more real than the actor, who seems computer-enhanced — made smoother, his skin burnished with a golden Disney-ish caramel, or made to fly at impossible speeds when he’s carried off by monkeys. The slight artificiality of everything makes The Jungle Book seem all the more seamless. Untethered by reality, its settings are huge, its cliffs and waterfalls like something out of James Cameron’s Avatar. And that makes sense, since Mowgli is our avatar — the wide-eyed human who holds his own against beasts of the jungle and finally earns his place in the natural world. 
 
 Do you remember the plot from the Kipling stories or the ’40s feature starring Sabu or the hit 1967 Disney cartoon? It’s more or less the same. As a baby, Mowgli was delivered to the wolves by a black panther named Bagheera, who’s voiced with stentorian British plumminess by Oscar winner Sir Ben Kingsley. Bagheera remains a sort of headmaster, commanding Mowgli to use only his wolf skills, not his human opposable-thumb ingenuity. The doting mother wolf is voiced by Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o. Idris Elba is the nasty tiger, Shere Khan. Giancarlo Esposito is the alpha wolf. The late Garry Shandling is a porcupine. Favreau is a pygmy hog, and his kids are in there as some of the cubs who consider Mowgli their brother. It’s a cozy, A-list kinda jungle. 
 
 And a veritable Disney World, too. These animals have a near-utopian existence — even happier than the one in this year’s other animated hit, Zootopia. During the dry season, various species declare a truce and gather at a stream to share what little water is available. When the level rises above a certain rock, they’ll supposedly go back to business, but it’s hard to picture these cuddly creatures eating anything but plants (assuming the plants don’t sing). Well, there is that tiger Shere Khan, who has a peculiar antipathy towards the “man cub.” To protect Mowgli, the wolves decide to send him back to the human village from which he came. But getting there won’t be a walk in the park. 
 
 The journey is thrillingly kinetic. Watch Mowgli grab the horns of some charging buffaloes (or bison — I’m not good on bovine species) and go hurtling over a cliff. Watch a very friendly 30-foot python named Kaa (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) curl around him and open her mouth wide, so wide. Eventually, Mowgli ends up in the cave of a supremely lazy bear named Baloo. The bear — voiced by Bill Murray — promptly puts Mowgli to work climbing cliffs to steal honey to fatten him up for hibernation. But do jungle bears hibernate? 
 
 Murray is an irresistible sleazy hipster, an ursine Peter Venkman. The only problem is that he has one of the best songs in the Disney canon, the Sherman brothers’s “The Bare Necessities,” and he doesn’t really … he isn’t quite … He can’t sing. So he wails in time — he tries to do it bluesy — and kills the great melody. I had to go home and listen to Phil Harris’s original from the ’67 cartoon to quench my thirst for the actual notes. 
 
 The rest of the music is terrific. The Jungle Book has a jazzy score by John Debney and a hilarious Marlon Brando-in-Apocalypse Now parody by Christopher Walken as the humongous orangutan-like ape King Louie. And there I would leave it except … 
 
 Favreau has told the press that this Jungle Book is closer to Kipling’s original insofar as the animals are savage, and Shere Khan does get into it with Bagheera and even Baloo. Little kids might be shaken up. Some grown-ups, too. But this isn’t Kipling. 
 
 It’s not the fashion these days to speak up on behalf of the Bombay-born Englishman who was thoroughly comfortable with British colonialism. But I was weaned on his Jungle Book stories. The Just So stories were just so. I wanted a mongoose after Rikki Tikki Tavi. It’s Kipling’s grasp of politics that makes his work exciting on so many levels. I mean interpersonal politics — or, in this case, inter-species. His animals do cooperate and, in some cases, risk their lives for humans. But they’re plainly predators and their main concern is the survival of their species. In the stories, the wolf pack wants to kill Mowgli after the man-cub’s protector ages out of his alpha-male status. Kaa the python is so much more interesting than in the movie! He (he’s a he) cooperates with Bagheera and Baloo to save Mowgli from the monkeys only after they promise to share their future kills. And Mowgli from the start knows he’ll have to destroy the tiger Shere Khan to ensure his own survival. He knows the real law of the jungle. 
 
 The point is that Kipling sweetens this world without sanitizing it, and no matter how much his vision reeks of patriarchal colonialist condescension, it’s a damn sight more acute than the Disney Company’s. Don’t misunderstand: This version of The Jungle Book is wonderful. But what does it say when even a myopic colonialist has a deeper vision of how the world works?
– Songwriter Robert Sherman is dead at 86, and the AP notes that his life's work might be summed up in the word "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." He and brother Richard wrote that song along with the ubiquitous "It's a Small World (After All)" for Disney. They also wrote the scores for movies such as The Jungle Book, Mary Poppins (including a best-song Oscar for "Chim Chim Cher-ee"), and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And that's just a small sampling. "He was a very simple guy—complex but simple," says son Jeffrey. "If you ever want to know about my dad, listen to the lyrics of his songs."