Van Dyke Parks is an American musician, songwriter, arranger, and record producer who has composed various film and television soundtracks. He is best known for his 1967 album Song Cycle and for his collaborations with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. In addition to producing or arranging albums by Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson, Phil Ochs, Little Feat, Happy End, Ry Cooder and Joanna Newsom, Parks has worked with performers such as Syd Straw, Ringo Starr, U2, Grizzly Bear, Inara George, Kimbra, Suzy Williams, Bob Dylan and Silverchair.
Born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Parks spent his childhood studying clarinet, piano, and singing at the American Boychoir School in Princeton, New Jersey. He started his professional career as a child actor. During the 1950s, he worked steadily in movies and television, and in the early 1960s, he majored in music at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. After dropping out of university in 1963, he relocated to Los Angeles, where his first paid gig was arranging "The Bare Necessities" for the 1967 Disney film The Jungle Book.