Getting Permission To Use Copyrighted Material

I mentioned in my last post that I want to use Louis Prima's "When You're Smiling" as the theme song for my Early Birds cartoon. I can only assume there are plenty of people like me who would like to use real songs & such, but either don't know how to get permission, or think it will cost too much. I'm sure there are also a percentage that just use songs anyway without permission. That's at your own risk, but the way I look at it is this: If I ever DO get my stuff seen by as many people as I'd like, then stealing that song will only bite me in the ass. It's probably pretty safe if no one sees your stuff, but beware success if you choose to use other people's material without permission. Anyway, here is how I've gone about asking to "borrow" Louis Prima's song.

The very first thing I did was of course google Louis Prima. Upon finding his homepage I just used the "contact me" link, and asked some preliminary questions to find out who I needed to contact in order to get permission. I also gave some basic info regarding the project I'm working on & what I want to do with the song. Gia Prima,(not sure what relation) was kind enough to reply to my questions, and quickly at that. She gave me the name of the record company and the publisher who own the song, & informed me that I'll need a permission license from both parties. She couldn't give me any guarantees of course, but wished me luck & seemed to take a genuine interest in what I'm doing here as well. She even asked me to send her the toon, which I thought was really cool. I will post an update when I hear anything from either the record co or publisher, hopefully with good news, but either way, I thought I'd share the process of seeking permission for copyrighted material, & I hope you find it useful.
Cheers