It often frustrated Ennio Morricone that he was so identified with the spaghetti western. After all, he composed music for some 500 film and television productions, of which only a few dozen were set in a highly stylized American west – more often than not recreated in Spain. It’s the price to pay for having brilliantly revitalized an exhausted genre.
Primarily for budgetary reasons (the Italians didn’t have the luxury of Hollywood’s overflowing coffers), but also, in part, as a reaction to the ballad scores of Dimitri Tiomkin and the neo-Coplandisms of Elmer Bernstein, Morricone brought his own quirky sensibility to bear on the classic western iconography. His music is offbeat, ear-catching, and almost absurdly cool.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll celebrate Morricone’s birthday (he was born on this date in 1928) with a heaping helping of spaghetti and selections from his scores for “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964), “For a Few Dollars More” (1965), “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968), “Navajo Joe” (1966), and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1966).
His striking music for Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” trilogy, especially that for “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” became some of the most iconic of all time, frequently parodied, and as much a part of our collective cultural consciousness as that for “Jaws” and “Psycho.”
Morricone died in 2020 at the age of 91. His only competitive Oscar was for the Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” (allegedly a spaghetti western homage) in 2016. Previously, he was nominated for “Days of Heaven” (1978), “The Mission” (1986), “The Untouchables” (1987), “Bugsy” (1991), and “Malena” (2000). He received an honorary award from the Academy in 2007.
Get ready for a serenade of clangy surfer guitars, whistles, harmonicas, whips, gunshots, jaw harps, preening trumpets, coyote howls, shrieks, wails, and barking male choruses.
Happy birthday, Ennio Morricone. Grazie, Maestro, for all the Colts and carbs. We’ll be ladling out the spicy marinara on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EST)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)
Stream them here!
The Spaghetti Western Database – SWDb
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