Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Sergio Leone

Spaghetti Western Music for Father’s Day on KWAX

This week on “Picture Perfect,” for Father’s Day, it’s a fistful of spaghetti for Dad.

We’ll be sampling an hour’s worth of distinctive scores from spaghetti westerns – ultra-cool, hyper-stylized entertainments, made by Italians but often shot in Spain, with their multinational casts heavily dubbed in post-production.

Spaghetti westerns frequently turned the conventions of American westerns on their heads. At any rate, the morality of the traditional western was made much murkier, with antiheroes cast as protagonists, usually motivated by greed and revenge. Especially greed.

As with the American film industry, only more so, when the Italians found something that worked, they went into overdrive, churning out literally dozens of knock-offs and imitations a year, until a given genre had run its financially lucrative course.

To this end, over 600 European westerns were produced between 1960 and 1980. The most influential of these were those directed by Sergio Leone, especially those of the so-called “Dollars” Trilogy – “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

These, of course, featured then-rising star Clint Eastwood. His co-star in the second and third films was Lee Van Cleef, who in American westerns such as “High Noon” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” had bit parts as one of the villain’s henchmen, but became an international superstar as the spaghetti western’s most reliable – and bankable – heavy.

We’ll sample from music for the “Dollars” Trilogy, composed by Ennio Morricone, and the “Sabata” Trilogy (which also starred Van Cleef), composed by Marcello Giombini.

Tell Dad it’s all-you-can-eat. We’ll be piling the plates high with music from spaghetti westerns, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

June 13, 2025
Ennio Morricone Maestro of the Spaghetti Western

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!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

The Spaghetti Western Database – SWDb

November 10, 2023
Ennio Morricone Death A Loss for Film Lovers

A sad day for anyone who loves the movies. Ennio Morricone is dead.

The composer of over 500 film and television scores, he was likely the most prolific film composer of all time.

Although he has always been very popular in America, and around the world, with tributes pouring in over the decades from both pop and classical artists, acknowledgment from the Hollywood establishment came only fairly recently. He received a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in 2016, the same year he won his only competitive Academy Award, for his score to Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight.” By then, he was 87 years-old. (He was nominated five other times, the first in 1979.) Earlier, he received an honorary Oscar, for lifetime achievement, in 2007.

Of course, Morricone never needed Hollywood to confirm his greatness. He churned out score after score from his home in Rome, and always supplied his own orchestrations – by no means standard practice in the film industry. The sheer volume of his output ensured that he left his mark on nearly every genre, but none more indelibly than the western. His collaborations in the form with director Sergio Leone – especially “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” and “Once Upon a Time in the West” – made him internationally famous.

His music for “The Mission,” “The Untouchables,” and “Cinema Paradiso” also remains popular. His melodies are much appropriated by figure skaters, television commercials, and by the movies themselves. His music has been quoted or reused in over 150 films, in which he has had absolutely no involvement. Even in instances in which the movies were absolutely atrocious, Morricone could be counted on to draw on his unfailing professionalism, infusing the ridiculous with dramatic tension and often heartbreaking lyricism.

No word on whether or not he was able to follow through on his commitment to write music for the 2026 Olympic Games in Milano Cortina.

Morricone was 91 years-old. One of the last of the legends is gone.

“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”

“The Mission”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L41oGXgVmZg

Morricone conducts “Cinema Paradiso”

July 6, 2020
Lee Van Cleef From Accountant to Spaghetti Western Star

Angel Eyes! I hardly knew ya.

Anyone out there know that Lee Van Cleef (a) was born in Somerville, NJ; and (b) began his career as an accountant? Would the IRS ever second-guess this guy?

He also chased submarines during WWII, only to chop off his finger while building his daughter a playhouse.

Van Cleef went from bit-part villain’s henchman in films like “High Noon” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” to international superstar thanks the Italian “spaghetti western” circuit. Enjoy music from Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” Trilogy (“A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”), composed by Ennio Morricone, and Gianfranco Parolini’s “Sabata” Trilogy (including “Sabata” and “Return of Sabata”), composed by Marcello Giombini. There will be plenty of spaghetti for everyone on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

June 15, 2018
Spaghetti Western Music for Father’s Day

This week on “Picture Perfect,” with Father’s Day right around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the spaghetti western. After all, whose Dad doesn’t like spaghetti?

We’ll hear an hour of distinctive scores written for these ultra-cool, hyper-stylized westerns that were originally released in Italy, with their multinational casts heavily dubbed in post-production.

Spaghetti westerns frequently turned the conventions of American westerns on their heads. At any rate, the morality of the traditional western was made much murkier, with antiheroes cast as protagonists, usually motivated by greed and revenge. Especially greed.

As with the American film industry, only more so, when the Italians found something that worked, they went into overdrive, churning out literally dozens of knock-offs and imitations a year, until a given genre had run its financially lucrative course.

To this end, over 600 European westerns were produced between 1960 and 1980. The most influential of these were those directed by Sergio Leone, especially those of the so-called “Dollars” Trilogy – “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

These, of course, featured then-rising star Clint Eastwood. His co-star in the second and third films was Lee Van Cleef, who in American westerns like “High Noon” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” had bit parts as one of the villain’s henchmen, but became an international superstar as the spaghetti western’s most reliable – and bankable – heavy.

We’ll sample from music for the “Dollars” Trilogy, composed by Ennio Morricone, and the “Sabata” Trilogy (which also starred Van Cleef), composed by Marcello Giombini.

Tell Dad it’s all-you-can-eat. I’ll be piling the plates high with music from spaghetti westerns, on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

June 15, 2018

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