Influences: Ennio Morricone (pt. 1)
We owe no greater debt musically than to Ennio Morricone, the great film composer. Born in Italy in 1928, Morricone has composed over 500 film and television scores, and recently did the string arrangements for a Morrissey album called “Ringleader of the Tormentors”, which I haven’t checked out yet.
Morricone is best known for his work in Spaghetti Westerns, where he literally defined the sound of the entire genre. Initially due to constraints of budget, he was forced to work with non-traditional arrangements – Jaw harp, whistling, electric guitar, voices – and with these tools created epic, haunting, iconic, thrilling, tense, comic, and altogether brilliant scores that really did as much to define the Spaghetti Western as any other element. This is the sound we built our album upon, set to classic break beats that defined the golden age of Hip Hop.
Probably his best known work in the genre, and possible in general, is his theme for “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”:
That one may be a little too familiar to really appreciate, don’t worry if you don’t listen to the whole thing. Here’s another piece from the same film, though, called “The Ecstasy of Gold”, which I defy you to listen to without getting chills:
I get chills literally every time I listen to it!
Now, Morricone’s Spaghetti Western work is only the very tip of the iceberg. We are absolutely huge fans of his, of his amazing and amazingly varied work in all types of genres, from Horror and Giallo, Crime and Police, Sex Comedy and Drama, he has made some of my absolute favorite, swanky, jazzy, poppy, bossa nova, heavy, psychedelic, rock and roll, beat music out there. There’s just so much of it, it is difficult to really start to approach. That’s why this post is part one – just an introduction to the man, and particularly how he most directly influenced album – in the future, we’ll be exploring other facets of his work.
The other reason Morricone is difficult to approach as a new fan is the massive number of Morricone releases and compilations (with tons of overlap between them) makes it very difficult to know where to begin. We’d like to use these blog posts to help you out in making some of those decisions.
For Morricones Spaghetti Western Work, I definitely recommend getting a compilation rather than trying to track down the individual soundtracks. Though rewarding individually, the soundtrack albums have a lot of repetition, and can make for difficult listens, where the compilations usually focus on the themes and the other major pieces only.
This affordable compilation is the best overview of Morricone’s Western work that I’m aware of. All of his most essential Westerns represented – The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More (together, known as “The Man With No Name Trilogy), Once Upon of Time in the West, A Gun For Ringo, etc. You will DEFINITELY recognize music on the compilation, and I don’t doubt you’ll love the unfamiliar music just as much.
Unfortunately, this compilation is missing “The Ecstasy of Gold”, and really, for that alone, it’s worth getting the original soundtrack for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, which really makes for a listen on it’s own, even for the novice fan:
One more album I’ll note here is more of a curio than a real recommendation, but it is interesting. Hugo Montenegro rerecorded the themes from the Man with No Name Trilogy as a pop album which became a huge hit. The more rock and roll versions of the classic themes are fun and retain a lot of what made the originals great, and actually probably puts them in a context that might be more listenable for those not used to enjoying soundtracks on their own:
So begins our introduction to the work of Ennio Morricone!
…and don’t forget to check out Showdown at the BK Corral worlds first/only Spaghetti Western Concept Rap Album