Spaghetti Western Vibes 1 - Rio Grande

I don't know about any of our regular readers' early interests, of course, but as a kid, I loved westerns, the good old Cowboys vs Indians (Aliens didn't exist in those days) kind.

Whether in comics (Old Shatterhand & Winnetou, drawn by Juan Arranz), in books (by Karl May, a German writer who had never been to the US!), or on TV (Rawhide, Bonanza, Gunsmoke), I devoured them all!

Somewhere in the late 1960s my mom started working evenings in a cinema in Hilversum, a nearby town, and as a result, I could watch loads of movies for free. 

At first, she worked as an usherette, but later ended up in the film projector room, handling all the huge film containers, quite an unusual job for a woman at the time!

One movie that made a big impression on her was a new kind of western with an incredible scene of a bad guy preparing to hang a man while forcing his younger brother to play a harmonica...

This, of course, was Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West from 1968, one of the revolutionary spaghetti westerns which started earlier with his A Fistful of Dollars, which featured Clint Eastwood as a very different kind of cowboy compared to Rawhide (or any other Hollywood western for that matter).

As soon as she told me this, I had to see that movie, and sure enough, I did.

I was well impressed, both by the style, story, and music (Ennio Morricone!), very different from anything I'd seen before in those days.

Note that the term 'spaghetti western' was first used by American critics, suggesting that these westerns (directed by Italians & filmed in Spain!) were inferior to the 'authentic' American Hollywood movies...

More spaghetti westerns followed:  A Fistful of Dollars, Death Rides a Horse, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Django, just to name a few.

As usual, lots of similar but mediocre films were released at the same time, but one variant stood out: the spaghetti western comedy that began with They Call Me Trinity, starring the duo of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer... In Vol. 2 I will come back to these 2 jokers…

Years later, I tried to get one of my Thai students interested in this genre and lent her my Once Upon a Time in the West DVD. She returned it the next week and told me that she fell asleep after watching it for about 10 minutes... I guess it's not different for the younger generations since these westerns often featured suspense-building scenes through an agonisingly, slow progression of time, no hyperactive action rollercoasters...

But let's return to the soundtracks of these movies; most feature experimental scores with electric guitars, harmonicas, whistled melodies, and more, again very different from the average Hollywood scores!

The most recognisable name is Ennio Morricone, the composer of countless soundtracks, but don't forget (thank you, Richard!) one of his master session musicians: Alessandro Alessandroni on guitar and whistling!

The spaghetti western sound has been covered many times over the years, at times even resulting in a hit, as in Hugo Montenegro's 1968 version of Hang 'Em High.

At the time, the original composer, Dominic Frontiere, was apparently given less than 2 weeks to compose a “Morricone-esque” soundtrack, and he succeeded well!

One Morricone tribute album that really made an impression on me was For A Few Guitars More from 2003, highly recommended. It features all the classics plus one original, the brilliantly named: The Loud, The Loose, And The Savage.

All this made me think of putting together a slightly different kind of spaghetti western compilation, including more border-edge sounds, e.g., Americana, pastiches, and mainly original songs.

The track that gave me the necessary kick under my ass was an old punky one; The Fibonaccis' Sergio Leone from 1982, a quirky little instrumental that fitted perfectly for what I had in mind.

After that, it was just a matter of some digital digging, and I found quite a lot, both by known (Danger Mouse, Tindersticks, Stan Ridgway, Calexico, Friends of Dean Martinez, etc.) and unknown (Spindrift, The Heavy Horses, The Orange Peels, Abecedarians, a.o.), resulting in a cool 22-track collection!

But of course it had to start with some guitar and whistling work by the one and only Alessandro Alessandroni!

Regarding this collection's cover, at first I was thinking of using some of the classic movie posters from that era, but in the end I went for something (very) different.

If you like comics, and especially the kind that appeared in Heavy Metal magazine, you'll be familiar with Moebius, a fantastic French artist who made an amazing number of fantasy/sci-fi strips, illustrations, and more.

Less known probably is that he started out as Jean Giraud with the Blueberry series, a gritty western series, which over time developed into a classic as well.

Occasionally, some of Giraud's western elements ended up in Moebius' universe, giving a whole different twist to the resulting artwork, and that seemed more suitable for my collection's cover.

But don't worry, the PDF included in the download contains plenty of original movie posters and more!

For those interested in more details and info about Spaghetti Westerns, there's a pretty good podcast series on YouTube!