Valvulado: Spaghetti Westerns Soundtracks

This addition to DRG's Classic Italian Soundtracks series captures spaghetti Westerns at their eeriest and funniest. Ennio Morricone is predominant, of course, with tracks to such films as A Pistol for Ringo and Blood and Guns, and vocal themes to The Return of Ringo and Death Rides a Horse. A rarely heard voice-free version of "My Name Is Nobody" has the virtue of sounding like a soda pop commercial. Other pasta-and-pistols maestros such as Piero Piccioni ("I Don't Forget... I Kill"), Carlo Savina ("The Two Ringos from Texas"), and Luis Bacalov ("Gold of the Proud Ones") make an impressive showing, though there are some dull moments. In contrast to our domesticated Tiomkin-style Hollywood clichés, these eccentric to melancholy flourishes represent fantasies of the American West nurtured by a pastry-crazed European imagination. --Joseph Lanza

With out these classic songs, most Spaghetti Westerns would fade into obscurity. If you stop and think about it, the music to so many of these movies provide a depth, an environment and tension that the songs themselves become another character. I'm not sure where this music falls, its not really 'Classical' nor is it 'Western', but it does give you a sense of what the west is all about. You will love all of these songs and I urge you to get the entire set volumes I-IV. You won't be disappointed.