Remember Ennio Morricone[1]'s brilliant theme song from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly[2], the 1966 Sergio Leone film starring Clint Eastwood,...
Remember Ennio Morricone[1]'s brilliant theme song from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly[2], the 1966 Sergio Leone film starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach? If not, click here to jog your memory[3] (or just watch the video at the very bottom of this story).
That song—including the iconic guitar figure that starts at :47—helped spawn an entire genre of music called spaghetti western (which also happens to be the name of the genre of films[4] that inspired the music).
More of this music can be found on the soundtracks to other Leone films, including A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More—and then there's the masterful theme song[5] from Red Dead Redemption[6], which happens to be one hell of a video game.
"While surf music gives you the feeling of riding the waves, spaghetti western music conjures images of riding tall in the saddle," says Ted James[7], owner of Deep Eddy Records[8] in Austin, Texas[9], a label that specializes in surf, instrumental rock and garage.
"Imagine a gunfight, a posse hot on the trail of an outlaw or even a lonely late-night ride through the desert[10]—all while listening to spaghetti western music."
James adds that spaghetti western is technically a sub-genre of instrumental surf rock, and it might (or might not) include horns, Spanish guitar, unusual percussion and organ. I think you also could throw in a touch of dastardly, dark-sounding late-Sixties-style fuzz guitar.
But—to get the point already—spaghetti western guitar music is damn fun to play, not to mention easy on the ear, miles off the beaten path and charmingly weird.
Check out "Comanchero," a tune I wrote