Once Upon A Time In the West (dir. by Sergio Leone)

For the first week of our tribute to Morricone, I kind of shied away from his best-known spaghetti western themes, just because I wanted to highlight some of his other films.  I wanted to remind people that Morricone’s genius wasn’t just limited to his work with Sergio Leone or the western genre.

That said, there’s a reason why Morricone’s western themes have become classics and that’s because they’re really, really good.  They capture the grandeur of both Leone’s visuals and his themes.  For all the credit that rightfully goes to Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Charles Bronson, the music of Ennio Morricone is one of the main reasons why we remember films like Once Upon A Time In The West and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly while forgetting about certain other westerns that were being made in Europe at the same time.  In Leone’s films, Morricone’s music is just as much of a character as The Man With No Name.

So, any tribute to Morricone has to include the music that he composed for Leone.  Therefore, today’s song of the day is a familiar one but a great one.  Here is Man With A Harmonica from 1969’s Once Upon A Time In The West:

Previous Entries In Our Tribute To Morricone:

1. Deborah’s Theme (Once Upon A Time In America)
2. Violaznioe Violenza (Hitch-Hike)
3. Come Un Madrigale (Four Flies on Grey Velvet)
4. Il Grande Silenzio (The Great Silence)
5. The Strength of the Righteous (The Untouchables)
6. So Alone (What Have You Done To Solange?)
7. The Main Theme From The Mission (The Mission)
8. The Return (Days of Heaven)