Ennio Morricone: The Influence of the Country Concept Album
Italian film composer Ennio Morricone passed away on Monday (7-6) at the age of 91. And though he will will always be remembered as the definitive mastermind behind the sounds and sonic imagination of the Spaghetti Western—from classics like 1964’s A Fistful of Dollars, all the way up to Quentein Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight in 2015—it would be criminal to overlook the influence Morricone had on American country music, and specifically the concept records that often rise from the crowd of releases to distinguish themselves as some of the most moving and immersive works of the genre.
It may seem strange to credit an Italian for directly influencing country music, but it’s no more strange than shooting Westerns in Italy. If you wanted, you could draw parallel lines between Ennio Morricone soundtracks, and the universally-recognized greatest country record of all time—Willie Nelson’s thematic and cinematic concept record Red Headed Stranger. Though it didn’t have the type of percussive underbelly or prevalent use of echo and reverb at the heart of the Morricone sound, Red Headed Stranger definitely has that Spaghetti Western feel with all the murder, and intrigue to the story.
But if you’re looking for more definitive Morricone-inspired concept records, you must start with the very obscure, but incredibly well-written and produced masterwork from Montana’s Slackeye Slim called El Santo Grial: La Pistola Piadosa. It won Saving Country Music’s 2011 Album of the Year, and arguably encapsulates the Ennio Morricone influence in country and Western music more than anything else.
Some country artist have cited Morricone directly as an influence to their conceptualized works, including Lindi Ortega, and her thematic record from 2018 called Liberty. A common occurrence in these albums is instrumental interludes, a storyline that intertwines with each track in some capacity, and sounds that immediately inspire visions and landscapes found in Morricone-scored films. The same goes for the recent record from Turnpike Troubadours fiddle player Kyle Nix. He directly cited Morricone as an influence for 2020’s Lightning on the Mountain and Other Short Stories.
Another country music masterwork influenced by Ennio Morricone by an artist that directly named him as an influence is Marty Stuart’s 2017 concept Way Out West. The Western themes, the desert scapes, the instrumental interludes are all there. And while we’re on the subject of Marty’s, Stuart was named after country legend and Western singer Marty Robbins. You can’t talk about Ennio Morricone and country music without citing Marty’s 1959 magnum opus Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. Songs like “El Paso” and “Big Iron” have now become standards, though syncing up time periods, Marty Robbins may have been just as much an influence on Morricone as vice versa.
Four of the most defining elements to the Morricone influence are the faraway tones, the space evoked in the music, the percussive grit, and Western themes. Though Canadian Colter Wall has moved more towards a more conventional Cowboy & Western sound recently, his 2015 debut EP Imaginary Appalachia, and his 2017 self-titled record most certainly include Ennio Morricone influences.
But even beyond where the Ennio Morricone touch is direct and obvious, virtually any concept record in country music can probably claim some influence with the Italian film composer’s work, while many regular albums also incorporated the sounds he made famous. But it’s not just the sounds. It’s about stimulating the imagination through music.
From Marty Stuart’s The Pilgrim, to Sturgill Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, to Emmylou Harris’s The Ballad of Sally Rose and Wrecking Ball, (and some more obvious one’s probably being overlooked here) making albums more than just collections of songs—just like Ennio Morricone made films more than just movies—is the important contribution the composer left behind to country, and Western music.
July 6, 2020 @ 9:04 am
“Wa Wa Wa”!
Got to watch that again.
RIP, Mr. Weird Whistle And Guitar Shit.
July 6, 2020 @ 9:20 am
Brad Paisley did a song with Clint Eastwood in his 2011 This Is Country Music album, and it’s heavily inspired by Ennio
July 6, 2020 @ 9:48 am
Probably the coolest music ever.
July 6, 2020 @ 10:31 am
I’m glad you made this post (partly because I’m a baritone guitar person and his soundtracks brought a lot of the twangy low sounds into weird “country” music).
incidentally, every time people complain about Orville Peck not being country, I joke that it’s actually “Spaghetti Western” music- I’m somewhat exaggerating but it’s definitely where that gothy reverby kind of sound comes from.
Country music has a history of being connected to tv and movies- from the enormous influence of the singing cowboy westerns on the look and popularity of country music, to all the variety shows that grew out of televised Grand Ole Opry shows, to the weird sounds that spaghetti western brought in to “country”.
July 6, 2020 @ 4:05 pm
I like to think of Orville Peck as the love child of Marty Robbins and Chris Isaak, raised on a steady diet of Morricone. Fantastic in concert too.
July 6, 2020 @ 10:32 am
Terry Allen, lubbock on everything
July 6, 2020 @ 11:01 am
Any country artist not inspired by Morricone is of little interest to me. Wah wah wahhhhh!
July 6, 2020 @ 12:04 pm
Even metallica open their show with his music. Rip.
July 6, 2020 @ 12:19 pm
Went with a group of friends, from the Italian Amici Group in Burlington, VT. to Montreal, to see a Spaghetti Western opera.
Could not understand many words that were being sung, but everyone snickered when they rolled a horse onto the set.
Great fun!
One of the ladies said on the way up, careful Di, a lot of people fall in love at the opera. Replied, am a little busy to fall in love right now.
Purse strap got caught in some ornate scrollwork in the balcony as i was finding my seat with just the aisle lights on. And yep, landed in the guys lap, in the seat next to mine. Thought, can it get any more cliche?
Mortified, wanted to bust out laughing and apologize at the same time. Nothing was said, as the Italian cowboy was singing onstage, at the moment.
At intermission, the guy i landed on turned & said, “Can, you make your address for me.”
I wanted to die
July 6, 2020 @ 1:43 pm
Another country music site may or may not mention E. Morricone’s passing, only due to the Spaghetti Western angle, but this will be the ONLY one to draw parallels to specific country albums. That’s why this place is the greatest.
July 6, 2020 @ 3:11 pm
I like Italians who like the American West, which turns out to be many of them.
Morricone had a great gift. The atmosphere of those movies would be different and worse without his ability to produce a slow sense of space, sadness, and waiting.
A great legacy.
July 6, 2020 @ 4:23 pm
There’s no dispute about how Morricone’s approach, beginning with the scores of Sergio Leone’s classic “Dollars” trilogy of wacky and violent spaghetti westerns of the late 1960s, influenced country and rock albums about the West, including, most especially, Lindi Ortega’s 2018 album LIBERTY, which has been one of my favorite albums of any genre in the last five years. And, of course, Quentin Tarantino, no slouch he as a film buff, gave Morricone some great latter-day work (THE HATEFUL EIGHT, anyone?)
i would also, however, point to two other film scores of Morricone’s that evoke Americana in ways that people might not suspect automatically. There is his score to Leone’s 1969 masterpiece ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, a true Western epic that is elegiac and much less violent than its predecessors (though Henry Fonda does a masterful turn as a corporate killer). And then there’s the score for Terence Malick’s 1978 period film DAYS OF HEAVEN, which is set in the Texas prairie circa 1916.
Morricone was a true genius; and in whatever form, that genius is really irreplaceable.
July 6, 2020 @ 4:32 pm
As an Italian, country music lover and this site’s reader I thank you very much for this insightful article.
July 6, 2020 @ 7:41 pm
Thanks for reading Michele!
July 6, 2020 @ 6:19 pm
This article needs to mention Juarez and Lubbock on Everything by Terry Allen, BAD! Nice writeup otherwise!
July 6, 2020 @ 8:37 pm
True legend. RIP
July 7, 2020 @ 9:23 am
RIP. A legend and a man who has influenced many. a real loss. 2020 is turning out to be a really depressing year.
July 7, 2020 @ 2:31 pm
No disrespect to Mr. Morricone – And much thanks to him!
But have been hoping someone would bring up Mel Brooks Western, Blazing Saddles.
Oh man,
FUNNY.
Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, on & on & on.
And even though it was pure satire, still a great Western.
July 8, 2020 @ 9:31 am
That movie leads off with the epic title song sung by Frankie Laine, the greatest western movie singer of all-time. Laine had a #1 pop hit with my avatar, “Lucky Old Sun” in the late ’40s, sang movie themes like “3:10 to Yuma” and “Gunfight at OK Corral,” had a hit record with “High Noon,” (though Tex Ritter sang it in the movie), in the ’50s and sang the theme song for the TV western “Rawhide,” starring Clint Eastwood, in the ’60s.
Though Laine was never accepted by the country music business, Marty Robbins pitched him “You Gave Me a Mountain,” and Laine had a big pop hit (#1 Easy Listening) hit with it in ’69. That was Laine’s last major recording before Mel Brooks called him and asked him to sing the “Blazing Saddles” theme–without telling him that it was for a comedy!
July 8, 2020 @ 10:26 am
Cool info!
Thanks!
July 8, 2020 @ 10:30 am
I’m going out on a limb here, Lucky …
Is Laine’s #1 pop hit, “Lucky Old Sun”, where you get the inspiration for your name?
Going to see if i can find the song
July 8, 2020 @ 10:51 am
Ok, so avatar, must mean same thing as your handle, moniker, etc.
Finally, learning more about social media lingo, jargon.
I do not social media, … except for Trigger’s site.
Poor Trigger.
Surprised he hasn’t hired a hit …
July 8, 2020 @ 12:15 pm
@Di Harris: I’m usually guarded about myself, but since you asked:
I was a little kid when “Rawhide” with the “Rolling, Rolling, Rolling” song was on TV.
Columbia Records then put out a Laine LP called “Hellbent for Leather”–named for a line from the “Rawhide” lyric–featuring that song and “High Noon,” “OK Corral” and other Laine favorites with a western-theme. The album was similar in concept and appearance to Marty Robbins’ “Gunfighters and Trail Songs” album, also put out by Columbia around the same time. But Marty’s LP contained new hits–“El Paso” and “Big Iron”–and the Laine LP did not.
The “Hellbent” album–and two follow-ups that Laine put out–is also noteworthy for featuring an orchestra led by a young “Johnny Williams,” who, years later, as John Williams, wrote the “Jaws” and “Star Wars” movie themes–and became the conductor of the Boston Pops.
Laine and Johnny Cash were my two favorite singers as a kid–they both did killer versions of “Ghost Riders In the Sky, btw. When I got older, I found Laine’s older albums in used record stores and came across “That Lucky Old Sun,” which he originally recorded in 1949. Laine had started out as a jazz singer, but is now known mostly for his “cowboy” music.
Laine went out of favor in the ’60s with the rock era, but according to him, Marty Robbins personally pitched him “You Gave Me a Mountain” in ’69. Laine’s dramatic recording broke into the pop top 40 and topped the “Easy Listening” (now called Adult Contemporary) chart. That was pretty much his last hurrah, until Mel Brooks called him out of the blue in ’73, when he was working in Las Vegas, and asked him if he could make a quick side trip to L.A. and record a movie theme. The “Blazing Saddles” song wound up getting nominated for an Academy Award, so Laine got to sing it on the Oscars telecast.
One other piece of trivia. For whatever it’s worth (which is nothing), Charles Manson was a wannabe musician when he led his cult in the Tate-LaBianca murders. Manson, as a kid, reportedly idolized Frankie Laine–and, purportedly sang like him.
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/353264145
July 8, 2020 @ 1:07 pm
Wow.
There is a lot of great information in your post.
Thank you for taking the time!
John Williams is a family favorite.
Can’t tell you how many times had to pick up my sword (Star Wars variety, that lit up & made the sound) to fight my way through my son & neighborhood kids, just to make it to the kitchen, where the crowd from the Death Star were demanding homemade choc. chip cookies.
(One time, made the guy at Laser Tag let me in the back door, so i could sneak attack).
Heard the battle cry of, “It’s your mom!” And all hell broke loose.
And Big Iron On His Hip, is also a family favorite.
July 7, 2020 @ 5:40 pm
May he rest in peace.
Regarding Italians and country music, I am actually not that surprised. I have always found country music and Southern European music to be quite similar in a couple of critical respects: the smoothness of the melody/instrumentation and the emphasis on the vocalist/lyrics. I can imagine that Texas-style country music in particular, with its strong Mexican influences, would very much appeal to Southern Europeans.
July 8, 2020 @ 4:09 am
I’m an Italian country music lover too. That makes me think that there are more country music lovers in Italy than expected.
talking about ‘il Maestro Ennio Morricone’, you all already said a lot and this is another sign – not even needed – about the quality of this forum and the general knowledge of music shown by its members.
talking about country music in Italy, let me add my two cents, even if I know that it’s an off-topic consideration.
At the very beginning, country music was directly relate to western movies soundtracks, or some famous cover of country-rockabilly hits from the 50s-60s.
In the late 70s and early 80s, along with some folk rock groups and singers (a name among others is John Denver, but somehow Crosby Stills & Nash and similar-sound artists were knows as ‘country’ too), people of my age can remember the audio cassette you could find for a few cents in the stores, and I mean food stores too.
Those audio cassettes represented the very first attempt to know country music, as they included biggest hits from biggest names from the past: Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton just to name a few of them.
If you were interested in that sound, you could find a way to look for some contemporary music, but it was not easy to find in music stores. I’m talking about George Strait, or Randy Travis, ending up to Garth Brooks or Dwight Yoakam.
People really interested and really fond of country music had their chances in the 90s and later, thanks to the internet. That meant a big chance to widen the horizon and even to go back to the roots, discovering the sound of Hank Sr, for example, or even the Carter Family.
At the mean time, the country-addicted movement spread thru Italy, expecially the north eastern region. Line dance became more and more popular, two step was a must in the biggest fairs and festivals (yes, believe it or not we have many country music festivals) and everything related to the country world (from Hazzard to sexy car wash) was not so easy to find in the stores.
The sad part of this all was, or I better say, the sad parts are:
-country artists don’t come to Italy for live concerts or shows, if you compare Italy to other countries like Switzerland (one of the biggest festival was in Gstaad), or the Netherlands, Germany or even Sweden.
-Country music is more and more confused with bro-country and similar. This is because 90% of people don’t care about song texts and are not so attracted by pedal steel or fiddle, or even honky tonk sound. Not judging anyone, of course. Luckily, the internet era let everybody choose the music he wants to listen to.
But I’d be glad to see one of my ‘heroes’ live in concert here in Italy. Such a rare event, too bad.
Forgive me for writing so much and forgive my English. I’ll keep on reading posts on this interesting forum as I have been doing for years, and tanks for saving country music 🙂
regards from italy.