Jeff Bond's Must-Have Western Scores

Westerns have long been one of the most fruitful genres for generating good film scores: their hard-driving action, stark desert landscapes and operatic morality plays providing memorable inspiration for composers from Victor Young to Bruce Broughton.

Call me a modernist, but the pioneering works of Young, Max Steiner and Dimitri Tiomkin have always left me cold. Most of these scores seem to consist of one hokey theme song in the Gene Autry mold that gets repeated ad nauseam throughout the picture, giving way only to the boom-boom-boom-boom rhythm that announces that Native Americans are about to be slandered onscreen once again.

It took exceptional American composers like Aaron Copland with his score to The Red Pony to point the way to what western scores could aspire to, and Copland's shadow has fallen across almost every western film score since. One of the first film composers who could claim to be more of a contemporary of Copland's than an imitator was Jerome Moross, whose seminal 1958 score to The Big Country was the first epic western score to fulfill the promise of the genre, with a broad, sweeping, immediately familiar theme and numerous cues pulsating with rhythmic invention and melodramatic power. Even Bernard Herrmann got into the act with the rambunctious Garden of Evil score.

Waiting in the wings was Elmer Bernstein, who began in pictures like The Tin Star and The Commancheros to bring an uncanny, good-natured lyricism that brilliantly evoked Copland without aping him (Bernstein even adapted Copland's Appalachian Spring for a '70s TV miniseries, The Macahans). Jerry Goldsmith cut his theatrical scoring teeth on modestly-budgeted westerns like Black Patch and Face of a Fugitive, bringing an entirely new sound to the genre: arid, dark-humored and often brutally percussive. In the '60s he and Bernstein played the light and dark sides of American westerns while Ennio Morricone created a wholly alien soundscape for the semi-satirical Spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone.

Fortunately for film score mavens, most if not all of the great western movie scores are currently available on compact disc. Here are some titles that should form the cornerstone of any respectable western soundtrack collection:

1. The Big Country, Jerome Moross. Widely available as an energetic re-recording done by Tony Bremner, the original film tracks were preserved on a lengthy, mono promotional CD from Screen Archives. Proud Rebel, a somewhat lesser effort starring Alan Ladd, is also available, but the next best thing is an 18- minute suite of Moross's wild, Herrmann-cum-Copland score for Ray Harryhausen's "dino-western" The Valley of Gwangi on Silva Screen.

2. The Magnificent Seven, Elmer Bernstein. Although Bernstein has recorded the score for Varese Sarabande, the only currently available version is Koch's James Sedares-conducted take with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra. Bernstein's famous title theme has come to symbolize the wild west to most people, although older listeners will recognize it as the theme for "Marlboro Country," that great land where hard-bitten cowboys never get lung cancer from sucking down too many unfiltered cigarettes. The Sedares version is a trifle jumpy and staccato for my tastes; the original score was never released, but Berstein adapted it for the cheapo sequel Return of the Seven which has long existed on a rousing, expansive-sounding LP.

3. John Wayne Westerns Volumes I and II, Elmer Bernstein. No western collection would be complete without the greatest American hero who never fought a war, the Duke Himself. Bernstein's '60s westerns, launched with The Magnificent Seven, were ineffable: supercharged, rhythmically and thematically infectious, and they perfectly captured the indomitable screen persona of John Wayne. Volume One's The Commancheros was Bernstein's first collaboration with Wayne, but it set the tone perfectly with its swaggering western march theme and an energetic, percussive treatment of the attacking Injuns that was less expected than usual for the period. True Grit won Wayne an Oscar near the end of his career, playing an aging, "one-eyed fat man" who nevertheless is able to outgun villain Robert Duvall in the defense of Laura Ingalls-like, plucky Kim Darby. With Darby in tow, True Grit was as much a sympathetic exploration of innocence as a butt-kicking western yarn, and Bernstein's score beautifully combines the rousing thematic approach of his finest oaters with the delicate sweetness of his To Kill a Mockingbird score. Volume II features two late-era, formula Wayne actioners, Big Jake and Cahill, U.S. Marshall, but it's Bernstein's scoring of Wayne's swan-song, The Shootist, that makes the album with its gritty, drum-happy opening, loping horse-riding Americana cue and gorgeous elegiac wrap-up. Last on the list of Bernstein oaters is The Sons of Katie Elder, with a classic Berstein title theme and some kicky, Irish-influenced fight cues; this one suffers a little from an underfed orchestral sound.

4. Choosing the best Jerry Goldsmith western is a tough call, although the most fulsome album presentation probably belongs to 1964's Rio Conchos, magnificently resurrected (along with Goldsmith's gorgeous classically-developed documentary score "The Artist Who Did Not Want to Paint") by Goldsmith and the London Symphony Orchestra for Intrada Records. Rio Conchos is a straight adventure score, but its edgy south-of-the-border rhythms, explosive action cues and howling nihilistic finale make it a seminal Goldsmith collectable. From the fertile Planet of the Apes period of the late '60s comes the quirky Bandolero! with its whistled, triangle-driven theme, the over-commercialized remake of Stagecoach, notable for Goldsmith's spare score of solo brass and guitar, and the moody, revisionist Wyatt Earp biopic Hour of the Gun, with a score that easily straddled the needs of tough action sequences and searing character drama. Two of Goldsmith's best western scores have never received legitimate soundtrack releases: the beautifully lyrical and sympathetic modern western Lonely Are the Brave and the Burt Reynolds actioner 100 Rifles, which featured an outrageously energetic, pummelingly hard-edged score. For a less-conventional work, try Goldsmith's The Wild Rovers (coupled with The Great Train Robbery on Memoir's CD), which mixes some of Goldsmith's most Coplandesque, high-energy orchestral cues with some evocative quieter moments featuring zither, accordion and xylophone. Even 1994's atrocious Bad Girls featured a better-than-average western romp from Goldsmith that sported several thrilling action cues.

5. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Ennio Morricone. Nobody mustered a more bizarre yet incredibly apropos approach to the genre than Italy's Ennio Morricone, and he never produced a work more memorable work than the insane title music to this seminal Man-With-No-Name epic from Sergio Leone, with its clarion call seemingly whistled, hooted by owls and yowled by tortured cats over a muttering, martial male chorus and electric guitar. For all its bizarre effects, Morricone's score is one of the most beautiful and haunting works ever produced for a film, and its climactic cue, "The Ecstasy of Gold" is a lyrical masterpiece. Morricone's other works in the Eastwood trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More (available separately or well- excerpted with a lot of other crazy stuff on the fine compilation Ennio Morricone: The Legendary Italian Westerns on RCA), are equally striking if not quite so memorable. Another favorite is Morricone's quirky, bleating theme for the Eastwood/Shirley MacLaine team-up Two Mules For Sister Sara, with some beautiful quasi-religious passages.

6. The Wild Bunch, Jerry Fielding. Although it's only scheduled to be available in its entirety with a pricey laserdisc in the future, this classic Fielding adventure score is a must: eloquently emotional without displaying an ounce of sentimentality, the score spins its own bleak, inevitably defeated landscape from its grim opening titles, eventually raising an ass-kicking heroic theme for The Bunch as they rear their aging heads from the grave for one last, doomed score. Fielding's style is so different from anyone else out there that it takes some getting used to (and his tempos in this score may strike the casual listener as abrupt), but once you get into it you'll be hooked and will have to find deleted copies of Bay Cities' Chato's Land and Screen Archives The Outlaw Josey Wales.

7. The Professionals, Maurice Jarre. Jarre's name isn't the first name that leaps to mind when you think of great western music, but he's done his share, and his rambunctious, Spanish-flavored action theme music to this Richard Brooks adventure film about a band of elite tough guys (the late, lamented Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan and Woody Strode) who head south to rescue the kidnapped wife of a politico in the early 1900s, is a perfect piece of catchy, machismo-stirring bombast. The album alternates between mostly similar renditions of the theme and extended Mexican dance cues, but you'll want to sit through the theme itself numerous times.

8. The Cowboys, John Williams. Written in the early '70s, when Williams was just beginning to get a high-profile scoring career going, The Cowboys is brimming with hummable themes, catchy, rustling rhythms and good-natured brio until Williams summons up his hideous bass-harmonica motif for low-down, theivin' Bruce Dern, the first man to shoot John Wayne in the back onscreen. Williams wrote a beautiful Americana theme for The Duke that's closely related to his Superman Kansas music.

9. Silverado, Bruce Broughton. After slaving away scoring episodes of Quincy and Dallas for years, veteran composer Bruce Broughton got his shot at the big time with this misguided but convincingly epic Lawrence Kasdan western, and he ran with the ball, writing a fabulous, fully-developed western melody that became an instant classic. "Rip-snortin'" hardly begins to describe the wealth of high-energy, buoyant action cues on the Intrada album, and in fact I've listened to this thing so many times I'm actually pretty tired of it. Which leads me to Tombstone, Broughton's sober yet richly romantic look at the Wyatt Earp legend, with a striking opening that echoes out of the dust with an aging, player-piano sound before exploding in percussive violence. Broughton's Charles Ives-like treatment of an Earp sibling's death and his towering horn theme for Wyatt himself has eclipsed the more surface-oriented pleasures of Silverado in my book; this is the western I'll be listening to in years to come.

10. Cheyenne Autumn, Alex North. North didn't get to take a crack at too many westerns, and when he scored John Ford's lengthy apology for his filmic treatment of Native Americans in 1964 the director hated the results so much it's amazing he didn't dump the score...but then again, Ford's lengthy association with Victor Young signals to me that this is a director not too well-schooled in music. North's score is a potent mix of muted, lyrical Americana and a wounded, proud take on Native American melodic approaches that is by turns deeply moving and sharply satirical, very much in the mode the composer established for previous epics like Spartacus and Cleopatra. For another take on similar material, check out the promotional pressing of Gerald Fried's The Mystic Warrior, a tuneful blend of choral mysticism and straight-out melodic adventure that will be instantly recognizable to fans of the composer's old Star Trek scores to episodes like "Amok Time" and "Friday's Child."

Many of the above albums are available from Screen Archives (http://www.writemoore.com/st-cafe) and Intrada (http://members.aol.com/intradanet/intrada.htm). This column was suggested by Tim Cissell of Richardson, TX, who asked if we could give some suggestions on good western scores on CD. No task is too great for our combined might! Send your suggestions for future columns to Lukas@filmscoremonthly.com.