The “Golden Hits Of The 60s”
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HUGO MONTENEGRO
“THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY”
(Ennio Morricone)
RCA Victor 9423
No.2 June 1, 1968
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Hugo was born in 1925 and raised in New York City. He attended the city schools, and after a two-year
stay in the Navy where he arranged for Service bands, graduated from Manhattan College. Montenegro
was for some years the staff manager for Andre Kostelanetz, the conductor for Harry Belafonte sessions,
and (starting in 1955) a purveyor of easy-listening music. None of Hugo’s mellow recordings–such as
Bongo’s and Brass, Pizzicato Strings, and Montenegro and Mayhem–made the top pop albums chart
until the release of Original Music From “The Man From U. N. C.L. E.” in 1966.
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Montenegro moved to Los Angeles to do film work, eventually creating and conducting the scores for Otto
Preminger’s Hurry Sundown (1967) and The Ambushers (1968), Elvis’ Chario (1969) and the John Wayne
flick The Undefeated (1969). In 1967, he undertook what he thought would be his last project for RCA–
Music From ”A Fistful of Dollars” & “For a Few Dollars More” & “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.“
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Hugo wanted the album to be different and hip. After studying a number of rock’n’roll disks, he brought
electric guitars, a full set of drums, and an assortment of oddball instruments into the studio. On the title
track to the final entry in Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti western” trilogy, Montenegro used an electric violin (the
only one then in existence, played by Elliot Fisher), a piccolo trumpet (played by Manny Klein), an ocarina
(played by Arthur Smith, writer of the VIRTUES’ “Guitar Boogie Shuffle” and ERIC WEISSBERG & STEVE
MANDELL’s “Dueling Banjos”), and an electronic harmonica (played by Tommy Morgen). The whistler
was Muzzy Marcellino, noted for his extensive blow job throughout John Wayne’s The High and the
Mighty (1954). The tune’s distinctive grunting was actually Hugo himself, mumbling nonsensical syllables
in Italian.
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Hugo Montenegro died of emphysema on February 6, 1981, at the age of 55.