The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Western directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach in the title roles. The screenplay was written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni and Leone, based on a story by Vincenzoni and Leone. Director of photography Tonino Delli Colli was responsible for the film’s sweeping widescreen cinematography and Ennio Morricone composed the famous film score. It is the third film in the Dollars trilogy following A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). The plot centers around three gunslingers competing to find a fortune in buried Confederate gold amid the violent chaos of gunfights, hangings, Civil War battles, and prison camps.

 Opening on December 23, 1966 in Italy and in the USA on December 29, 1967, the film grossed $6.1 million, but was criticized for its depiction of violence. Leone explains that “the killings in my films are exaggerated because I wanted to make a tongue-in-cheek satire on run-of-the-mill westerns… The west was made by violent, uncomplicated men, and it is this strength and simplicity that I try to recapture in my pictures.” To this day, Leone’s effort to reinvigorate the timeworn Western is widely acknowledged: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has been described as European cinema’s best representative of the Western genre film, and Quentin Tarantino has called it “the best-directed film of all time.”

The film tells the story of three men who pursue, often at the expense of others, information about the location of a buried treasure of coins. The first character introduced in the movie is Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez (the Ugly) — called Tuco — (Eli Wallach), who has a bounty on his head for numerous crimes. Tuco has a partnership with Blondie (The Good, played by Clint Eastwood) in which the latter turns him in for the reward money which the two then split after Blondie saves Tuco from hanging at the last moment, by shooting the rope then riding off together.

(Note that the name “Blondie” is merely a reference to Clint Eastwood’s character’s hair color; the actual character has no name, and is only referred to as “Blondie” by Tuco.)

Meanwhile, a third character called “Angel Eyes” (Lee Van Cleef, playing the Bad) is shown to be a cold-blooded killer, has learned of a hidden trunk of gold owned by a Confederate soldier named Bill Carson. He sets off to find the gold.

Soon, Blondie grows tired of his relationship with Tuco with the latter’s continual complaining, and leaves Tuco in the desert with no water. Tuco survives the 70-mile trip back to civilization, and is intent on exacting revenge on his former partner. He finds Blondie, and turns the tables by planning to abandon him in the desert. However, before Tuco can complete his torture in the New Mexico desert, a runaway stagecoach full of dead and dying Confederate soldiers appears. Bill Carson, the man with knowledge of the whereabouts of the gold, dying from thirst, persuades Tuco to get him a drink by disclosing the name of the graveyard where the loot is located. As Tuco goes for the water, Carson dies, but not before revealing the name on the grave to Blondie.

Dressed in the uniforms of the dead soldiers, Tuco takes Blondie, near death, to a local Catholic mission run by his brother, Franciscan friar. While Blondie recovers, Tuco and his brother (Luigi Pistilli) confront each other about the mistakes each has made in life. After leaving the mission, the two, still impersonating Confederate soldiers, see a group of soldiers riding in the distance. To Blondie’s distress, Tuco calls out, thinking that the grey uniforms belong to Confederate soldiers. But when they approach, the leader brushes off the dust from his uniform revealing the Union’s blue uniforms. They capture the pair and take them to a Union prison camp.

Angel Eyes has followed the trail of Bill Carson to the prison camp and is posing as a Union Sergeant. Angel Eyes and his colleague Corporal Wallace beat and torture Tuco until he reveals the location of the cemetery. When Angel Eyes learns that only Blondie knows the name, he changes tactics. He proposes a partnership, and accompanied by six other killers, they leave to find the coins. Tuco escapes while being transported from the camp by train, in the process killing Wallace. At the nearest town, Tuco encounters a bounty hunter (Al Mulock) he had wounded at the beginning of the film, who seeks his revenge. Since Tuco does not recognize the bounty hunter he loses time reminding him of their encounter and how he had to practice firing with his off-hand due to the injury he suffered in their previous brash. His vanity proves to be his undoing when Tuco manages to retrieve his gun shooting him and uttering a famous line. Blondie, who is in the same town with Angel Eyes, recognizes the sound of Tuco’s gun, seeks him out, and he and Tuco resume their old partnership. Together they kill Angel Eyes’ gunmen along the main street, but Angel Eyes himself escapes.

Tuco and Blondie stumble on a battle between the Union and the Confederates, fighting for a bridge of questionable strategic value. Since the cemetery is on the other side of the bridge, they decide to destroy it and force the soldiers go somewhere else to fight. While they are setting up the dynamite, Tuco reveals that the cemetery is called SAD HILL and Blondie reveals that the coins are buried in a grave marked by the name of Arch Stanton.

On the other side of the river Tuco deserts Blondie by horseback and finally enters the nearby graveyard.

The Mexican stand off climax at the Sad Hill Cemetery remains one of the most popular scenes in film history.

Tuco frantically searches around the graveyard for the grave of Arch Stanton to the sound of one of Ennio Morricone‘s most famous orchestral pieces (“The Ecstasy of Gold“), with brasses and cymbals employed to maxumum effects to render the metallic ring of the treasure he craves for. Eventually Tuco finds it, but before he can begin digging he’s held at gunpoint by Blondie, who in turn is held at gunpoint by Angel Eyes, who has finally caught up to both of them. However, Blondie reveals that Arch Stanton’s grave contains only a decomposing corpse.

Blondie then leads the three of them into an empty patch of land in the middle of the cemetery. He writes the name of the real grave under a stone which he places in the center.

At the conclusion of a three-way shootout, Blondie shoots Angel Eyes and Tuco finds his gun empty, having been unloaded the previous night by Blondie. Blondie then reveals that the real location of the coins is a grave marked “Unknown” right next to Arch Stanton. Blondie forces Tuco to dig up the loot from the grave, then when Tuco finished, he finds himself once again staring down the barrel of Blondie’s gun. Blondie had also tied a noose to a tree branch, and forces Tuco to put his neck in it, while standing on a rickety grave cross. Blondie takes half the coins and rides away while Tuco cries for help and abuses Blondie. In a dramatic twist, Blondie turns around to shoot the rope above Tuco’s head, as he used to do in their times of partnership, freeing him one last time before riding off as Tuco screams in rage.

Song ‘William Tell Overture Pt.1′

Song ‘William Tell Overture Pt.2′

Gioachino Antonio Rossini (Pesaro, February 29, 1792 – Passy, November 13, 1868) was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music and chamber music. His best known works include Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) and Guillaume Tell (William Tell). Rossini was born into a family of musicians in Pesaro, a town on the Adriatic coast of Italy. His father, Giuseppe, was a horn player and inspector of slaughterhouses, his mother, Anna, was a singer and baker’s daughter. Rossini’s parents began his musical training early, and by the age of six he was playing the triangle in his father’s band.

Rossini’s father was sympathetic to the French Revolution and welcomed Napoleon‘s troops when they arrived in Northern Italy. This became a problem when the Austrians restored the old regime in 1796. Rossini’s father was sent to prison, and his mother took him to Bologna, earning her living as a leading singer at various theatres of the Romagna region, where she was ultimately joined by her husband. During this time, he was frequently left in the care of his aging grandmother, who was unable to effectively control the boy.

He remained at Bologna in the care of a pork butcher, while his father played the horn in the orchestras of the theatres at which his wife sang. The boy had three years’ instruction in the harpsichord from Prinetti of Novara, who played the scale with two fingers only, combined his profession of a musician with the business of selling liquor, and fell asleep while he stood, so he was a fit subject for ridicule by his critical pupil.

The production of his Guillaume Tell in 1829 brought his career as a writer of opera to a close. The libretto was by Étienne Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, but their version was revised by Armand Marrast. The music is remarkable for its freedom from the conventions discovered and utilized by Rossini in his earlier works, and marks a transitional stage in the history of opera. Though a very good opera, it is rarely heard uncut today, as the original score runs more than four hours in performance.

After living for a time in Florence he settled in Paris in 1855, where his house was a centre of artistic society. He died at his country house at Passy on Friday November 13, 1868 and was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France. In 1887 his remains were moved to the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Florence, where they now rest.

Song ‘Heart Of Gold’

Song ‘Hey Hey, My My’

Song ‘Southern Man’

Neil Percival Young OM (born November 12, 1945, Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and film director from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

His work is characterized by deeply personal lyrics, distinctive guitar work, and an instantly recognizable nasal tenor (and frequently alto) singing voice. Although he accompanies himself on several different instruments—including piano and harmonica—his style of hammer-on acoustic guitar and often idiosyncratic soloing on electric guitar are the linchpins of a sometimes ragged, sometimes polished, yet consistently evocative sound. Although Young has experimented widely with differing music styles, including swing, jazz, rockabilly, blues, and electronica throughout a varied career, his best known work usually falls into either of two distinct styles: folk-esque acoustic rock (as heard in songs such as “Heart of Gold” (sample (help·info)), “Harvest Moon” and “Old Man“) and electric-charged hard rock (in songs like “Cinnamon Girl“, “Rockin’ in the Free World” and “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)“). In more recent years, Young has started to adopt elements from newer styles of music, such as industrial, alternative country and grunge, the latter of which was profoundly influenced by his own style of playing, often bringing him the title of “the godfather of grunge”.

Young has directed (or co-directed) a number of films using the pseudonym Bernard Shakey, including Journey Through the Past (1973), Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Human Highway (1982), and Greendale (2003).

He is also an outspoken advocate for environmental issues and small farmers, having co-founded the benefit concert Farm Aid, and in 1986 helped found The Bridge School, and its annual supporting Bridge School Benefit concerts, together with his wife Pegi.

Song ‘Black Dog’

Song ‘No Quarter’

Song ‘D’yer Maker’

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band that formed in September 1968. Led Zeppelin consisted of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones. With their heavy, guitar-driven sound, Led Zeppelin are regarded as one of the first heavy metal bands. Their rock-infused interpretation of the blues also incorporated rockabilly, reggae, soul, funk, jazz, classical, Celtic, Indian, Arabic, folk, pop, Latin and country. The band did not release the popular songs from their albums as singles in Britain, as they preferred to develop the concept of album-oriented rock.

Over 25 years after disbanding following Bonham’s 1980 death, Led Zeppelin continue to be held in high regard for their artistic achievements, commercial success, and broad influence. The band have sold more than 300 million albums worldwide, including 109.5 million sales in the United States. Led Zeppelin are ranked No. 1 on VH1‘s list of the 100 greatest artists of hard rock.

Song ‘All Dead’

Song ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’

Queen are an English rock band formed in 1970 in London by Brian May, Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor, with John Deacon joining the following year. Queen rose to prominence during the 1970s and are one of Britain’s most successful bands of the past three decades.

The band are noted for their musical diversity, multi-layered arrangements, vocal harmonies and incorporation of audience participation into their live performances. They are regarded as one of the most accomplished rock acts to ever be on stage.

Queen had moderate success in the early 1970s, with the albums Queen and Queen II, but it was with the release of Sheer Heart Attack in 1974 that the band gained international success. From that album forward, all of the band’s studio albums reached number one on numerous charts around the world. Since 1973, they have released fifteen studio albums, five live albums, and numerous compilation albums and have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide,^] including more than 35.5 million in the United States alone (as of 2004), making them one of the world’s best-selling music artists.

Following Mercury’s death and Deacon’s retirement in the 1990s, May and Taylor collaborated with Paul Rodgers, under the moniker Queen + Paul Rodgers.

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Song ‘Your Song’

Song ‘Daniel’

Sir Elton Hercules John CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947) is a five-time Grammy and one-time Academy Award-winning English pop/rock singer, composer and pianist.

In his four-decade career, John has been one of the dominant forces in rock and popular music, especially in the 1970s. John has sold more than 250 million albums plus hundreds of millions of singles, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. He has more than 50 Top 40 hits including seven consecutive #1 U.S. albums, 59 Top 40 singles, 16 Top 10, 4 #2 hits, and nine #1 hits. His success has had a profound impact on popular music and has contributed to the continued popularity of the piano in rock and roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Elton John #49 on their list of The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.^[5]

Some of the characteristics of Elton John’s music are his ability to quickly craft unique melodies for the lyrics of songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, his rich tenor voice, his classical and gospel-influenced piano, the aggressive orchestral arrangements of Paul Buckmaster among others and the flamboyant fashions and on-stage showmanship, especially evident during the 1970s.

Elton John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. He has been heavily involved in the fight against AIDS since the late 1980s and was knighted in 1998. He entered into a civil partnership with David Furnish on 21 December 2005 and continues to be a champion for the gay rights movement.

]]> http://ludbafital2.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/elton-john/feed/ 0 ludbafital http://ludbafital2.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/jim-croce/ http://ludbafital2.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/jim-croce/#comments Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:49:00 +0000 ludbafital http://ludbafital2.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/jim-croce/ ]]>

Song ‘These Dreams’

During the early 1960s, Croce formed a number of college bands and performed at coffee houses and universities, and later performed with his wife as a duo in the mid-1960s to early 1970s. At first their performances included songs by Ian and Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, and Woody Guthrie, but in time they began writing their own music, such as “Age”, “Hey Tomorrow”, and “Spin Spin Spin”, which later led to Croce’s hit songs in the early seventies.

At the same time, Croce got his first long-term gig at a rural bar and steak house in Lima, Pennsylvania, called the Riddle Paddock. There, over the next few years, Croce developed a very engaging rapport with tough audiences and built his musical repertoire to more than 3,000 songs. His set list included every genre from blues to country to rock ‘n roll to folk, with tender love songs and traditional bawdy ballads, always introduced with a story and an impish grin.

In 1968, Jim and Ingrid Croce were encouraged to move to New York City to record their first album with Capitol Records. For the next two years, they drove more than 300,000 miles playing small clubs and concerts on the college concert circuit promoting their album Jim & Ingrid Croce.

Then, disillusioned by the music business and New York City, Croce sold all but one guitar to pay the rent, and they returned to the Pennsylvania countryside where Croce got a job driving trucks and doing construction to pay the bills. He called this his “character development period” and spent a lot of his time sitting in the cab of a truck, composing songs about his buddies and the folks he enjoyed meeting at the local bars and truck stops.

In 1970, Croce met classically trained pianist/guitarist, singer-songwriter Maury Muehleisen from Trenton, New Jersey through Joe Salviuolo (aka Sal Joseph). (Sal was best friends with Jim when they attended Villanova University together, and later “discovered” Maury when he was teaching at Glassboro State College in New Jersey.) Sal, along with Tommy West and Terry Cashman, brought this magical duo together in the Cashman and West production office in New York City. Initially, Croce backed Muehleisen on guitar at his gigs. But in time, their musical strengths led them each to new heights. Muehleisen’s ethereal and inspired guitar leads became the perfect accompaniment to Croce’s down-to-earth music.

In 1972, Croce signed to a three record deal with ABC Records releasing You Don’t Mess Around with Jim and Life & Times in the same year. The singles, “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim”, “Operator (That’s Not The Way It Feels)”, and “Time In A Bottle” (written for his newborn son, A. J. Croce) helped the former album reach #1 on the charts in 1974. Croce’s biggest single “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown“, hit number 1 on the U.S. charts in the summer of 1973, selling two million copies.

Croce, 30, and Muehleisen, 24, died in a small commercial plane crash on September 20, 1973, one day before his third ABC album, I Got a Name was to be released. The posthumous release included three hits, “I Got A Name,” “Workin’ At The Car Wash Blues” and “I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song.”

Kunta Kinte

Roots is a 1977 American television miniseries based on Alex Haley‘s work Roots: The Saga of an American Family, his critically acclaimed genealogical novel.

Roots was a ground-breaking event in U.S. television history. It won 9 Emmys, a Golden Globe, and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen Ratings (with the finale still standing as the 3rd highest rated U.S. program ever^[1], behind the series finale of M*A*S*H and the resolution to “Who Shot J.R.?” on Dallas) and captivated American television audiences, successfully crossing racial lines and piquing the interest of families in all ethnic groups.

The series and its 1979 sequel Roots: The Next Generations featured many African American actors at all levels of experience. The program introduced LeVar Burton in the role of Kunta Kinte. It also starred Louis Gossett Jr. as Fiddler. A second sequel, Roots: The Gift, was also produced as a Christmas movie and is widely considered inferior to the other two entries in the series, despite the fact that LeVar Burton and Louis Gossett Jr. star.

Roots and the book it was adapted from revived interest in oral and genealogical history among all segments of the population. It also spurred an interest in African or African sounding names; Kizzy (played by Leslie Uggams), for example, became popular for African-American baby girls. Even an entire generation later, famous black American comedian Dave Chappelle satirized the TV series in a popular sketch aired on his Chappelle’s Show.

The series was directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, John Erman, David Greene and Gilbert Moses. It was produced by Stan Margulies; David L. Wolper was executive producer. The now-familiar score was composed by Gerald Fried and Quincy Jones.

Alex Haley narrates the last few minutes of the series, where photos of him appear along with other people who connect him as the 10th generation from Kunte Kinte’s grandmother to him.

Song ‘Green, Green Grass Of Home’

Sir Thomas Jones Woodward, OBE, (born 7 June 1940), known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Grammy Award-winning Welsh popular music singer. He was born in Treforest, Pontypridd, near Cardiff in South Wales. Tom Jones rose to fame in the mid-1960s, with an exuberant live act which included wearing tight breeches and billowing shirts, in an Edwardian style popular amongst his peers at the time. He was known for his overt sexuality, before this was as common as it has become in subsequent years.

In 1963 he became the frontman for Tommy Scott and the Senators, a local beat group. Clad all in black leather, he soon gained a reputation in the South Wales area. The Senators were still unheard of in London.

In 1964 they laid down seven tracks with maverick Telstar producer Joe Meek, and took them to various labels in an attempt to get a record deal, with no success. The plan was to release a single, Lonely Joe/I Was A Fool, but the ever-flighty Meek refused to release the tapes. Only after It’s Not Unusual became a massive hit, Meek was able to sell the tapes to Tower (USA) and Columbia (UK). The group returned to South Wales and continued to play gigs at dance halls and working men’s clubs. One night, at the Top Hat in Cwmtillery, Jones was spotted by Gordon Mills, a London-based manager originally from South Wales. Mills became Jones’ manager, and took the young singer to London. He also renamed him Tom Jones, an ingenious moniker which not only linked the singer to the image of the title character – a good-looking, low-born stud – portrayed in Tony Richardson’s film of Fielding’s Tom Jones which was a huge contemporary hit, but also subtly emphasized his nationality. Gordon Mills gave many rock stars their stage names, among them Engelbert Humperdinck (born Arnold George Dorsey). The Senators became the Playboys, and later still the Squires. It was the beginning of the second phase in Jones’ career.

Record companies were finding his style and delivery to be too abrasive and raw. Jones’ vocals were considered to be too raucous, and he moved like Elvis. But eventually, Decca rekindled their early interest, and Jones recorded his first single, Chills And Fever in late 1964.

The single didn’t chart, but the follow-up, It’s Not Unusual, (co-written by Les Reed), was an instant smash hit, released in early 1965. Initially the BBC refused to play it, but an offshore pirate station, Radio Caroline, picked it up. Its orchestrated arrangement coupled with Jones’ energetic delivery proved infectious, and by March 1st the song reached number one in the UK and the top ten in America. In the same year, Jones sang the theme tune to the James Bond film Thunderball. Jones was awarded the Grammy Award for Best New Artist for 1965. In 1966 Jones’ popularity began to slip somewhat, causing Mills to redesign the singer’s image into a more respectable, mature tuxedoed crooner.

Inspired by long-time influence Jerry Lee Lewis’ country version, Jones released his most successful single ever, Green Green Grass of Home (written by Claude “Curly” Putman Jr. in 1965), and began to sing material that appealed to a broad audience, as well as a string of hit singles and albums including What’s New Pussycat?, Help Yourself and Delilah. The strategy worked, as he returned to the top of the charts in the UK and began hitting the Top 40 again in the U.S.

Song ‘Love Me Tender’

Song ‘In the Ghetto’

Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), was an American singer, musician and actor. He is a cultural icon, often known simply as Elvis; also “The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll“, or simply “The King“.

Presley began his career as one of the first performers of rockabilly, an uptempo fusion of country and rhythm and blues with a strong back beat. His novel versions of existing songs, mixing ‘black’ and ‘white’ sounds, made him popular – and controversial – as did his uninhibited stage and television performances. He recorded songs in the rock and roll genre, with tracks like “Jailhouse Rock” and “Hound Dog” later embodying the style. He developed a versatile voice and had success with other genres, including gospel, blues, ballads and pop. To date, he is the only performer to have been inducted into three separate music ‘Halls of Fame’. Presley made thirty-three movies, the majority during the 1960s, but he made a critically-acclaimed return to live music in 1968, followed by performances in Las Vegas and across the U.S. Throughout his career, he set records for concert attendance, television ratings and records sales. He is one of the best-selling and most influential artists in the history of popular music. His death at age 42 shocked his fans worldwide.