Hugo Montenegro’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Sheet Music sells in Auction

Hugo Montenegro’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Sheet Music sells in Auction

Our friend of the Archive, Travis Trewin dropped me a line this morning. Informing me that Hugo Montenegro’s original sheet music for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly sold today in auction. This cover version of Ennio Morricone’s theme was Montenegro's biggest popular hit, reaching #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, #3 in the Canadian RPM Magazine charts, and spent four weeks at No 1 in the UK Singles Chart in 1968. 

Montenegro was born in New York City in 1925. He served in the U.S. Navy for two years, mostly as an arranger for the Newport Naval Base band in Newport, Rhode Island. After the war he attended Manhattan College while studying composition and leading his own band for school dances.

In the middle 1950s, he was directing, conducting, and arranging the orchestra for Eliot Glen and Irving Spice on their Dragon and Caprice labels. It was he who was directing the Glen-Spice Orchestra on Dion DiMucci's first release when Dion was backed by Dragon recording artists, the Timberlanes. Released on Mohawk #105 in 1957, the songs were "Out in Colorado" and "The Chosen Few", which were soon issued on the Jubilee label for better distribution.

He was later hired by Time Records as a musical director producing a series of albums for the label, and moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s where he began working for RCA Victor, producing a series of albums and soundtracks for motion pictures and television themes, such as two volumes of Music From The Man From U.N.C.L.E., an album of cover versions of spy music themes Come Spy With Me and an album of cover versions of Ennio Morricone's music for Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy that led to major chart hits.

Montenegro began scoring motion pictures with the instrumental music from Advance to the Rear in 1964. Following the success of his albums, he was contracted by Columbia Pictures where he scored such films as Hurry Sundown (1967), Lady in Cement (1968), The Undefeated (1969), Viva Max! (1969) and the Matt Helm films The Ambushers (1967) and The Wrecking Crew (1968). He composed the musical score and conducted the recording sessions for the 1969 Elvis Presley Western film Charro! (1969). His last film scores were for the exploitation film Too Hot to Handle and the cult action thriller The Farmer, in 1977.

He will perhaps be best remembered for his versions of classics such as the main theme to Sergio Leone's film The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It sold over one and a quarter million copies and was awarded a gold disc.

(Below; The German release of Montenegro's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly)

In the late 1970s severe emphysema forced an end to his musical career, and he died of the disease in 1981. He is buried at Welwood Murray Cemetery in Palm Springs, California.

A private buyer had purchased his storage locker and has been auctioning off his belongings through the platform ‘Whatnot’. Some other items auctioned included test pressings, eight track recordings, musical instruments, sound equipment, a whole range of personal items, such as ID cards, artworks gifted to him, fan letters, contracts, conductor’s baton, etc.  The Auctioneer reportedly paid a little over US$20,000 for the storage unit contents which had been sitting there since the early 80’s.

A story that is tinged with sadness, but nevertheless – it’s nice to know that the material is sure to be treasured by people and genuine fans that admired his work.

The sheet music which featured hand written notes by Montenegro, sold this morning in Palm Springs with a hammer price of US$450.

My kind thanks to Travis