Amico, Stammi Lontano Almeno un Palmo....
La Ballata di Ben and Charlie

Digitmovies is certainly one of those labels that is unswerving with it’s releases, this particular score was issued a while back, but for some reason I omitted to review it, maybe because I thought it was a score that had been in my collection for years on record, and selfishly thought that everyone had heard it or was familiar with it, sadly or at least to my surprise I was told by many collectors that they were not familiar with the title at all. So I thought I would try and make amends now by writing this review. Originally issued back in 1972 on the Cinevox label (lp mdf 33/52), this spaghetti western directed by Michele Lupo, starred Giuliano Gemma and George Eastman. The film was originally destined to be scored by Francesco De Masi, but for some reason he did not complete the assignment, some of the music however that De Masi wrote still survives on a BEAT records compact disc of his western scores. Ferrio’s score is a well written and intelligently orchestrated work, which relies upon the use of the title theme throughout as its core, from this Ferrio builds an original sounding spaghetti western score, which is at times influenced with jazz colours. The central theme is heard at first in the form of a song, LET IT RAIN, LET IT POUR, is performed by Stefan Grossman who also provided the lyrics. This returns in various manifestations within the running duration of the soundtrack, and there is a particularly attractive version of it in track number 5, UN PASSAGGIO PER RED ROCK, where the composer utilises guitar, strings and harpsichord to create an almost easy going version of the theme, this builds slowly into a fuller version of the composition the strings swelling into a romantic sounding crescendo of sorts bringing the cue to its end where Ferrio adds a saloon piano for effect. As with many of Ferrio,s other western scores, this certainly cannot be pigeon holed or categorised in with spaghetti scores that contain the stock sounds of the genre, there is no whistling, shrieks or soaring wordless female vocals, but say that it still is in my opinion a good candidate for being put into my top ten spaghetti scores. The CD contains 18 cues which are taken from the original LP release, and Digitmovies have added a further 5 bonus tracks, which had been omitted from the LP release. There is some nice choral work on the score from, THE CHILDRENS CHOIR OF RENATO CORTIGLIANI and some amazing guitar playing from Angelo Baroncini. A release well worth purchasing, a must have score.