September 2: Orchestra leader and composer Hugo Montenegro was born on this day in 1925...

... he died in February 1981 at the age of 85 from emphysema.

Hugo best known work are the soundtracks for the so-called Spaghetti Westerns, especially main theme from the 1966 film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly which reached # 2 on the Pop Charts.  He also composed the musical score for the 1969 western Charro! which starred Elvis Presley.


Montenegro began scoring motion pictures with the instrumental music for Advance to the Rear in 1964. Following the success of his albums, he wrote the scores for and two Matt Helm spy movies and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. theme.


He also wrote the theme for the second season of I Dream of Jeannie. During the mid 60s he started producing innovative work from the "space age pop" era, featuring electronics and rock in albums such as Moog Power and Mammy Blue. Montenegro's electronic works were cutting edge, and had a profound influence on future generations of electronic musicians, helping to popularize the Moog synthesizer.

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