Singer Peter Tevis died last Wednesday, September 13, of Parkinson's disease at the age of 69. Though he never quite made a name for himself here in his native America, he had a successful singing career in Rome, the most significant highlight of which turned out to be his 45 rpm recording of the Woody Guthrie song "Pastures of Plenty," which featured an orchestral arrangement by the young Ennio Morricone. A year after that record was issued, it was played by Morricone for Sergio Leone, who was looking for a new kind of Western music to accompany his new film A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS. A special bridge that Tevis wrote for the song, as arranged by Morricone, was the eureka Leone was looking for, and it was subsequently developed by Morricone into the theme of Leone's film -- the birth of Spaghetti Western music. Though uncredited for this initial effort, Tevis achieved celebrity within the genre, singing later themes for Italian Westerns, including PISTOLS DON'T ARGUE, A COFFIN FOR THE SHERIFF, and GUNFIGHT AT RED SANDS. He's also credited as the music producer of FLESH GORDON.
