RIP Spaghetti Western Screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni

Luciano Vincenzoni, who wrote (or co-wrote) Sergio Leone's iconic spaghetti westerns “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,”and “For a Few Dollars More” , as well as many other movies, died in Rome on Sept. 22, aged 87.

The New York Times obituary states:

Mr. Vincenzoni contributed to about 70 films, chiefly as a screenwriter or script doctor. His humorous touch could be found in films like “Seduced and Abandoned,” which he made with Pietro Germi in 1964, and “The Best of Enemies,” which Mr. De Laurentiis, the producer, released in the United States in 1962.
But to the general public Mr. Vincenzoni was most associated with“For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” two hugely successful Italian-made westerns directed by Sergio Leone that are now recognized as classics.
“I have written movies that won prizes at Cannes and Venice,” he told Sir Christopher Frayling, a cultural historian and Leone biographer. “These were screenplays for which we suffered on paper for months. Do you know how long it took me to write ‘For a Few Dollars More’? Nine days.”

Read the full obit

Broken Circle Breakdown -- Belgian film set in the European bluegrass scene

For some reason the Belgian movie "The Broken Circle Breakdown" never appeared on my radar. It should have -- it sounds fascinating: a love story/drama set against the background of the European (and particularly Belgian/Dutch) bluegrass scene. Directed by Felix Van Groeningen, it is based on a play by Johan Heldenbergh and Mieke Dobbels, which was published in 2008 in book form.

The movie came out in 2011 and got great reviews, and the sound track can be downloaded from ITunes. The band tours with live concerts in mainly Belgium and the Netherlands.

John Lawless has just written about the movie in Bluegrass Today, as the film, which been shown at festivals, is about to hit selected theatres in the U.S., with screenings at 13 art house cinemas in the south next month and then limited engagements elsewhere in November and December:

The two primary characters in this dark drama share a passion for each other, and for American music. Didier (Johan Heldenbergh) plays banjo in a bluegrass group, and Elise (Veerle Baetens) runs her own tattoo parlor. She sings with the band, and the pair falls hard for each other, a romance that is followed both on and off the stage. Things runs smoothly for these two, until a tragedy tears them apart.
Original music for the film was composed by Bjorn Eriksson, but all the music in the band scenes is performed by the actors, a testament to the active Dutch and Belgian bluegrass scene.

Here's the trailer, with English subtitles.

See U.S. screening dates and more on Bluegrass Today.

Filming in Pullman City!

This is a picture from several years ago, but some of these guys may have been in the Pullman City saloon last night! Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Just a quick note -- I arrived in Pullman City, the wild west theme park in Bavaria, to do some filming on Revia Freifeld's documentary on the imaginary wild west in Europe, The Old World and the Old West!

I has been just over ten years since my first visit here, when I wrote about it for the New York Times. I've been here several times since then... looking forward to see what's changed and what has not....

This is what I wrote after my first visit, and it still stands!

IT'S nowhere near high noon, but a tough-looking hombre in a black leather vest, black stovepipe pants and a black cowboy hat is sauntering down the dusty length of a frontier Main Street, a gun belt slung low on his hips.
He strolls past the sheriff's office, the Palace Hotel and a saddled horse hitched loosely to a wooden railing, then pauses for a moment at the broad covered porch of the Black Bison Saloon.
Entering, he strides up to the bar and places his order.
''Ein bier, bitte.''
This is Pullman City, a theme park in southern Germany where more than a million visitors a year step out of 21st-century Europe into an American Wild West fantasyland of stagecoaches, gunfighters, mountain men and Indians.
Set on 50 rolling acres a two-hour drive northeast of Munich, near the Bavarian town of Eging am See, Pullman City is a compendium of mythic iconography engrained in the global psyche by well over a century of hugely popular adventure stories, movies, television shows and traveling Wild West extravaganzas.

"Cowboy protest" for more country music on UK radio

Country music fans whooped  and line-danced in "cowboy protests" outside British radio broadcasters last week to press their call for more country music on UK airwaves. The protests were organized by a group called Cowboys for Country Music.

The New Musical Express reports:

The Cowboys For Country Music demonstrated outside the BBC's Broadcasting House last week as well as the headquarters of Global Radio in London - the company who own Capital FM. The group line-danced in front of the venues in an effort to make UK radio stations play more mainstream American country music, by artists such as the Grammy Award nominated The Band Perry and Lady Antebellum. The group ... were holding placards and wearing chaps and cowboy boots and danced to 'Cruise' (Remix) by Florida Georgia Line featuring Nelly.

Here's a great video of the protest! (You may have to click over to YouTube to watch it -- at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc_b9wGAbiI )

On the video, a cowboy-hatted fan says they were protesting because "It makes up such a big percentage of the music industry; it's extremely popular, obviously, Stateside, and there's a lot of demand for it here in the UK, but because the radio stations don't play enough of it, that's why we want to try and promote that."

Bulgaria's "Lilly of the West" studying bluegrass in the USA on a Fulbright

Lilly Drumeva performing in Prague. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Congratulations to Lilly Drumeva, the Bulgarian singer and instrumentalist who founded and anchors the Bulgarian country/bluegrass group Lilly of the West, who is in the United States on a Fulbright scholarship to study bluegrass music and the bluegrass music industry. She plans to write a book about bluegrass, for publication in Bulgaria.

Lilly has been profiled in or given interviews to several local publications, in which she has described her fascination with American bluegrass and country music and her experience in bringing this type of music to Bulgaria.

Here's an excerpt from her interview with Kevin Willis at Western Kentucky University NPR station:

What made a nice girl from Bulgaria get interested in American bluegrass and country music? 

“That’s a long story. It started 20 years when I was a student in Vienna, Austria. I was studying economics, and I heard country music for the first time when Emmy Lou Harris had a concert in Vienna. So I got hooked and started buying CDs. 

I had a boyfriend then who played guitar, and he taught me to play a few chords. And I started buying bluegrass and country music CDs, and when I returned to Bulgaria I formed a bluegrass band, and I called it “Lilly of the West”, because Lilly is my name and also my favorite flower. And—for the Bulgarians—I came from Austria, which is in the west, so I was the “Lilly from the West.” 

In 1998, we went to the Netherlands where there was a big bluegrass festival and competition. And we won it—we were voted “European Bluegrass Band of the Year.” And since then we started touring Europe, and we’ve released nine albums to date.” 

When you gathered these fellow Bulgarian musicians, did you have to explain to them what U.S. country and bluegrass music was all about? Did they have any knowledge about it before you spoke to them? 

“When I came back from Austria, I brought lots of CDs, so we had lots of material to learn from. But also, the three guys I found—a banjo player, a guitar player, and a bass player—they already knew a little bit about bluegrass, because in 1990 Tim O’Brien visited Bulgaria. So the American Embassy invited bluegrass musicians from the states to celebrate the fall of communism. So in 1990, the U.S. Embassy brought Tim O’Brien, Laurie Lewis, and Sam Bush who gave a concert. And that’s when my colleagues heard bluegrass music for the first time.”

Read the full interview, with a link to sound file

Another interview with her appears in HispanicBusiness.com

In June, she organized Bulgaria's first country and bluegrass festival, "Country West Fest," in Bankya.

"We had about 300 people," Drumeva said. "It was a little small, but it was great."

This year, she won a Fulbright scholarship to come to the United States to research the history of bluegrass and country music as well as the music industry.

She's been researching in Bowling Green at Western Kentucky University's folklife archives. And Thursday and Friday, Drumeva was in Owensboro researching in the archives of the bluegrass museum.

"This is a bluegrass paradise," she said. "These archives are so great."

"Lilly is one of the rare beauties whose music is as gorgeous as she is," said Gabrielle Gray, the museum's executive director. "She has everything it takes to succeed in any form of roots music. She's an extraordinary talent, quite brilliant with a huge heart. She's the total package."

Earlier this week, Drumeva visited Bill Monroe's grave and boyhood home in Rosine.

There was also an article in the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer.

Lilly says she is humbled by all the media attention.

She reports here on her plans for September:

* I will move to Nashville, TN, where I will work closely with the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA), researching bluegrass and country music as industries: record labels, promoters, management, publishing, songwriting etc. 

* I will attend the Americana Music Conference in Nashville (18-20 Sept.), where I will be part of Aristo Media's international panel. Before that I will make another trip to Owensboro, KY, where I will take part in the bluegrass mandolin camp (13-15 Sept.). 

* The main event of the month will be IBMA's annual conference in Raleigh, NC (23-28 Sept.). I am very proud that one of my original songs, 'Turn away', has been selected for the songwriters' showcase on Thursday 26th at 1.00 p.m. I will perform it then, and later the same evening I am part of the 'Foreign affairs' suite with a short set at 11.00 p.m. See this article.

Colosseum Country Festival (and more) brings imaginary wild west to Rome

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Italians seem to be succumbing to the public expression of the Imaginary Wild West.

The phenomenon isn't as widespread as in some other countries, but it's certainly now there, or beginning to be there -- as testified by the upcoming "Colosseum Country Festival" to be held near Rome at the beginning of October, whose main attraction seems to be line-dancing.

Western riding and horsemanship have long been at the heart of the trend in Italy

Already half a dozen years ago I attended the "Western Games" at a "ranch" near Lake Bracciano northwest of Rome, which was a mini-rodeo and riding competition set among displays, Indian dancing, and general wild west themed family entertainment attractions. There were even "live" American cowboys brought over from Oregon.

Western Games, Bracciano, 2005. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

The prime mover behind that festival, Andrea "Drew" Mischianti, has long been a key figure in Italy's western, horse, riding and cowboy scene for many years and long wrote a column about the cowboy life for an Italian wild west magazine. He and his wife Natalia Estrada run a "Ranch Academy" to teach and take part in "buckeroo" skills and lifestyle. They also take part in competitions and exhibitions of skills.

But country music -- unlike in other countries -- had little, if any, attraction. At festivals I've attended in France, Germany, CZ, Austria, Switzerland and PL, for example, music and line-dancing were major and something THE major, draws. But at the Western Games, this band played to an audience of ZERO. 

Western Games, Bracciano, 2005. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Line-danging, bluegrass and country music now seem to be making some inroads in popularity, particularly in northern Italy, where there have been some festivals. The Genoa-based Italian bluegrass group Red Wine is considered one of the best in Europe and tours in the U.S. The Rome-based banjoist Danilo Cartia also has been making a name for himself. This month, the American banjo great Tony Trischka will be performing with Red Wine before going on to at banjo workshop in Urbino.

Even in the little village festival in Collelungo, in Umbria, a (sort of) country duo called Western Strings was one of the acts chosen to perform in the piazza. Among the songs they played were the two all time European favorites -- Country Roads and Sweet Home Alabama.

Italy also, of course, has a thriving Cowboy Action Shooting scene -- I'm a member of the Old West Shooting Society and have attended a number of events, which I have posted about.

OWSS match, 2009. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Lots of pix from French Riviera country music festival

Georges Carriers has posted a Flickr stream of more than 100 photos from the 14th French Riviera country music festival, which took place August 2-3 at Cagnes-sur-Mer.

Musicians, organizers, performances, crowd -- and local scenery. Fun!