Hugo Montenegro

Hugo Montenegro earned recognition as a composer, arranger, and conductor chiefly through his 1960s film contributions and his reworkings of cinematic scores such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. His musical path started in the U.S. Navy, where he created arrangements for multiple military ensembles. Upon leaving the service he finished his studies at Manhattan College and launched a professional career in music.

In New York he first held the post of staff manager for André Kostelanetz at Columbia Records, a position that opened opportunities to conduct and arrange for several of the label’s performers, Harry Belafonte foremost among them. By the mid-1950s he had begun issuing his own orchestral easy-listening albums.

Midway through the 1960s he relocated to California and took up film scoring, beginning with Otto Preminger’s Hurry Sundown in 1967. That year he also cut a version of Ennio Morricone’s theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Built around a chorus, electric instruments, and special effects, the single became a major success, reaching number one in the U.K. and number two in the U.S. while selling more than a million copies internationally. The album Music from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" & "A Fistful of Dollars" & "For a Few Dollars More" followed soon afterward and climbed into the Top Ten during spring 1968. Later the same year Montenegro released a single of the Hang ’Em High theme, which charted more modestly, as did the album of the same name.

After the Hang ’Em High project he broadened his output to encompass an eclectic range of recordings that stretched from show tunes to electronic experiments. Through the late 1960s and 1970s he continued supplying scores for such films as Lady in Cement, The Undefeated, The Wrecking Crew, Tomorrow, and The Ambushers, among many others. He kept composing and recording until his death in 1981.