His Name Was King
- Lukas Kendall
- Nov 6, 2023
- 1 min read
I am a casual fan of Italian “spaghetti” westerns but by no means an authority on the subject. The first time I heard the Luis Bacalov theme to His Name Was King (1971) was, like a lot of people, in Django Unchained. Quentin Tarantino almost certainly named Christoph Waltz’s character “King” in homage to that film—and so he could use the song!
The song has been used for an ad that is in heavy rotation during NFL games, so I heard it a bunch over the weekend and became curious about the singer. Although Edda Dell’Orso’s name has been swept up in the film’s Internet credits, it’s obviously not her. It’s somebody named Ann Collin. So who was Ann Collin?
Fortunately, everything is on the Internet now.
Great song!
My first introduction to Luis Bacalov was The Great Silence of course another Tarebtino trope Morricone
As soon as I saw your title the song started running through my head.
Italian westerns are a goldmine of cool stuff, and a genre that seems to sprout entirely from one composer's work on a trio of movies. No one, not even Williams, has had that big a musical influence on an entire genre's music.