Sacco e Vanzetti

I love a rummage in a good charity shop vinyl box. In an Oxfam record and book shop the other day (Nantwich as it happens, visiting family) I found an album which intrigued me- a Spanish pressing of an Italian film soundtrack, Sacco e Vanzetti, by Ennio Morricone and Joan Baez. At £6.99 I couldn't resist and a bit of research on Discogs and elsewhere shows mint copies selling for upwards of £30. Mine isn't mint but apart from some crackle on the first song plays really well and the sleeve's in good condition too.

Sacco and Vanzetti were two Italian immigrants executed in the USA in 1925 for murder, on flimsy, politically and racially motivated evidence. One witness said he could tell the pair were foreign 'by the way they ran'. Neither man spoke English and the judge was well known for anti-Communist, anti-anarchist, anti-foreigner prejudices. I think I may have typed these exact words before in a different post.

The soundtrack is rather nice, understated in parts, dramatic and filmic in others with some typically Morricone touches and flourishes, and Joan Baez's cut glass voice on half the songs. I find her an acquired taste to be honest but Morricone's music carries the whole thing off regardless. Try this one...

La Ballatta Di Sacco E Vanzetti II Parte (Italian grammar corrected, grazie Luca)

Sacco And Venzetti Must Not Die

It's funny how these things develop in little bursts and how one thing leads to another. My compadre, technical advisor, guitarist and brother-in-law H has started a blog called Spoken Word Rock. He posted this which I just had to re-post here; Allen Ginsberg's poem America (which I wrote about back in August) read by Ginsberg, set to the music of Tom Waits' Closing Time, with some great cut and paste visuals. All of which ties in with my recent rediscovery of the Beats, and has some kind of message for tomorrow's Presidential election. Maybe.



Sacco and Vanzetti were a pair of Italian-American anarchists charged with murder in the 1920s and convicted on flimsy, xenophobic/racist evidence. A witness recalled in court one of the assailants 'moved like a foreigner'. The judge added his own prejudices and the two men were sentenced to death. Both were eventually executed.

America (Closing Time)