Various: How the West was Won - Western Movie Themes

I'm confident of my memories of buying this one. It was Our Price again, but this time on the Moor in Sheffield. When I took it to the checkout, I thought I was getting a bargain (£4.49; I'd guess this was about 1990). And when I'd got 50 yards out of the shop, on the way back to Moorfoot, I thought I should check the cover, and, sure enough, my heart sank when I read the legend at the bottom of the back, "The recordings on this compact disc are not taken from original soundtracks".

The reason my heart sank was that it was really the Morricone tracks — The Man with the Harmonica, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly — that I was buying the CD for, and I knew that no for-hire session musician was likely to be able to emulate the guitar sounds (sometimes attributed to Alessandro Alessandroni) on the originals.

I was right about that, and subsequently had to buy the original. But this is one case where the collateral tracks are what deliver the pay-off. I am sure that better versions exist of the themes from The Magnificent Seven, The Alamo, Hondo, Hang 'em High and Return of the Seven. But even these inferior facsimiles give a thrill.

As with some of last month's compilations, I'm intrigued by who puts together this kind of album. This CD is credited to Coombe Music International in 1987. As far as I can tell the company still exists, possibly as a subsidiary of Zomba, which (I think) is itself part of Sony BMG now. Elsewhere I read that "Coombe Music's Collection… is mainly re-recorded classic-hits and TV show themes". Hmmm, specialist niche, all right. Bizarrely, if you follow the MusicBrainz and Last.fm links below, you'll find details of an album which is almost identical to the one I have, and has the same title, but with two tracks substituted. Why? Can there be more than five people in this world who care?

MusicBrainz entry for 18/20ths of this album Listen to 18/20ths of this album in full at Last.fm