Guido De Angelis
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Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, also known as Oliver Onions, are a prolific duo of
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
musician A musician is someone who Composer, composes, Conducting, conducts, or Performing arts#Performers, performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general Terminology, term used to designate a person who fol ...
s,
multi-instrumentalist A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays two or more musical instruments, often but not exclusively at a professional level of proficiency. Also known as woodwind doubler, doubling, the practice allows greater ensemble flexibility and mor ...
s,
composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...
s and
singers Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define singi ...
, as well as
television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...
and film producers. They reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s and early 1980s both as composers (under their own names) and as performers (as Oliver Onions), mainly thanks to their
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and
theme song Theme music is a musical composition which is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at ...
composing and performing for action/comedy films starring the popular duo of
Bud Spencer Bud Spencer (born Carlo Pedersoli; 31 October 1929 – 27 June 2016) was an Italian actor, professional swimmer and water polo player. He was known for action-comedy and spaghetti Western roles with his long-time film partner and friend Ter ...
and
Terence Hill Terence Hill (born Mario Girotti; 29 March 1939) is an Italian actor, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He began his career as a child actor and gained international fame for starring roles in action and comedy films, many with hi ...
, many of which became huge hits all across Europe, both cinematically and musically. After a period of retirement from the music business in the 1990s and early 2000s, during which they moved into television and film production through their own company (named after themselves), they had a musical comeback thanks to a one-off concert event in
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,
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, billed as ''Oliver Onions Reunion Live Budapest'' and organized by local promoter Gábor Kóves mainly because of the duo's popularity in his homeland, itself due to the fact that Spencer & Hill films were hugely popular in the country during the Communist regime - and, according to Maurizio De Angelis's commentary on the show, still are. The event, testified by the 2017 release of a double CD/DVD
box set A boxed set or (its US name) box set is a set of items (for example, a compilation of books, musical recordings, films or television programs) traditionally packaged in a box, hence 'boxed', and offered for sale as a single unit. Music Artists ...
, led to a series of other successful shows in Italy and Europe in the following years.


Beginnings

The brothers were born in
Rocca di Papa Rocca di Papa () is a small town and (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Rome, Lazio, Italy. It is one of the Castelli Romani about southeast of Rome on the Alban Hills. It is close to the other communes of Velletri, Rocca Priora, Mon ...
, near
Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
; Guido on 22 December 1944 and Maurizio on 22 February 1947. Their musical career started in 1963, when, after successfully releasing an LP, they became arrangers for
RCA Italiana RCA Italiana was an Italian record company founded in 1949 and active until 1987, the date on which, together with the parent company RCA Records, it was bought by BMG Entertainment. History Founded in Rome in 1949 under the Vatican's protec ...
. Their success led to many more albums in which they composed and arranged the music and sang all the vocals.


Oliver Onions

The De Angelis brothers were among the most prolific Italian musicians of the 1970s. In fact, they were forced to use different names for many of their projects to avoid over-saturating the market; during their career, they were variously known as G&M Orchestra, Barqueros, Charango, Kathy and Gulliver, Hombres del Mar and Dilly Dilly. However, the name they came to be mostly identified with, and most popular, was suggested by their frequent collaborator and lyricist Susan Duncan-Smith, a British-born journalist who worked in RCA's foreign relationships department. She advised them that, although they did not run any risks in signing their early
Spaghetti Western The spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's filmmaking style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
film score work under their own names (following in the footsteps of the popularity gained by fellow Italian
Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone ( , ; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, Orchestration, orchestrator, conductor, trumpeter, and pianist who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 film score, scores for cinema and televisi ...
in the same genre), their international credibility as singers of theme songs in English would be undermined if they did not perform under an English-language name. The brothers followed Duncan-Smith's advice and named themselves ''Oliver Onions'' after the homonymous British writer; the name was chosen mostly because it was easy to remember for both people who speak English and people who do not, and because the two words are pronounced the same as they are written. In Italy, they became best known for writing and performing the theme song for
Sergio Sollima Sergio Sollima (17 April 1921 – 1 July 2015) was an Italian film director and script writer. Biography Sollima graduated from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in 1935. During World War II he was in the Italian Resistance. After th ...
's 1976 TV series ''
Sandokan Sandokan is a fictional late 19th-century pirate created by Italian people, Italian author Emilio Salgari. His adventures first appeared in publication in 1883. Sandokan is the hero of 11 adventure novels. Within the series, Sandokan is known ...
'', based on novels by
Emilio Salgari Emilio Salgari (, but often erroneously ; 21 August 1862 – 25 April 1911) was an Italian writer of action adventure swashbucklers and a pioneer of science fiction. In Italy, his extensive body of work was more widely read than that of Dante ...
, which they also wrote the music score for; the song, heard under the opening credits, became a no.1 hit in the Italian pop charts in the same year. Their soundtrack for the 1981 cartoon series ''Viva i Re Magi'' (previously released in 1979, in Spanish language, in
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and
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as ''Vivan los Reyes Magos''), for which they wrote the story and the screenplay as well as the full score and all the songs (which they sang themselves) was also a local hit. Their recording "Santa Maria" was German number one single for six weeks in 1980 in its original Italian recording. It was followed by a German language version by Roland Kaiser, which was number one for another five weeks, see List of number-one hits of 1980 (Germany). The Roland Kaiser version was also number one in the Netherlands and Belgium.


Film scores

Although they released many standalone albums, it is for their soundtrack work for which the De Angelis brothers are best known. Out of their many scores, which include the main theme for the 1983 Italian cult movie '' Yor, the Hunter from the Future'', undoubtedly the most famous and popular are those composed for the Bud Spencer & Terence Hill action/adventure/comedy films, starting with Hill's "Trinity" Spaghetti Western trilogy. Most of their theme songs for the comedy duo's films were hits in every country where the films were released, became equally popular as the films themselves and almost synonymous with them. Their song "Dune Buggy", for the 1974 film '' Watch Out, We're Mad'', topped the European charts. Their scores included many cult Italian films such as ''
Trinity Is Still My Name ''Trinity Is Still My Name'' (, lit. "...They Kept Calling Him Trinity") is a 1971 Italian Spaghetti Western comedy film directed by Enzo Barboni. Starring the film duo of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, it is a direct sequel to '' They Call M ...
'', ''
Torso The torso or trunk is an anatomical terminology, anatomical term for the central part, or the core (anatomy), core, of the body (biology), body of many animals (including human beings), from which the head, neck, limb (anatomy), limbs, tail an ...
'', ''
High Crime ''High Crime'' ( ) is a 1973 Italian-Spanish '' poliziottesco'' film directed by Enzo G. Castellari. The film stars Franco Nero, James Whitmore, Delia Boccardo and Fernando Rey. ''High Crime'' was a large financial success at the time of its re ...
'', '' The Violent Professionals'', '' Chino'', '' Street Law'', '' Violent Rome'', '' The Big Racket'', ''
Mannaja ''Mannaja'' (also known as ''A Man Called Blade'') is an Italian 1977 spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Martino. The main role, Blade, is played by Maurizio Merli. Other central roles are played by: John Steiner, Sonja Jeannine, Donald ...
'', '' Slave of the Cannibal God'', '' Killer Fish'', and '' A Blade in the Dark''. In 1978, they did an alternate version of the title song for The '' Return of the Saint'' TV show starring
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. Their song "Taking It Easy" was used in the European versions of the show, where another version was used in English-speaking countries. They are also known for their work on animated series, having composed original songs for Italian-dubbed
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(such as ''
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'', '' Ashita no Joe'' and ''
Galaxy Express 999 is a Japanese manga series. It is written and illustrated by Leiji Matsumoto, later adapted into a number of anime films and television series. It is set in a spacefaring, high-tech future in which humans have learned how to transfer ...
'') and European series (such as '' Around the World with Willy Fog''). They also composed the music for the cartoon series ''
Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds ''Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds'' is a children's animated television series that adapts the classic 1844 Alexandre Dumas story of d'Artagnan and ''The Three Musketeers'', produced by Spanish studio BRB Internacional with animation by Ja ...
'' and '' Bobobobs''.


Later years: Withdrawal from music and comeback

By the early 1990s the brothers had become disillusioned with the music business in general and in particular by their almost systematic lack of recognition as professional composers in Italy (although they were maintaining a solid fan base outside of their homeland). As a result of this, they decided to slowly withdraw from music composition and performance in order to move into the more behind-the-scenes, but also more profitable business of production for television series and films. During this period, the duo kept their musical output to the bare minimum, often limiting themselves to scores and soundtracks for their own television and cinematic productions, some of which were mainly composed and arranged by Maurizio (the duo's most musically active member) on his own, with his older brother Guido only providing basic melodic ideas; they still managed to score sizeable audience hits in the area of production, with long running drama/romantic series such as ''
Elisa di Rivombrosa ''Elisa di Rivombrosa'' is an Italian television series (partly inspired by the 1740 novel ''Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded'') about a love story in 18th century Italy between Fabrizio Ristori, a young Italian Count, and his mother's maid, Elisa. It ...
'' and '' Incantesimo'' (among several others), broadcast for several seasons respectively by
Mediaset Mediaset S.p.A. is an Italian mass media and television production and distribution company that is the largest commercial broadcaster in the country. The company is controlled by the holding company MFE – MediaForEurope (the original ...
and
RAI (), commercially styled as since 2000 and known until 1954 as (RAI), is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terrestrial and subscription television channels a ...
. The first hint of their long-awaited return to music came in November 2007, when they performed their first concert as Oliver Onions in 25 years, at the Lucca Comics Festival. Nine years later, in July 2016, Hungarian music promoter and impresario Gábor Kóves asked them to put on an Oliver Onions "reunion" and perform their greatest hits live on stage, backed by a rock band and a full orchestra, in a one-off concert event meant both as a celebration of their career and a tribute to their then-recently departed friend Bud Spencer. According to Maurizio De Angelis's account of the episode in the liner notes for the 2017 audio/video release of the event, Kóves persuaded them to perform in Budapest by demonstrating to them how popular they still were in Hungary, showing them a large number of fan pages, both on
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and on the Internet in general, created by local fans as a tribute to them and to Spencer & Hill films. Maurizio also admitted that he and Guido were initially very reluctant to perform live, as they had not done so for many years and felt rusty and unprepared; in particular, Guido was utterly terrified at the prospect of singing lead vocals live, as he had been almost completely uninvolved in music for a very long time - having engaged himself only in film production. Still, the brothers decided to apply an old Italian proverb (known locally as the "Bicycle Rule"), which states that "Once you have learned how to ride a bicycle, you never forget". By applying that rule, they came back on their musical feet within one week of intensive studio rehearsals and, once they were actually reunited as musicians, the
adrenaline Adrenaline, also known as epinephrine, is a hormone and medication which is involved in regulating visceral functions (e.g., respiration). It appears as a white microcrystalline granule. Adrenaline is normally produced by the adrenal glands a ...
rush was such that Guido managed to overcome his fears and apply the "Bicycle Rule" to himself as well. The event was hugely successful, both locally and elsewhere. Subsequently, it spawned a series of short but intense tours of Italy and Europe in the following years, all billed as ''Oliver Onions Is Still Our Name'' (parodying the title of their 1971 soundtrack for the second Terence Hill "Trinity" film). Their latest such tour ended on 30 October 2019 at Lucca Comics and Games and resumed in late summer of 2020, after a forced interruption due to the outbreak of the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
. In October 2021, the duo released ''Future Memorabilia'', a
greatest hits album A greatest hits album or best-of album is a type of compilation album that collects popular and commercially successful songs by a particular artist or band. While greatest hits albums are typically supported by the artist, they can also be creat ...
including re-recorded versions of their best-known film and TV theme songs, some of them performed as duets with popular Italian and international stars - namely, former Thegiornalisti frontman
Tommaso Paradiso Tommaso Paradiso (born 25 June 1983) is an Italian singer, songwriter, filmmaker, and former frontman of the indie pop band Thegiornalisti. Life and career Born in the Prati district of Rome to a family with Campania Campania is an administr ...
, Roland Kaiser,
Claudio Baglioni Claudio Baglioni (; born 16 May 1951) is an Italian Pop music, pop singer-songwriter and musician. His career has been going on for over 50 years. Considered one of the most successful pop rock singer-songwriters in the history of Italian mu ...
,
Elio Elio is an Italian male given name. Origin A name of dual origin, Elio is primarily a revival of (Helios), the Greek god of the Sun. derives, through the Latin , from the Ancient Greek (), which is taken from the noun of the same and mean ...
from Elio e le Storie Tese (adding his peculiar voice to the duo's popular "Firefighters Choir" from '' Watch Out, We're Mad!'', a staple of their live repertoire) and
Elhaida Dani Elhaida Dani (; born 17 February 1993) is an Albanian singer-songwriter. Born and raised in Shkodër, Dani performed in diverse singing competitions and started to play piano as a child. She rose to national recognition in the Albanian-speaking ...
. The song "Banana Joe", from the same-titled 1982 film, includes vocal snippets performed by
Bud Spencer Bud Spencer (born Carlo Pedersoli; 31 October 1929 – 27 June 2016) was an Italian actor, professional swimmer and water polo player. He was known for action-comedy and spaghetti Western roles with his long-time film partner and friend Ter ...
, who sang it in the original film. The duo then started a tour of Italy to promote the album. Their theme for ''
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'' (1975), " Zorro Is Back.", was featured in
Wes Anderson Wesley Wales Anderson (born May 1, 1969) is an American filmmaker. Wes Anderson filmography, His films are known for themes of grief, loss of innocence, and dysfunctional families. Due to his films' eccentricity, distinctive visual and narrative ...
's ''
Bottle Rocket A skyrocket, also known as a rocket, is a type of firework that uses a solid-fuel rocket to rise quickly into the sky; a bottle rocket is a small skyrocket. At the apex of its ascent, it is usual for a variety of effects (stars, bangs, crackl ...
'', and their song "Goodbye My Friend" (from the movie ''Street Law'') featured on the soundtrack to '' Faster''.


Selected filmography


Oliver Onions personnel


1971–1990

* Guido De Angelis -
Lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...
and
backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are us ...
,
guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...
s,
percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...
* Maurizio De Angelis - Lead and backing vocals, guitars,
piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...
, keyboards,
synths A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis an ...
* Cesare De Natale - Backing vocals, lyricist, co-composer * Susan Duncan-Smith - English-language lyricist, backing vocals


2007–present

*Guido De Angelis - Vocals *Maurizio De Angelis - Vocals, guitars,
mandolin A mandolin (, ; literally "small mandola") is a Chordophone, stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally Plucked string instrument, plucked with a plectrum, pick. It most commonly has four Course (music), courses of doubled St ...
, piano, keyboards *Emanuele Giordani -
Drum kit A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one p ...
*Riccardo Di Vinci -
Bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...
*Danny Bronzini - Guitars *Filippo Piva - Guitars, vocals *Francesco Signorini - Keyboards *Marco Zago - Keyboards *Fabio Baù -
Trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...
,
French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most o ...
*Giovanni Forestan -
Saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...
,
flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...
,
clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...
*Alberto "Zach" Gigante - Additional vocals *"Ray" Alberto Secondino - Additional vocals *Oliver Onions' 2016 comeback show in Budapest also featured a
string quartet The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...
and six female backing vocalists, as well as Hungarian orchestra Magyar Studió Zenekar and session choir Cinema Studió Kórus.


Discography


As Oliver Onions


Albums

* ''See You Later'' (1974) * ''Greatest Hits'' (1977) – GER #32 * ''Bulldozer'' (1979) * ''Six Ways'' (1979) * ''Santa Maria'' (1980) – GER #42, AUT #12 * ''Brigitte Aerobic'' (1983; Germany) * ''Best of Bud Spencer & Terence Hill'' (1992; Germany) – GER #51 *''Future Memorabilia'' (2021)


Singles


References


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:De Angelis, Guido and Maurizio Italian film score composers Italian male film score composers Musicians from Rome Living people Nastro d'Argento winners Brother duos Italian musical duos RCA Records artists Sony Music artists Year of birth missing (living people)