Press Release from Dragon's Domain:
Dragon’s Domain Records presents GERALD FRIED: THE WESTERNS, VOLUME 1, featuring music composed by Gerald Fried (THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., STAR TREK, ROOTS) for several projects in the Western genre from his extensive filmography appearing for the first time on compact disc.
STORY OF A RODEO COWBOY was a 1963 two-reel television documentary produced by the David L. Wolper Production Company. The 24-minute black and white documentary was directed by Kent MacKenzie, filmed in Salinas, California, and narrated by John Willis. The short film follows the life and travels of a group of professional rodeo cowboys.
WAGON TRAIN was a popular TV series that aired 284 episodes over eight seasons, first on NBC (1957–1962) and finally on ABC (1962–1965). Fried scored the second season episode, 'The Steve Campden Story,' directed by Christian Nyby (THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, HELL ON DEVIL’S ISLAND). In this episode, Flint (Robert Horton) must find a way to get the wagon train around a snow-covered pass. On a scouting trek, he meets a father and son who are willing to help him, but they want to hike up the mountain… and the adventure ahead surprises them all. This episode was for Fried’s first Western film series and his only score for the show.
TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN was a 1958 Western film written by Dalton Trumbo and directed by Joseph Lewis, who had helmed 40 primarily action-oriented films from 1938 to 1958. TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN is about a Swedish whaler (Sterling Hayden) who is out for revenge when he learns that a greedy oil man murdered his father for their land. It was Lewis’ last feature, after which he found a place in television work like many other Hollywood directors. Like other feature films by Lewis, such as GUN CRAZY, it has, over the years, acquired a cult following for Lewis’s stylistic flourishes, leading some to describe it as a Western film noir.
Born February, 1928 in the Bronx, Gerald Fried’s interest in music found its first fruition at the High School of Music & Art in New York City. He attended The Juilliard School of Music as an oboe major, graduating in 1945. Among his earliest friends was a bright kid named Stanley Kubrick. The two of them used to hang around Greenwich Village and talk about their budding interests, Fried’s in classical music and Kubrick’s in filmmaking. Their interests merged when Kubrick began filming DAY OF THE FIGHT, an 18-minute short about boxing. Knowing Fried was a music major, Kubrick asked him if he could write the score for his boxing picture. Fried agreed, then spent months going to the movies to learn how film scores worked, there being no schools or courses on film music in those days. Fried wrote an effective score, and Kubrick sold the film to RKO Pathé. Fried rejoined Kubrick to score four more of his films, including THE KILLING and PATHS TO GLORY, where the young filmmaker first gained his reputation.
After the success of THE KILLING in 1956, Kubrick moved to Los Angeles, shortly followed by Fried, who was immediately hired to compose and arrange music for several films, including THE VAMPIRE, THE RETURN OF DRACULA, MACHINE GUN KELLY and I, MOBSTER, I BURY THE LIVING, and TIMBUKTU (1959). By the 1960s, Fried moved into television, scoring episodes of such seminal shows of the decade as GILLIGAN’S ISLAND, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E., MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE and STAR TREK. By the 1970s Fried was composing music for numerous made-for-TV movies. His best-known score of the decade was for the 1977 miniseries ROOTS, which he took over scoring when Quincy Jones fell behind and was unable to meet the broadcast deadline for the eight-hour miniseries. Both Jones and Fried won Emmy Awards for their musical efforts on the series. During the ‘80s, Fried continued to compose music for television series, movies, and documentaries, and an occasional feature film well into his 90’s and passed away in February, 2023.
Dragon’s Domain Records presents GERALD FRIED: THE WESTERNS, VOLUME 1, featuring the world premiere releases of music composed by Gerald Fried for these Western related projects. The music has been mastered by James Nelson at Digital Outland and the liner notes have been written by noted author Randall Larson.
