Peter Tevis was an American folk singer

Folk Singer

Folk Singer is a 1964 album by Muddy Waters. Waters plays acoustic guitar, backed by Willie Dixon on string bass, Clifton James on drums, and Buddy Guy on acoustic guitar...

 best remembered for his work on the soundtracks of composer Ennio Morricone

Ennio Morricone

Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...

.

Tevis met Morricone while living in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 in the 1960s, and suggested working together. A 1962 recording of the song "Pastures of Plenty

Pastures of Plenty

"Pastures of Plenty" is a 1941 composition by Woody Guthrie. Describing the travails and dignity of migrant workers in North America, it is evocative of the world described in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. The tune is based on the ballad "Pretty Polly," a traditional English-language folk...

" by Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...

 became a small hit single (RCA PM45-3115). Morricone later reworked it into the title theme of the famous Spaghetti Western

Spaghetti Western

Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...

 movie "A Fistful of Dollars

A Fistful of Dollars

A Fistful of Dollars is a 1964 Italian Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood alongside Gian Maria Volonté, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, José Calvo, Antonio Prieto, and Joseph Egger. Released in Italy in 1964 then in the United States in...

" directed by Sergio Leone

Sergio Leone

Sergio Leone was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter most associated with the "Spaghetti Western" genre.Leone's film-making style includes juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots...

 and starring Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood

Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

 (without Tevis lyrics). Later they continued to collaborate on a number of recordings. Tevis is credited with singing the lyrics of songs on the soundtracks of several Spaghetti Western movies, including:

• "A Gringo Like Me" from the film Gunfight at Red Sands
• "Lonesome Billy" from the film Guns Don't Argue
• "Per un Pugno di Dollari" (A Fistful of Dollars)

Since the 1970s Tevis also produced audio recordings designed to train different families of songbirds to talk.

Tevis was married to actress Tiffany Bolling from 1969-1970.

In his last years he suffered from Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...

and had almost lost his voice.