Producer, songwriter, and singer Lee Hazlewood passed away at the age of 78 on Saturday, August 4th after a three-year battle with renal cancer. Whether country, pop, psychedelic or cinematic, Hazlewood's music was distinctly original—sometimes rolling all of those genres into one as is this case with his famous duet with Nancy Sinatra, "Some Velvet Morning." He signed Gram Parsons to his first record contract and made Sinatra a star with "These Boots Are Made For Walking." Last February, Hazlewood spoke with Harp magazine: I loved producing and writing. Releasing records? I only did that for the publishing. And then because of a silly thing that happened with Nancy (Sinatra) I had to start singing. I didn’t want to. But I taught singers what I wanted – with my bad guitar playing and my bad singing. What happened with Nancy came from absolute greed. We put out a new record with her every three months. There were enough hits to go around. But I really wanted to do boy/girl records with her. Now Reprise had plenty of guys. She said “I don’t like them.” She liked me, my old scratched-up whiskey voice. So I told her (adopting a fatherly tone), “OK, we’ll do one with me each album.” That was the start of my gigantic singing career. She knew what she wanted. She’s smart.
We highly recommend picking up Hazlewood's first album with Nancy Sinatra, Nancy & Lee (1968) or his masterful Cowboy in Sweden (1970). A sample from each is provided below.
MP3: Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood - "Some Velvet Morning"
MP3: Lee Hazlewood - "No Train To Stockholm"
