Lee Hazlewood -- Search and Destroy

One Last Walk for the Man Behind ‘These Boots’
an excerpt:
By SIA MICHEL
Published: January 28, 2007
HENDERSON, Nev.

"LEE HAZLEWOOD is ready to die. Suffering excruciating pain from renal cancer, Mr. Hazlewood, the reclusive singer, songwriter and producer doesn’t have much time left, maybe a year if he’s lucky. So he has been preparing for what he calls his impending “dirt nap.”

He has decided he wants to be cremated, and to have his ashes strewn on a Swedish island where he composed some of his favorite songs. He has chosen his epitaph: “Didn’t he ramble,” referring to his loner-drifter nature. He has already given away most of his gold and platinum records, which he earned making hits for Duane Eddy, Dean Martin and Nancy Sinatra, including “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” one of the most famous pop songs of all time. He has released his swan song, the quirky album “Cake or Death,” which hit stores last week. And he married his longtime girlfriend, Jeane Kelley, in a drive-through ceremony in Las Vegas."

True, he is one of the more iconoclastic figures of 20th-century pop, a cantankerous, hard-living innovator who walked away from fame and fortune whenever he felt like it. One of the major hitmakers of the ’50s and ’60s, he helped Duane Eddy shape twang-rock, transformed Nancy Sinatra into a megastar and, on his LHI label, released what is widely considered the first country-rock record, by Gram Parsons’s International Submarine Band. And he made a series of beautifully oddball solo albums that were mostly unheard in America, until a member of Sonic Youth reissued them in the ’90s.

Today Mr. Hazlewood is sadly unsung, which is partly his own fault. He spent decades trying to disappear, flitting between Europe and the United States — particularly those states with no personal income tax. “I’m kind of a bum,” he said.

If you're a fan you absolutely have to hear the Einsturzende Neubauten cover of "Sand".

back to Lee: would that we all could display such casual bravado in the face of our own mortality...a true maverick...(Warren Zevon, too)..

"He had a knack for mainstream pop too. Dean Martin interpreted his jaunty wandering-man lark “Houston,” a huge hit in the mid-’60s. They bonded over a love of scotch: Mr. Martin was a J&B man, Mr. Hazlewood drank Chivas Regal. “Here’s Dean Martin drinking J&B and I’m drinking something which is twice as much money and twice as good,” he said, shaking his head with mild disgust. “I didn’t drink to get drunk. I drank as a reward, and I only drank the good stuff.”

Soon Frank Sinatra wanted him to fix the floundering career of his daughter Nancy. Despite a decade-plus age difference, Mr. Hazlewood and Ms. Sinatra hit it off; they remain close friends. He thought that she was too cutesy, that she needed to seem more like truck-driver-dating jailbait. “He was part Henry Higgins and part Sigmund Freud,” Ms. Sinatra said by telephone. “He was far from the country bumpkin people considered him at the time. I had a horrible crush on him, but he was married then.”

Romance rumors swirled, but they never had an affair, Mr. Hazlewood said, “and now we’re old enough to tell you if we did.”

wow did this guy ever make a bad record?

I don't know about bad, but some of them are definitely better than others (most of the Anne Margaret record is not good, but it's saved by the awesome singles tacked on at the end.)

i never got into "poet, fool, or bum" personally. but the hit:miss ratio is remarkable.

ann margret record is great if you can get beyond her abrasive way of singing, but i agree the singles are more interesting

I've never heard 40 either. That one's not supposed to be great either.

also, the final few records, including the last nancy & lee one, were not good

"ann margret record is great if you can get beyond her abrasive way of singing"

Yeah see I can't do that. Cover is awesome too btw.

I just heard the Ann Margaret for the first time yesterday and totally dug it, don't mind her hamminess at all. Agree about the extra singles though - You Turn My Head Around is amazing

i never got into "poet, fool, or bum" personally. but the hit:miss ratio is remarkable.

"Poet, Fool or Bum" is good, as is "Back on the Streets".

I've never heard 40 either. That one's not supposed to be great either.

I love "Paris Bells" on that one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bggeCwBR6Y

The Lee Hazlewood bug bit me pretty severely a couple months back, haven't been able to stop listening since.

recently i've been listening to "guitar on my mind" that LH wrote and produced for duane & miriam eddy - really oddball song that is a proto-some velvet morning

I love Lee's 1970's hungover Marlboro man look

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCLJIi6SSZ0&feature=related

I think these last two youtubes are from Swedish telivision?

this is from a Nancy TV special in the late 60's I believe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnkuRQ8tjIE&feature=related

I would imagine the viewing public were like,
who the hell is that mustachioed man with Frank's daughter?

"your thunder and your lightning" is like johnny cash stealing the mic from ian curtis for a song

heeeeey cowboy.

http://torbjornaxelman.com/

This is a damn good song.

"My Autumn's Done Come" is such a great song.

No more slinky Vogue dolls for me.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Anyone see BBC 4's current batch of "Singer-Songwriters at the BBC"? Lee Hazlewood on the Rolf Harris Show from 1971 (I think), not duetting unfortunately! "Cold Hard Times" is the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2k4Z12VHZk

Light in the Attic is about to put out some very rare Hazlewood stuff:

http://lightintheattic.net/releases/739-a-house-safe-for-tigers

A House Safe For Tigers is the soundtrack to one of the seven TV movies Lee Hazlewood made with the director Torbjörn Axelman during his period living in Sweden in the early 1970s. Hazlewood had moved there to lay low and to help his son avoid the draft, but wound up finding happiness and creative freedom. Many of the albums recorded in Sweden made their way no further than Scandinavia, but of them all, A House Safe For Tigers is the holy grail for collectors, often changing hands for hundreds of dollars.

saw a couple of killer-looking comps that appear sorta similar, design-wise, to the above, recently - two vinyl reissues compiling bunches of lee's stuff seemingly by mood; there was a syrupy one with wait and see on & another with no train to stockholm, the nights, &c, iirc. they were stickered with fan-club-only or something, i don't really know much about them. they had ridiculous sleeves, one with a photoshopped remake of the trouble sleeve but with a cut-out futuristic & moustachioed head of lee taking the place of a train on the tracks in the distance. mainly stuff from the records but they looked pretty good.

Oh man, that Tigers reissue is great news!

Yea this is awesome.

So prolific, insane how often I thought I had exhausted the catalog and then more comes up

Light In The Attic seem to imply that some remastered, better quality reissues are coming. Any confirmation on that?

Just this:

For the past 7 years we’ve been begging, pleading, and praying to re-release some of Lee’s greatest solo recordings and production work, including material from LHI, Lee’s own label from ‘66 to ’71. We are ecstatic to announce that we will launch a detailed Lee Hazlewood Series this spring all gloriously re-mastered from the original analog master tapes. The series will include scores of unreleased sides and unseen photos. As I write this, we’re digging through hundreds of tapes that have been untouched for over forty years, meticulously transferring the reels, and drooling in anticipation for the months ahead.

...but no specifics yet...

Please, please let them do the Honey Ltd. album.

House Safe For Tigers is NUTS. Got the LHI comp too - wish these came with MP3s

One of his best, for sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E99wO8fluXg

I just splurged on this Light in the Attic 7" box set in a fit of ridiculous financial irresponsibility and I have no regrets at all. It's so, so, so good. I didn't know so many of these songs, and there's not a dud on this thing.

http://blog.lightintheattic.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/honeyltd_invite-675x928.jpg

Press release says 4 young women but there are 5 on the cover?

I was gonna post about this like an hour ago

this reissue has been suuuuuper overdue

Had no idea the sisters were still going: http://likehoneymusic.com

What kind of crummy photographer gets a flower right in the face of one of the subjects?

A botanical photographer. Actually I think that's just a superimposition of the middle girl.

this reissue has been suuuuuper overdue

Hell yes. Such a great record, too.

I’ve spent the last month listening to nothing but lee and related and have been preparing playlists on Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube to share soon but will also be doing a write up. Basically 1955-1975. I keep discovering stuff and am just blown away.

There's going to be 3 playlists. a 7+ hour version for completists, a 2 hour version for purists and a 4-ish hour version, which tells the story I'm learning and I'm working the most on.

The youtube version of that playlist is here:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-_DBT13UQzCXQOtKk7dZ01vgPtQ6iVcS&si=7ALFZKt0NDlluD3Z

Because youtube has random uploads from people, this version of the playlist has a handful of tracks not available on Apple Music or Spotify.

I think it's a good range, mostly chronological, stuff he wrote, produced, performed, some stuff he only performed. It's a mix of my personal preferences and a vague idea about what makes a Lee Hazlewood song.

There's a few stretches...I just really wanted to get a track from the Waylon Jennings album Lee produced but the only Lee song on that album is one that Lee had already recorded himself a few years before and that version is already there, but then I noticed Lee sings on Waylon's version of Utah Philips' Rock, Salt and Nails, so I was able to include that.

I'm not going to share these playlists until I write it all up in a way I see fit, but figure some people may find this interesting in the meantime.

I am looking forward to this!

Happy Birthday Lee Hazlewood! Coincidence?

Cowboy in Sweden streaming for a few more days?

https://www.lecinemaclub.com/now-showing/cowboy-in-sweden/?utm_source=pocket_shared

Playlist of Lee on youtube, including Requiem...

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-_DBT13UQzDVsiSQMFfLtX-z0Ja3D21S&si=DzizZq7pGBppn-I-

"The President is popping pills
And paying all the old folks' bills
And wearing a silver spoon around his neck"

Those were the days, also daze.

From my round-up of 2022's country and related reissues, prev. unreleases etc.:

"Give up, you won’t survive, you’ll never get out alive, this world won’t letcha I betcha, and if it did, what’s it gonna getcha, what counts is, how you feel inside—cause life’s a, sweeeeet riiiiiiide---"
Thus Dusty Springfield blissfully calls over the crest of The Sweet Ride. which wiki sez is a 1968 American drama film with a few surfer/biker exploitation film elements. It stars Tony Franciosa, Michael Sarrazin and Jacqueline Bisset in an early starring role. The film also features Bob Denver in the role of Choo-Choo, a Beatnik piano-playing draft dodger. Sarrazin and Bisset were nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer, Male and Female respectively.
Seems promising, but right now I must focus on the contrast between Dusty and Lee (there’s a duo!)’s delivery of this key and opener to Lee Hazelwood's The Sweet Ride: Lost Recordings 1965-68, in which Light In The Attic does right by LH yet again, with a cohesive round-up of spare change, all about keeping your highest and lowest on point, on the fence of your sense, so for instance he here hunkers down and squeezes the end of the line over a rinky-tink piano. Just sit back and relax it, some day they’ve got to tax it—and when you can’t do that no more, nor shrug it off with a Roger Miller-worthy quirk over your acoustic guitar, just bug out toward Lou Reed Hazlewood cabin creak and even creekside tour guide to self-aware fantasy memories: whatever it takes to be taken etc. Relistenable beyond completism, with no need for signature layers of finished product atmospherics.

I'm still editing my Lee Hazlewood essay but his relationship to Roger Miller is fascinating. Miller lived in an apartment over Lee's garage, some of his handwritten lyrics were sold at auction by Lee's ex-wife. They were definitely sympatico. Miller's "One Dyin' and a Buryin'" sounds like a Lonesome Town outtake. Later Miller covered the Fool and sounds like he's paying more tribute to Lee than to Sanford Clark.

Finally WFMU's John Allen sent me the link to his interview with Lee during the Smells Like Records period where Lee offered a fascinating bit of trivia. The violin playing ape on the cover of Lee's The N.S.V.I.P.'s album? Roger Miller.

Intriguing, thanks! Speaking of Roger Miller (and 2022), here's a round-up I did of Roger's '22 digital debuts (albums), plus a revelatory collection of his early work---turns out he was a bit of a honky-tonkin' sport of the 50s:
https://mydeprodation.blogspot.com/2025/09/roger-miller-2022-digital-debuts-also.html

Thx for the tip to that WFMU interview. It's streaming here: https://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/24163

the cover of Lee's The N.S.V.I.P.'s album

it's amazing how Lee's mustache seems to add around 70 pounds, he looks so tiny here

Happy Birthday Jack Nitzsche...performing Lee's Baja here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz_oJjQt7NQ

Nitzsche did a few sessions with me. I couldn't catch a hit with him at all. I introduced him to Phil Spector. They had hit after hit. I used to tease Phil…’you took my arranger.’ He said ‘you didn't do anything for him, I turned him into something.’ I said ‘you're right.'

-Lee