6.8.07 Lee Hazlewood 1929-2007

"In the end there was nothing. But believe me, it was no fun waiting for nothing to end."
Lee Hazlewood, "Requiem For An Almost Lady".

The ornery pop genius Lee Hazlewood died on Saturday of renal cancer. He was 78. Most people know "These Boots Were Made For Walking", the US/UK number 1 he wrote and produced for Nancy Sinatra, and might be forgiven for dismissing it as kitschy/kinky 60's bubblegum. But those of us lucky enough to have heard all the records he made alongside Sinatra as "Nancy and Lee" and the solo albums such as "Trouble Is A Lonesome Town" and - my particular favourite - "Requiem For An Almost Lady" know better.

Hazlewood was a genuine and downright peculiar talent, as producer, songwriter and artist, who in the last couple of decades has been re-discovered and revered by a generation some 40 years his junior. I first became aware of him when my friend Dewi Davies sat me down in his room at Girton College in 1990 and played me "Some Velvet Morning" from a Nancy Sinatra Best Of cassette. I'd never heard anything like it; after a queasy string intro Hazlewood spits menacingly "Some velvet morning when I'm straight, I'm gonna open up your gate, and maybe tell you 'bout Phaedra and how she gave me life and how she made it end". Sinatra's childlike answer sections as "Phaedra" are in a psychedelic triple time and somehow manage to sound even weirder. The whole thing is as odd and yet as unforgettably brilliant as pop gets. I borrowed the cassette and discovered "Summer Wine", "Sugar Town", "Did You Ever".

A few years later I was working on a remix for City Slang's Wyndham Wallace, who was also Hazlewood's UK publicist (and has for the last few years been his European manager). Some of Lee's solo albums were being re-issued and Wyndham gave me "Requiem For An Almost Lady" which contains "Come On Home To Me", one of the most vulnerable and affecting love songs I've ever heard, with a spoken intro that I've played a few many times for my own liking. "And you wake up one morning and you say 'I feel good, I don't miss her, I can live without her' and you soon learn, that time will come. But it wasn't that day."

Wyndham became a firm friend and I've heard so many anecdotes about Lee over the past few years that, despite never meeting the man, I feel far sadder today than one really should when an artist one admires passes on. Hence this blog. And if you haven't had the pleasure; go and find and buy the Nancy and Lee albums, and if you can, hunt down "Come On Home To Me" too. You're in for an all-too-rare treat.

Comments

[An Indian Too]

was listening to "nancy & lee" today to commemorate and was struck by the lyrics for sand. they are a fitting requiem as any...

Young woman share your fire with me
my heart is cold my soul is free
I am a stranger in your land
wandering man
call me Sand

[Ronan]

heard "My Autumn's Done Come" on the radio at around 1am a week or two ago, I only had a passing familarity with some of his more well known tracks but it completely blew me away. sad news.

[Rungtwice]

I remember some velvet morning I heard "some velvet morning" on the radio, and of course as is apt to do with a song like that, I fell in love. Especially "requiem for an almost lady" and I like the treatments on "Total Lee" I don't cry much, but hearing of Lee's passing makes me wanna cry. Goddamned Stockholm Kid.