Lee Hazlewood: cynical cowboy bard
September 27, 2007 Not long before he died, the man who wrote "These Boots Are Made for Walkin' " and much, much more sat down for a wide-ranging, freewheeling interview
Lee Hazlewood spent half a century fooling around with the business of music. He wrote hits for Dean Martin, Petula Clark and Elvis, was covered by Beck and Einstuerzende Neubauten and was blasted by the ATF at Waco to flush rock-star-wannabe David Koresh from his compound.
Instantly famous after penning the 1966 hit “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” for Nancy Sinatra, he employed imaginative production and a droll lyrical sensibility that produced a string of hits that flipped the formulaic boy/girl duet: “Some Velvet Morning,” “Summer Wine,” “I’ve Been Down So Long,” “Sand.” Sinatra’s kicky go-go vixen was a perfect complement to Hazlewood’s mustachioed, hangdog visage and world-weary baritone. Their collection, Lee and Nancy (1969), went platinum.
But hit songs are the least interesting aspect of Hazlewood’s career. The work of the legendary singer/songwriter/producer, wide as the prairie sky, always howled America, even when it was recorded in Sweden.
In 1999, Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth began rereleasing a number of Hazlewood’s wildly diverse and highly influential solo albums on his Smells Like Records label, the same year Hazlewood brought a septuagenarian back-up duo to perform at Nick Cave’s Meltdown Festival in London.
Trouble is a Lonesome Town (1963) debuted Hazlewood’s distinctive narrative style; described as “baroquely American,” the dusty, sparse character portraits were prefaced with the spoken interludes that would become his trademark. Hazlewood doused Lee Hazlewood-ism: Its Cause and Cure (1966) with Billy Strange’s spaghetti-Western arrangements. The bawdy cowpoke tinsel of The Cowboy and the Lady (1969), a collaboration with Ann-Margret, spawned cowboy psychedelia. Some of his most interesting albums have only recently seen the light of day in his home country. Shelved by MGM, Something Special (1967) was only released in Germany some 20 years later, and was finally released stateside by Water Records last month.
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