Lee Hazlewood

Country and pop iconoclast Lee Hazlewood stood out as one of music's most unpredictable creative forces across an extended, productive span. Productions he crafted early on for Duane Eddy, above all the echo-saturated 1958 single "Rebel Rouser," supplied a blueprint for boisterous instrumental rock; sessions he oversaw with Nancy Sinatra, among them 1966's "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'," elevated her to lasting fame; and the duets they recorded swung from lighthearted ("Jackson") to strikingly unconventional ("Some Velvet Morning"). Hazlewood's own releases could stay direct and roots-oriented (1963's Trouble Is a Lonesome Town), turn lush and richly arranged (1967's Lee Hazlewoodism: Its Cause and Cure), or lay bare raw singer-songwriter material (1971's Requiem for an Almost Lady); throughout, the work remained idiosyncratic and carried by a voice ideally suited to narrative delivery. In later decades, after fresh musicians rediscovered his catalog and championed his distinctive approach as writer and producer, he felt moved to return to the studio. Ahead of his death in 2007, Hazlewood issued several characteristically off-kilter, unmistakably personal albums, among them the quirkily named Farmisht, Flatulence, Origami, ARF!!! and Me... and his last outing, 2006's Cake or Death. In the years since, assorted imprints have reissued his recordings, Light in the Attic most prominently among them, sustaining his complex legacy.

Hazlewood entered the world as Barton Lee Hazlewood in 1929 in Mannford, Oklahoma. His father, employed in the oil fields, kept relocating the household throughout the 1930s and 1940s in pursuit of steady work, pausing in Arkansas, Kansas, and Louisiana before settling along the Gulf Coast in Port Neches, Texas. Hazlewood entered Southern Methodist University intending to pursue medicine, yet military service soon followed; he wed his high-school sweetheart Naomi Shackleford and spent years abroad, broadcasting records over Armed Services Radio in Japan while also seeing combat duty in Korea.

Once the war ended, the Hazlewoods relocated first to California and then to Coolidge, Arizona, where a brief period at broadcasting school helped Lee secure employment at a local station. His selections gradually shifted toward rock & roll, and after another move to Phoenix years later, he started producing sides for his own imprint, Viv, in 1955. The following year he composed "The Fool" and enlisted local country performer Sanford Clark to cut it. Hazlewood's forward-thinking studio methods, drenched in echo much like Sam Phillips' approach at Sun, transformed the track into a regional Midwestern favorite that became a national hit upon reissue by Dot and eventually climbed into the Top Ten. Clark never matched that achievement, and a production arrangement Hazlewood secured with Dot likewise stalled despite his return to California. He next aligned with entrepreneur Lester Sill, who had earlier partnered with Leiber & Stoller and continued managing the Coasters. Hazlewood recorded additional material back in Phoenix, among them several eccentric guitar-effects sides by local standout Duane Eddy. Eddy, an improbable signing to Jamie Records (co-owned by Dick Clark), reached widespread success with "Rebel Rouser" and ultimately placed fifteen singles inside the Top 40. (Hazlewood's methods also reached an associate of Sill's named Phil Spector, who traveled to the Phoenix studio to observe Hazlewood's recording techniques; Spector's earliest productions appeared on the Trey label that Hazlewood and Sill operated together.)

Success nevertheless brought complications, beginning when Eddy chose to self-produce following a royalties dispute. Sill redirected his support toward Spector as the latter's production skills sharpened in the early 1960s. While those two launched their own Philles label, Hazlewood achieved limited results with further productions that included another short run with Eddy, longtime acquaintance Al Casey (who scored a moderate hit with "Surfin' Hootenanny"), and his own folk-pop ensemble, the Shacklefords.

During 1963 Hazlewood reserved time at Western Studios in Los Angeles to track material for his debut solo album, Trouble Is a Lonesome Town. A concept piece focused on the idiosyncratic inhabitants of a modest Western town, the record unveiled Hazlewood's singular vocal presence and compositional style. An astute student of human nature with a gift for storytelling, he recounted the hardships of resilient small-town figures in a laconic tone and prefaced each number with brief, knowing remarks about its protagonist. Though the approach did not promise mainstream appeal, Mercury A&R executive Jack Tracy championed the album and issued it with minimal intervention.

Following a full year away from any recording activity, he reentered the studio in 1965 at the invitation of Reprise's Jimmy Bowen to helm sessions for Dino, Desi & Billy, a trio of Hollywood teenagers connected to entertainment royalty (the first two being sons of Dean Martin and Desi Arnaz). Hazlewood delivered a pair of Top 40 hits, "I'm a Fool" and "Our Time's Coming," while one of his own songs, "Houston," became a success for Martin himself. In appreciation, Reprise permitted Hazlewood to cut his second album, The N.S.V.I.P.'s ("The Not-So-Very-Important People"), in 1965. That same year he was handed responsibility for the career of Nancy Sinatra, another child of Hollywood prominence who had spent four years at Reprise without charting. By the close of 1965 she appeared on the pop lists with "So Long Babe." One year later Sinatra achieved international stardom through the cultural landmark "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'." Hazlewood's second production to top the charts was "Somethin' Stupid," a duet between Nancy and her father Frank that earned a Record of the Year Grammy nomination in 1967.

After one further Reprise release (Friday's Child), his publisher arranged a deal with MGM, yielding two albums across consecutive years: 1966's The Very Special World of Lee Hazlewood and 1967's Lee Hazlewood-ism: Its Cause and Cure. (A projected third title, 1968's Something Special, remained unreleased for decades.) These collections gathered spare, arid ballads infused with Western fatalism and restlessness, presented in meticulous productions that ranged from rustic minimalism to expansive, horn-driven pop. They also served as testing grounds for material he would later produce for Sinatra, such as "Sand" and "Summer Wine." When the latter track, a Nancy & Lee duet added as the B-side of a 1966 Sinatra single, turned into a hit the next year, it prompted an entire collaborative album. Nancy & Lee sold a million copies throughout 1968 and secured recognition as one of the most influential releases linked to either artist. "Some Velvet Morning," a spectral ode to dusk, emerged as a widely interpreted classic after covers by peers (Vanilla Fudge, Gabor Szabo) and subsequent generations (Lydia Lunch, Thin White Rope, Slowdive, Primal Scream).

Also during 1968 Hazlewood briefly returned to Reprise as a solo artist with Love and Other Crimes, another loosely conceptual effort that failed to register on the charts. Undeterred, he established his own imprint, LHI (Lee Hazlewood Industries), alongside partner and fellow producer Suzy Jane Hokom. The label signed an array of acts, most notably the International Submarine Band featuring Gram Parsons. Hazlewood's own LHI debut arrived as 1969's The Cowboy & the Lady, recorded with yet another female counterpart, Ann-Margret. He followed it later that year with the reflective, ballad-heavy Forty.

Growing restless in Southern California, Hazlewood cut occasional sessions for country figures (among them Eddy Arnold and Waylon Jennings) while spending increasing time in Europe, particularly Sweden. In 1970 he recorded Cowboy in Sweden, initiating several collaborations with Swedish director Torbjörn Axelman. (Hazlewood received a Golden Rose at the Montreux Festival in 1973.) That same year Requiem for an Almost Lady captured on record his split from Hokom, who had appeared on several MGM singles. An increasing number of his releases bypassed the United States, although he maintained a steady output, reuniting with Sinatra for a second collection of duets titled Nancy & Lee Again in 1972 and delivering the aptly eccentric and compelling Poet, Fool or Bum the following year.

After his recording career waned in the late 1970s, Hazlewood stepped away briefly yet reemerged in 1995, touring the United States with Sinatra following her comeback album One More Time. He also supplied two vocal performances to the Casey album Sidewinder, tracked in Phoenix and issued in 1995 by the German label Bear Family. Around the same period musicians from the alternative scene began covering his songs, among them Nick Cave, Tindersticks, and Lambchop, while collectors sought out his original pressings. In 1999 Smells Like Records (founded by Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth) commenced reissuing several classic Hazlewood titles and also released his first new album in two decades, the characteristically contrarian Farmisht, Flatulence, Origami, ARF!!! and Me... He followed with a City Slang release in 2002 titled For Every Solution There's a Problem, then partnered once more with Sinatra for 2004's Nancy & Lee 3.

In 2005 Hazlewood received a terminal renal cancer diagnosis; nonetheless he issued a new album, Cake or Death, late in 2006. He died on August 4, 2007. Following his passing, archival material continued to surface as his reputation expanded. Rhino issued Strung Out on Something New: The Reprise Recordings, a survey of non-Nancy tracks cut for the label, in 2008, yet Light in the Attic explored the archives extensively, beginning with 2012's The LHI Years: Singles, Nudes & Backsides (1968-71). The next year brought the expansive box set There's a Dream I've Been Saving: 1966-1971, an exhaustive overview of his LHI label. In 2018 Light in the Attic released 400 Miles from L.A.: 1955-56, documenting his earliest songwriting demos. The same label also reissued his first two duet albums with Nancy Sinatra, Nancy & Lee in 2022 and Nancy & Lee Again in 2023.