Nancy Sinatra

Emerging as a defining presence in the 1960s, Nancy Sinatra projected a bold, unflappable persona whose singular mix of rock, country, and pop found vivid expression in the hit single "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" along with the duets she cut alongside Lee Hazlewood, most memorably "Some Velvet Morning." Her visibility endured across subsequent decades through a 1973 reunion with Hazlewood on Nancy & Lee Again, fruitful pairings with country singer Mel Tillis during the 1980s, and the 1995 comeback album One More Time that initiated a consistent series of recordings. That sequence reached a high point with the 2005 release Nancy Sinatra, an album drawing on an array of alt-rock figures including Jarvis Cocker, Morrissey, and half of U2. Attention later turned toward overseeing her father's estate and overseeing reissues of her catalog in tandem with Light in the Attic, above all the 2021 anthology Start Walkin' 1965 – 1976 that introduced her work to fresh listeners.

Nancy Sandra Sinatra entered the world in June 1940 during the period when her father, Frank, performed with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Raised amid the glare of entertainment prominence, she first appeared on television alongside her father in 1957. Having devoted much of her childhood to training in music, dance, and voice, she soon pursued her own path as a performer and made her professional bow in 1960 on a television special fronted by her father with Elvis Presley, newly discharged from military service, as featured guest. Following roles in several films and guest spots across assorted television episodes, Sinatra sought entry into music and signed with her father's Reprise label. Yet the second single drawn from her 1966 debut album Boots, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'," demonstrated her independent command, its brash lyrics riding a brass-heavy arrangement by Billy Strange and the elite ranks of Los Angeles session musicians en route to the top position in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and South Africa. Two further albums appeared in 1966: How Does That Grab You? and Nancy in London, the latter tracked in London with leading British session players.

Additional chart successes arrived with "How Does That Grab You, Darlin'?," "Sugar Town," and the theme to the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. She joined her father on the single "Somethin' Stupid," which ascended to the summit of the charts in 1967. Two more albums surfaced that year, Country, My Way and Sugar. Lee Hazlewood, who produced the majority of those sessions and supplied many of the songs, later attained cult stature in his own right while crafting several distinctive duets with her, among them "Sand," "Summer Wine," and the singular "Some Velvet Morning." Their partnership appeared on the 1968 album Nancy & Lee, after which their early collaboration concluded. Billy Strange was enlisted to produce the 1969 album Nancy.

Beyond recording, Sinatra entered film work, sharing the screen with Peter Fonda in the Roger Corman production The Wild Angels that helped launch the biker pictures of the 1960s and early 1970s. She also appeared with Elvis Presley in the 1968 feature Speedway.

In 1970 she wed dancer Hugh Lambert following an earlier brief marriage to British singer and actor Tommy Sands that dissolved in 1965, thereafter reducing her public schedule in favor of family life. She nonetheless found occasion to record another collaboration with Hazlewood, the 1972 album Nancy & Lee Again, as well as the soft-pop solo set Woman that same year. After an extended absence from prominence, she partnered with country star Mel Tillis in 1981 on the Elektra album Mel and Nancy, which yielded two modest country hits, and in 1985 issued the book Frank Sinatra: My Father while assuming greater responsibility for family matters. A second volume on her father appeared in 1998, after which she directed the Sinatra Family website. Returning to the studio in 1995, she delivered the country-inflected One More Time and promoted it with a pictorial in Playboy. A concert tour followed, and in 2003 she rejoined Hazlewood for Nancy & Lee 3, issued in the U.S. in 2004. At the encouragement of longtime admirer Morrissey, she reentered the studio and in September 2004 released the self-titled Nancy Sinatra, an expansive collection featuring contributions from members of U2, Pulp, Calexico, Sonic Youth, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and additional contemporary rock artists. Subsequent live dates included a notable performance at Little Steven's International Underground Garage Rock Festival 2004, where she presented material from the new album together with "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" supported by an all-star ensemble complete with horn section and surrounded by numerous go-go dancers.

Across the following two decades Sinatra sustained stage and screen appearances while concentrating on archival projects. Shifting Gears, a set of fifteen previously unreleased Billy Strange-produced show-tune recordings drawn from her personal archives, appeared on her Boots Enterprises imprint in 2013. Light in the Attic issued the compilation Start Walkin' 1965-1976 in 2021 as the opening installment of its Nancy Sinatra Archival Series, with several albums reissued in elaborate editions containing fresh liner notes and bonus tracks. The effort aligned with parallel reissues of Lee Hazlewood material, culminating in the first reissue since 1972 of Nancy & Lee Again in 2023. The series continued with Keep Walkin': Singles, Demos & Rarities 1965-1978, comprising tracks unfamiliar even to many dedicated listeners alongside several previously unreleased songs.