Hazlewood had an unusual career, just like how he had an unusual sound. It seems he marched to the beat of his own drummer. Sometimes that meant big hits, sometimes obscure records.
He was born in 1929, and mostly grew up in Texas. After serving in the military during the Korean War in the early 1950s, he began working as a DJ. This gave him a foot in the door into the music business. He soon started producing and well as selling songs he'd written. His first big hit was "The Fool" by Sanford Clark in 1956. After that, he had the most success in the late 1950s and early 1960s writing songs for guitarist Duane Eddy. His biggest success was with "Rebel-'Rouser," a Top Ten hit in the U.S. in 1958 and a true classic. He wrote a whole series of hits for Eddy, most (but not all) of them guitar-based instrumentals. I only included a few of those here because, in my opinion, most of them are similar to each other and don't really stand out.
Hazlewood's hits for Duane Eddy petered out by the end of 1963, probably due to a change in the public's musical tastes. That was right when the Beatles and the British Invasion hit it big. Hazlewood was so disappointed in the change that he took a break from the music business for most of 1964.
But in 1965, his career resumed when he got a chance to work with Nancy Sinatra. She was both very beautiful and a talented singer. Plus she was the daughter of music legend Frank Sinatra. However, she'd had a series of nothing but failed singles from 1961 to 1965, and was in danger of being dropped from her record label. Then she began working with Hazlewood. He drastically changed her sound, including having her sing in a lower register, and with a more sultry style. Their first single in 1965 didn't do that well. But their second one was "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'," which went to Number One in the U.S. singles charts and instantly turned Sinatra into a big star. That led to a whole series of hit songs he for Sinatra through the end of the 1960s.
The Sinatra collaboration turned Hazlewood into a minor star as well. That's because not only did he write and produce all her hits, he sang on some hit duets with her as well. It was a very odd combination, since Hazlewood had a low, gruff voice that typically wasn't found on hit records. But the clash with Sinatra's conventionally pretty voice somehow worked, in large part due to Hazlewood's songwriting and production.
The account of his career will continue with the second volume. Note that, on this volume, I generally stuck with the hit versions, even though that means a big cluster of Nancy Sinatra songs in the second half. Those versions are so distinctive and definitive that it seemed wrong to use different ones.
This album is 48 minutes long.
01 The Fool (Sanford Clark)
02 Snake Eyed Mama (Don Cole with Al Casey)
03 Don't Look Now, but I've Got the Blues (B.B. King)
04 Rebel-'Rouser (Duane Eddy)
05 The Girl on Death Row (Lee Hazlewood with Duane Eddy & His Orchestra)
06 Shazam (Duane Eddy)
07 Guitars, Guitars, Guitars (Al Casey with the K-C-Ettes)
08 [Dance With] The Guitar Man (Duane Eddy)
09 Baja (Astronauts)
10 These Boots Are Made for Walkin' (Nancy Sinatra)
11 Friday's Child (Nancy Sinatra)
12 Need All the Help I Can Get (Suzi Jane Hokom)
13 How Does That Grab You, Darlin' (Nancy Sinatra)
14 Sugar Town (Nancy Sinatra)
15 Guitar on My Mind (Duane & Miriam Eddy)
16 Sand (Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood)
17 Summer Wine (Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood)
18 The Last of the Secret Agents (Nancy Sinatra)
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I had a hard time finding good color images of Hazlewood when he was young, so I had to resort using an album cover photo. The cover image was taken from a 1960 album called "Something Special."
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