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Earliest known Lee Hazlewood recordings discovered on lost and found demo tape (a DM premiere)
09.12.2019
07:19 am
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Lee 1
 
A couldn’t-have-been-foreseen new archival release by the late, great Lee Hazlewood is about to come out. Sourced from an unlabeled tape that was recently discovered (!), 400 Miles From L.A. 1955-56 is a set of demos Hazlewood recorded when he was just starting out. These are intimate and revealing recordings of the young Lee—and Dangerous Minds has a preview. 

In the mid 1950s, Lee Hazlewood was married with a young family, and working as a disc jockey for a Phoenix radio station. But he was also an aspiring songwriter, having picked up the craft in 1953. The following year, he met guitarist Duane Eddy, and the duo Eddy was a part of cut two Hazlewood compositions for a 45, which Lee had pressed onto vinyl. In ’55, Hazlewood started taking bus trips to Los Angeles to pitch his songs to record companies. Time and again, he’d get rejected, then get back on the bus and head home to Phoenix. Realizing this approach wasn’t working, Lee came up with Plan B.
 
Lee 2
 
Hazlewood started his own label, Viv Records, with the idea that various artists would cover his songs. Viv put out eight singles, but none were successful, so again, Lee moved on. He signed a deal with the MCI label, which led to the release of his song “The Fool” by rockabilly singer Sanford Clark. The track was a big hit, cracking the top ten. Lee Hazlewood was now on the right path.
 
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Trouble is a Lonesome Town (1963) ended up being Lee’s first LP, though it wasn’t intended as such. Lee submitted the album’s demos to Mercury Records, thinking the material would be recorded by another artist, but the label wanted to release it as is. Hazlewood was now a songwriter and an artist, something he hadn’t planned on. Trouble is Lonesome Town is about the various characters that inhabit the fictional town of Trouble—a country concept album released years before rock acts started putting out records of this type. Trouble revealed that at this early stage Hazlewood was already a great storyteller, songwriter, and yes, artist, with a deep, distinctive southern drawl of a voice.
 
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400 Miles From L.A. 1955-56 illustrates that Lee was a actually a significant talent long before his debut full-length arrived, and only just a couple of years after he started writing songs. The full Trouble concept is here in an early draft, while the other half of the collection is a set of strong tunes, many of which are previously unknown in Hazlewood’s oeuvre. One such number is “Five Thousand and One,” and it’s one of my favorites from the set. Over the course of the recording, Lee sings in a manner that’s atypical for him, but oh-so-pleasingly strange.

Hear the premiere, after the jump…

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Posted by Bart Bealmear
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09.12.2019
07:19 am
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Lee Hazlewood gets his heart broken and records the ultimate break-up album, 1971
10.23.2017
06:37 am
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Suzi and Lee (courtesy Suzi Jane Hokom)
 
It was 1971 and Lee Hazlewood had recently left Los Angeles and his label, LHI Records, far behind, having relocated to the Scandinavian nation of Sweden. He’d also split with his girlfriend of six years, singer Suzi Jane Hokum (that’s Lee and Suzi in the above photo). Prior to their parting, they recorded a number of duets, such as the Hazlewood-penned “Summer Wine,” which Lee would re-make with Nancy Sinatra. Here’s the original Lee and Suzi version:
 

 
Following their break-up, Lee wrote a collection of songs detailing the pain of losing a romantic partner. After a first attempt at getting the tracks down on tape in Sweden didn’t work out to his liking, L.H. flew back to L.A. to record in more familiar surroundings. Supported by a small group of musician friends, including Jerry Cole of the Wrecking Crew, the album was captured in a single day—May 11, 1971. 

The subsequent LP, Requiem for an Almost Lady, was released later in the year, though initially just in Sweden and Australia. Lee sets the scene before each of the stripped-down tracks, then proceeds to sing each of the songs in his distinctive dry-as-the-desert-but-still-sweet-sounding baritone, which aches like never before. The album is full of a very relatable form of heartache that’s sad, wistful, witty, vengeful, poetic, painful, and real. It speaks to the particular form of emptiness that comes when the one you love leaves. Pop music has had its share of break-up albums, but none are as spot-on as this.
 
Requiem for an Almost Lady cover
 
Lee wrote some notes about the record, which appeared on the back cover of the original LP. Here’s an excerpt:

This is a group of songs about one lady…her name is not important…she knows who she was…There was no pleasure (as there usually is) in writing this album…there was only the dull “thud” of realization that something you once took for granted is gone…

On November 3, Light in the Attic Records will reissue Requiem for an Almost Lady, along with two other Lee Hazlewood records, Forty, and the album L.H. did with Ann-Margaret, The Cowboy & The Lady; all three have bonus tracks. Various goodies are available to those that pre-order through LITA’s website. If you pick up the colored vinyl editions of each, the label will throw in a nearly hour-long cassette containing two previously unreleased Hazlewood sessions from 1969—how cool is that? If you instead decide to go the Amazon route, click on the above album titles.

Thanks to Light in the Attic, we’ve got the remastered premiere of “I’d Rather Be Your Enemy,” the song that closes Requiem for an Almost Lady. It’s delivered with the kind of wounded venom that will ring true to many, ending with a classic Hazlewood turn of phrase.
 

 
In 1999, nearly 30 years after Requiem was released, Lee once again wrote about the album, but his view of the material had changed. A selection of those thoughts:

In retrospect…These songs were not written about or for one lady or two or even three…They are a composite of all my memories, of ladies, since I became aware of memories and ladies…After breathing in and out for seven decades (as I have), you start to believe you’re wiser…You ain’t…You’re just more cautious…Here’s to the ladies…Here’s to the memories…And here’s to the songs…

 
Lee and Suzi (courtesy Mark Pickerel)
 
As a companion piece to Requiem for an Almost Lady, a short film with the same name was produced and aired on Swedish television. Directed by Torbjörn Axelman, who first collaborated with Lee on a similar project for Hazlewood’s Cowboy in Sweden LP. Both are forerunners of the video album. The Requiem movie includes most of the tracks from the record, plus a couple of added segments that were surely attempts to lighten the mood for the TV audience.
 
Watch it, after the jump…

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Posted by Bart Bealmear
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10.23.2017
06:37 am
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‘Your Groovy Self’: Watch Nancy Sinatra do something really amazing (with very little effort)
03.30.2016
11:50 am
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Speedway is a typical lightweight Elvis romp from the ‘60s co-starring Nancy Sinatra who plays a sexy IRS agent who comes to audit racecar driver Elvis, whose business manager (Bill Bixby) is an idiot addicted to gambling. She succumbs to the King’s charms, natch. There are songs and even a plucky homeless family living in their car. That’s Speedway‘s plot in a nutshell.

Carl Ballantine from McHale’s Navy and Gale Gordon, best known as Mr. Mooney from The Lucy Show are also part of the cast. One production number, for a song called “He’s Your Uncle, Not Your Dad,” takes place in an IRS office! It’s perfectly dreadful, if entertaining, drivel, but it does have two great numbers in it. Elvis does a rocker called “Let Yourself Go” that was released as a single, but flopped, which is a shame, because it’s one of my own personal very top favorite Elvis tracks. (Glenn Danzig must feel the same way, he recorded a credible cover version in 2007.)
 

 
And then Nancy Sinatra performs a swingin’ little number called “Your Groovy Self,” complete with decidedly minimalist mod choreography. It’s also one of her best songs: written and produced by Lee Hazlewood, she’s backed by a brassy configuration of the Wrecking Crew. It’s most certainly one of her best performances on film and the sole track by anyone other than Elvis himself to appear on the soundtrack album to one of his movies.
 

 
Two fun facts: First, Speedway was originally written for Sonny and Cher!

Second, take a look at the nightclub: Quentin Tarantino’s set design for Jack Rabbit Slims in Pulp Fiction was inspired by the campy race car decor of the Hangout, where Speedway’s in-crowd mix.

The plot device that gets Nancy to sing is when Carl Ballantine, the maitre’d of the Hangout shines a spotlight on her, and for some arbitrary Elvis-movie logic, she has to “get up and do something.” 

See what she did, after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.30.2016
11:50 am
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‘Cowboy in Sweden’: Watch Lee Hazlewood’s insane Swedish TV special, 1970
09.18.2015
08:42 am
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Cowboy in Sweden, the album
 
Shortly after Lee Hazlewood moved to Sweden at the end of the ‘60s, he collaborated with his friend, director Torbjörn Axelman, on the TV special Cowboy in Sweden; Light in the Attic, the label responsible for the latest round of Lee Hazlewood reissues, says this is one of seven Swedish TV movies the singer and Axelman made together. As on the companion album of the same name, singers Nina Lizell and Suzi Jane Hokom played supporting roles in Lee’s weird fantasies.

Presented as a series of dreams, the movie alternates between absurdist skits and songs given totally incongruous visual settings. While much of Cowboy in Sweden is exactly what you’d picture—Hazlewood on horseback, cigarette dangling from his lips, alone with his doleful thoughts—there’s a whole lot in here you’d be unlikely to imagine on your own. I don’t want to spoil it, so I’ll limit myself to a single example. Punning on the song’s title, Hazlewood sings his lonesome prisoner ballad “Pray Them Bars Away” to a group of polar bears swimming in the blinding Scandinavian sun.
 

 
Cowboy in Sweden is also a showcase for a few European bands of the time, whose tunes contrast just as jarringly with the scenery: Rumpelstiltskin mime their upbeat “Knock on My Door” in a junk yard, surrounded by flaming auto wrecks, and Steve Rowland and The Family Dogg lip-sync their miserable “Sympathy” in a very pleasant sculpture garden on a beautiful afternoon. At 36:41, there is a promo film for the George Baker Selection’s “Little Green Bag” (the get-up-out-your-seat song Quentin Tarantino later used for the opening credits of Reservoir Dogs) in which the Dutch soul combo lounges around a table, smoking cigarettes and drinking red wine.

Continues after the jump…

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Posted by Oliver Hall
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09.18.2015
08:42 am
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‘Movin’ with Nancy’: Go-go boots, miniskirts, eyeliner and Nancy Sinatra


 
Although it certainly can’t hurt when your father owns the record company, Nancy Sinatra wouldn’t have sold millions of records in the 1960s if she wasn’t putting out great pop music. In fact, had Sinatra not met songwriter/producer Lee Hazlewood, she might’ve been dropped, even by Reprise. Nepotism only goes so far (just ask her brother) and Sinatra’s early attempts at the pop charts went nowhere. Hazlewood had her sing in a lower key and tailored her material for a straight-talkin’ sassy “hip” image that was closely associated with go-go boots, eyeliner and miniskirts. Together they had a long string of chart-topping hit records, most sung by Nancy, but still some were duets they recorded together.
 

 
1967’s NBC TV special Movin’ With Nancy was produced at the height of Sinatra’s career and featured guest appearances from her father, his pals Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., as well as an onscreen appearance by Hazlewood. Written by Tom Mankiewicz (who’d go on to the James Bond films and the Superman franchise of the 70s) and directed by Jack Haley Jr. (son of the “Tin Man” actor, one-time husband to Liza Minnelli and future producer of That’s Entertainment!), as far as variety specials went, Movin’ With Nancy was considered quite “different” for its time. For one thing, it’s not shot in a studio, but mostly outdoors, on various locations like a travelogue. The set pieces simply drift from one to the next and each is like a music video. Haley won an Emmy for his directing.
 

 
The show was sponsored in its entirety by the Royal Crown Cola company (“It’s the mad, mad, mad, mad cola!” as you will be reminded over and over and over again) and their commercials are in the video below, so we get to see Movin’ With Nancy exactly the way it aired on December 11, 1967. Of special note is the premiere of that classic oddball psych number “Some Velvet Morning,” which made about as much sense then as it does today. If that doesn’t send a special thrill up your leg, I don’t know what would. Also, at the very end of her bit with Sammy? That innocent peck on the cheek was apparently the very first (non-scripted) interracial kiss on network television. This proved to be controversial, but was done spontaneously as Davis was actually saying goodbye to Sinatra in that shot and leaving the set for another job. There wasn’t a second take.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.27.2015
04:28 pm
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Honey Ltd.: Incredible Lee Hazlewood-produced 60s girl group re-emerges from obscurity
09.10.2013
08:20 pm
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In the mid-1980s I went on a real Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood kick and I amassed a pretty good collection of Nancy and Lee-related stuff. (I even acquired a 6 sq ft reproduction of the Nancy in London album cover, which I still own and was, until quite recently, hanging in our kitchen).

Something that I knew about, but was never able to actually lay my hands on in any of my ruthlessly efficient record store haunts back then was the LHI Records (LHI stood for “Lee Hazlewood Industries”) release by Honey Ltd., a quartet of gorgeous Michigan-based co-eds who met at Wayne State University and headed west to Los Angeles seeking fame and fortune. The group’s original name was The Mama Cats, and in my imagination, they sounded like the Mamas sans the Papas, especially considering the likelihood of the same studio musicians, the infamous Wrecking Crew, backing Hazlewood’s girl group as well.
 

 
I can’t say that snagging a copy of the rare Honey Ltd. album on LHI Records was some kind of holy grail for me—I’d never heard it, I just knew what they looked like—but at one time I kept an active eye out for it. I had long forgotten about them until I was looking up Lee Hazlewood-related videos the other day on YouTube and lo and behold, there were some Honey Ltd. videos. Not only that, but one of the more recent comments mentioned that the fine people at the mighty Light in the Attic record label had put out a lovingly curated Honey Ltd. package, The Complete LHI Recordings.

Yes, please!
 

L-R Alexandra Sliwin, Joan Sliwin, Marsha Jo Temmer and Laura Polkinghorne

If the idea of a Lee Hazlewood-produced girl group sounds like it might be a good thing to you, may I suggest acquiring this divinely luminous album of candy-colored sun-drenched Southern California pop vocal harmonies posthaste. It won’t disappoint, but you will feel disappointed that this is all there is. With all of their talent, looks and the PR machinery behind them, Honey Ltd. never made it, and soon found themselves demoted to a Vegas opening act. Their sadly stunted legacy included just eleven completed tracks, a few TV appearances and a 1968 Bob Hope USO tour.

When member Alexandra Sliwin left the group in 1969 to marry singer-songwriter J.D. Souther, Honey Ltd. dissolved and the other three carried on as the country-rock group, Eve.

Sample the sweet-sounding delights of Honey Ltd.

The dark anti-war number “The Warrior” has lyrics like “We must kill more people; strong men are what we need!” and “It’s good.” Something tells me that they probably didn’t sing this particular song during their USO tours with Bob Hope!
 

“Silk N’ Honey”
 

“For Your Mind”
 

A positively astounding version of Laura Nyro’s “Eli’s Coming”
 

This cover of “Louie, Louie,” with horns arranged by Jack Nitzsche, should be absurd, but it’s fucking brilliant.
 

“Come Down” on The Jerry Lewis Show in 1968. This is really outstanding. What a pity they broke up after one album.
 
After the jump, more Honey Ltd.

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.10.2013
08:20 pm
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Lee Hazlewood’s ‘Requiem For An Almost Lady’: The movie
12.01.2012
04:17 pm
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One of several colloborations between Lee Hazlewood and director Torbjörn Axelman, this concept film features all of the songs that appeared on Hazlewood’s album Requiem For An Almost Lady plus some additional tunes. It was made in 1971 for Swedish television.

I’m Glad I Never
If It’s Monday Morning
Won’t You Tell Your Dreams
I’ll Live Yesterdays
Little Miss Sunshine (Little Miss Rain)
Stone Lost Child
Come On Home To Me
Must Have Been Something I Loved
I’d Rather Be Your Enemy

With The Hazlewood Kids: “(Let’s take a walk) Down Valhallavägen.” Sven-Bertil Taube sings the Lee Hazlewood composition “Why do they bother.”

Requiem For An Almost Lady is some kind of melancholic masterpiece, a love letter drenched in Lithium-laced tears. The film’s wintry setting adds to the overall sense of rock bottom heartbreak.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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12.01.2012
04:17 pm
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Fascinating 1973 documentary: Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood in Las Vegas
05.09.2012
04:09 pm
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The 1973 film Nancy & Lee in Las Vegas takes an almost cinéma vérité approach to its subject as it documents the less-than-glamorous grind of playing to casino audiences in Sin City.

It’s showtime and Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood do their damnedest to entertain a distracted Vegas audience, most of whom have likely lost or are about to lose next month’s rent. Despite delivering some fine performances, with terrific backing from the Wrecking Crew (Hal Blaine, Billy Strange and Don Randi), Nancy and Lee just can’t get a rise out of the crowd at the once grand Riviera Hotel and Casino. The vibe is flatter than a glass of day-old champagne.

Having lived in Vegas for a couple of years, I’ve seen shows where two-thirds of the audience are clearly just cooling their heels between long bouts at the slot machines or they’ve gambled away all their cash and are doing their best to get through the night without slitting their wrists - the very definition of a “tough crowd.”
 
Scenes of Sinatra and her mother venting back stage are remarkably candid and unvarnished, giving us a glimpse into celebrity-hood’s bleaker dimensions. And the vintage footage of the Strip is way cool.

Songs performed include “Did You Ever,” “Arkansas Coal,” “Friendship Train,” “Summer Wine,” “Jackson” and “She’s Funny That Way.”
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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05.09.2012
04:09 pm
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