Lee Hazlewood

Lee Hazlewood (1968)

Barton Lee Hazlewood (born July 9, 1929 in Mannford , Oklahoma , † August 4, 2007 in Henderson , Nevada ) was an American songwriter , country singer and record producer . Lee Hazlewood became internationally known in the 1960s through his collaboration with Nancy Sinatra , for whom he wrote numerous songs and sometimes interpreted them together with her. The best known are These Boots Are Made for Walkin ' , Lady Bird , Sand , Some Velvet Morning and Summer Wine .

Life

youth

The son of a tank attendant and oil trader, he spent most of his youth in Oklahoma , Arkansas and Louisiana . As a teenager he moved to Texas and was fascinated by the so-called Gulf Coast Sound . Meanwhile, the music enthusiast Hazlewood first studied medicine at the Southern Methodist University in Fort Worth and in California . He then did his military service during the Korean War .

Career start

Hazlewood started his music career in the 1950s when he first made his way as a radio DJ in his native Oklahoma. A short time later Hazlewood founded his own record company and began to write his own songs, which he recorded with guitarists Al Casey and Duane Eddy and with singer Sanford Clark . But at first it was only successful at the local level.

Hazlewood moved to Los Angeles on the thriving west coast , where he wanted to participate in the burgeoning music industry. He familiarized himself with sound engineering , built his own experimental recording studios and decided to become a musician and music producer himself. There was no closer acquaintance with Phil Spector , as is often claimed. ("But I've never had a connection with Phil. We met a few times and that was it. So I can't say anything about him as a person.") Hazlewood's 1963 debut album was not very successful.

successes

In 1964 he met Nancy Sinatra , who had been unsuccessful until then and was overshadowed by her father Frank Sinatra . The Hazlewood / Sinatra collaboration turned out to be very successful. Their interpretation made the song These Boots Are Made for Walking a hit, and their duets soon stormed the Billboard charts of the 60s: Some Velvet Morning , Summer Wine or the Leiber / Wheeler song Jackson took Hazlewood to the top of his Career. He also produced the song Houston for other musicians, such as Dean Martin .

In 1967 Hazlewood founded his own music label Lee Hazlewood International and produced the first country rock album in history with Gram Parsons International Submarine Band at the end of the year . Hazlewood's star began to decline in the early 1970s. He first moved to Sweden (according to him, in order to save his son being drafted into the US military), then to Germany, Ireland and Spain. In 1977 he finally withdrew completely from the music business.

Detour into the film business

Hazlewood tried his hand at the film business with little success. As a performer he was involved in The Wild Years (1968) and Whiskey brutal (1970). For Smoke (1971) and Må vårt hus förskonas från tigrar (1975), both directed by Torbjörn Axelman , he also wrote the scripts in addition to his participation as an actor and film composer. Hazlewood's songs like These Boots Are Made for Walkin , Rebel-'Rouser or This Town have been used in the soundtrack of several successful films such as Full Metal Jacket , Forrest Gump or Ocean's 13 .

Comeback, sickness and death

He only made his comeback as a singer in the 1990s when he gave a few concerts with Nancy Sinatra. Nick Cave engaged him in 1999 for a festival at the Royal Albert Hall . In the following years Hazlewood remastered old pieces, which he presented on a European tour in 2002. In 2003 the comeback album by the duo Lee & Nancy was released .

After Hazlewood was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2005 , he put other projects on hold. Together with doctors drummer Bela B. Hazlewood recorded the song Lee Hazlewood & the first song of the day in 2006 , which can be found on Bela's solo album Bingo and on Lee Hazlewood's last album Cake or Death , which was released on December 8, 2006.

Hazlewood died on August 4, 2007, at the age of 78 at his home near Las Vegas . He left behind his wife, a son and two daughters.

Discography

• 1963 Trouble Is A Lonesome Town
• 1964 The NSVIP's
• 1965 Friday's Child
• 1966 Lee Hazlewoodism It's Cause And Cure
• 1966 The Very Special World Of Lee Hazlewood
• 1968 Nancy & Lee (together with Nancy Sinatra ).
• 1968 Something Special
• 1968 Love And Other Crimes
• 1969 The Cowboy And The Lady (with Ann-Margret ).
• 1969 Forty
• 1970 cowboy in Sweden
• 1971 Requiem for an Almost Lady
• 1972 Nancy & Lee Again (together with Nancy Sinatra ).
• 1972 13
• 1973 Poet Fool Or Bum
• 1973 I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
• 1974 The Stockholm Kid Live At Berns
• 1975 A House Safe For Tigers
• 1976 20th Century Lee
• 1977 Movin 'On
• 1977 Back On The Street Again
• 1993 Gypsies & Indians (& Anna Hanski)
• 1999 Farmisht, Flatulence, Origami, ARF !!! and Me ...
• 2002 For Every Solution There's A Problem
• 2002 Bootleg Dreams And Counterfeit Demos
• 2003 The Lycanthrope Tour (Europe 2002) (Live)
• 2004 Nancy & Lee 3 (together with Nancy Sinatra ).
• 2006 Cake Or Death

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Interview from August 1, 2007 on Laut.de
2. ↑ Obituary on kulturwoche.at ( Memento of the original from July 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 

Web links

Commons : Lee Hazlewood  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Singer & Songwriter "Lee Hazlewood" (artist portrait)
• Interview at Spiegel.Online v. December 2006
• Interview at laut.de
• Lee Hazlewood in the Internet Movie Database (English)