No More Velvet Mornings

I missed this over the weekend, but Lee Hazelwood passed away on Saturday after a two-year fight with renal cancer. He's probably best known for writing and producing Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walking," only one of a series of tracks he made with Sinatra, sometimes joining in a duet and sometimes staying behind the producer's board, but he had an extremely intriguing solo career, as well. The oddly timed bass run on "Boots," which stood out on the radio in 1966, gives a slight hint of some of the weird places Lee's music took him, and "Some Velvet Morning," with its shifting time signatures and tone and its offbeat instrumentation, may provide a more telling hint.

Hazelwood seemed to follow where his music took him, and after the collaboration with Sinatra, he showed up in Sweden, where he recorded the album (and Swedish TV special), "A Cowboy in Sweden." He left the recording both in the 1970s, but his music had a resurgence in the UK during the '90s. Although I knew some of the music already, that's when I started taking notice, as well. His name (along with Leonard Cohen's) was invoked often in discussing Tindersticks, a comparison that band encouraged by putting his picture on an early limited-pressing single, "A Marriage Made in Heaven," that invoked the classic Nancy/Lee duets.

During that time, Hazelwood picked up the nickname, "Psychedelic Cowboy," but to me his work seemed to me far more steeped in marijuana smoke than anything much stronger than that. His songs and performances had a languid feel of too many late nights. If you don't have a joint handy, a glass of whiskey would also make a good accompaniment. On the wagon? You can always go with a hot, strong, cup of black coffee. Wherever he is now, I hope Lee is partaking in the indulgence of his choice.