Today, we finally get 'round to our piece on Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood.
Harvey Kubernik kicks things off with an
interview he did with Nancy Sinatra, talking about her string of hits produced by Lee
Hazlewood
Nancy Sinatra Remembers Her Unlikely But
Brilliant Collaborator, Lee Hazlewood
By Harvey Kubernik
“Nancy brought
the brand into present time, and enhanced its originator, a rare feat indeed.
Normally the offspring tarnish; Nancy moved it forward. Lee Hazlewood laid his
very soul upon the singer.” –Former Rolling Stones
manager Andrew Loog Oldham
Initially,
Hazlewood maintained a behind-the-scenes role with Sinatra, enlisting arranger
and composer Billy Strange, as well as other members of the Wrecking Crew (the
famed Los Angeles session musicians) for the singer’s best-selling 1966 debut LP,
Boots. But when they returned to the studio later that
year for Sinatra’s sophomore effort, How Does That Grab You?, Hazlewood
joined the singer for a duet of his song, “Sand.” Over the next year,
as Sinatra’s star rose, the artists continued to collaborate in the vocal
booth, finding success with “Summer Wine,” “Lady Bird” and the
cinematic “Some Velvet Morning” (all penned by Hazlewood.) In 1967, just months after Johnny Cash and
June Carter Cash scored a country hit with “Jackson,” Sinatra and
Hazlewood released a pop version of the offbeat song, landing it in the top 10
across Europe and peaking at #14 in the U.S.
Recalling her
duets with Hazlewood, Sinatra says, “We used to call it Beauty and the Beast!
Voices with no blend.” Indeed, no one could have predicted that these two
contrasting voices (and personalities) would work together quite so well.
Praising the duo’s “sonic alchemy,” Hunter Lea writes, “Rarely in music has
there been such an unlikely collaboration: Nancy, the sassy and sweet songstress
contrasted by Lee, the gruff, psychedelic cowboy. A harmonic partnership that
defies conventional logic yet yields so much beauty.”
Before long, it
seemed only natural for the artists to release an entire album together. In
addition to compiling their recent duets (many of which appeared on Sinatra’s
solo LPs), the duo recorded several new covers and Hazlewood originals. Billy
Strange and the Wrecking Crew provided lush orchestral arrangements, as the two
artists performed a range of material, including folk, pop and country songs,
with a twist of psychedelia.
Throughout the
album, a palpable chemistry can be heard between Sinatra and Hazlewood, from
the frisky banter on “Greenwich Village Folk Song Salesman” to the
tongue-in-cheek delivery of ”I’ve Been Down So Long (It Looks Up To
Me).” But the artists also reveal their softer sides, particularly in the
romantic balladry of “Sand.” Their languid rendition of “You’ve
Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” meanwhile, is downright erotic, despite the
lyrics. But, as Sinatra asserts, her decades-long relationship with Hazlewood
was always platonic. “We had sort of a love/hate
relationship,” she explains. “Maybe it was a sexual tension
because we never had any kind of affair. I don’t know exactly what it was, but
it worked.”
In 2021, I had
the opportunity to interview Nancy Sinatra about her work with Hazlewood and
her career in general.
Harvey Kubernik: What did you learn from watching recording artists like your
father, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.?
Nancy Sinatra: I think
we learn from everything as we go along. Just about anyone will tell you that
the phrasing is solely dependent on the song and the lyrics, at least it should
be, although I know there are people who just sing on the beat no matter what.
It’s a shame they don’t experiment a little bit. I don’t think I copied
anybody. I didn’t like my early [1961-1964 Reprise] records and my “Nancy Nice
Lady Voice” and the records [produced by Tutti Camarata and Don Costa]. It
wasn’t really me. And then I was very eager to make the change later that
Barton [Barton Lee Hazlewood was his full name] was asking for after [producer]
Jimmy Bowen suggested Barton. I was going to be dropped from the label.
HK: In 1965 you employed a new lower voice
register in your recordings like “Boots.”
NS: It was up to the song. The songs were so
different and we were experimenting with songs that were recorded by men and I
was very fond of changing lyrics around, like [the Beatles’] “Run For Your
Life” and songs like that. I felt, in those days, having a girl — not a woman —
sing them was just better.
HK: You have always said you knew “Boots” was
going to be a smash, and Chuck Berghoffer’s seductive opening bass line was a
crucial aspect of the recording.
NS: I absolutely knew it was going to be a hit.
The “Boots” bass line is unique and special; you know what the song is the
minute you hear that bass. That was Barton’s idea. He played it on the guitar,
which is hard to do, because the guitar has frets. It’s s a quartertone line
and you can’t play quartertone with a fretted instrument. And Chuck’s upright
bass, he was able to slide down that intro. Yes, that was Barton’s doing, too.
He wanted that from Chuck. I thought the bass was the star of that record.
HK: You had a teacher/student relationship with
Lee Hazlewood. Tell me about the pre-production period when you first heard and
reviewed material he would present, which he often wrote.
NS: Well, since every recording begins with the
song, mostly Barton and Billy would come over to my house. “We’ve got a new
song. We want to come over and work it out.” The process was quite simple
because they pretty much had it set in their heads before they played a song
for me. Lee was such a fine producer and he knew where a horn line was gonna
go. And he pretty much knew what the horn line was gonna be. “Arkansas Coal”
and “Paris Summer” are two of my favorites. “Down From Dover,” a Dolly Parton
song. We were very serious. I mean we were very serious.
HK: And then there were duets, where you really
complement each other.
NS: I don’t think there’s been anybody else who
has captured that, any other duo. I really don’t.
HK: There was a sexual tension but you weren’t
romantically involved with Lee.
NS: It was acting, good acting. Yeah, we did have
a chemistry and we capitalized on it. I trusted him. One of the essential parts
of recording in those days was the tape reverb which, for people who don’t know,
is a way of creating a kind of compounded echo chamber. Now I guess there are
ways to create the analog sound digitally, but when we were making all those
hit records, there was a reel-to-reel tape machine in the booth spinning
constantly during sessions. I don’t know how to explain it technically, but it
added depth and it was an honesty that digital doesn’t have. It’s like when you
record live and the room sounds are happening and the chairs are creaking and
people are breathing, that sort of thing. It just makes a difference in the way
the recordings sound. When I was doing records later on in my life, I had to
really scrounge around to get that sound.
HK: Billy Strange arranged and played guitar on
“Boots” and he did the instrumental arrangement for your duet with your father
on “Something Stupid.” How did he enter your life?
NS: Lee brought Billy over to my mom’s house
after my divorce [from singer/actor Tommy Sands]. Lee dictated to Billy what he
wanted to hear on the “Boots” single. Billy understood. He was just learning
how to arrange. He started pretty much strictly with country and then
California rock. His guitar playing was extraordinary. He’s made some wonderful
albums over the years. Unfortunately, they got buried somewhere along the way.
Billy bled that guitar. His soul and pain and joy came out through that
instrument.
HK: Tell me about recording with the musicians
known as the Wrecking Crew.
NS: They were absolutely breathtaking to watch.
You’d come into a studio and sometimes you’d have written charts, but most of
the time you would have chord sheets and they would create almost everything.
The arrangements grew as time went on and, of course, when they worked with my
dad or Dean, people like that, they had charts to read. Glen [Campbell] could
never read. He listened to the run-throughs and he was so quick he picked up
immediately what he had to do and it was without a hitch.
HK: You have said that you also knew immediately
that “Somethin’ Stupid” was going to be a hit single. How did that song become
part of your repertoire?
NS: Carson Parks, who helped write it, already
had a record of it out, with a woman [Gaile Foote] singing. Sarge Weiss [aka
Irving Weiss], a song plugger, found that recording and he played it for my
dad. He said, “I think this is a great song for you and Nancy.” And my dad
said, “Get it to Nancy and if she likes it we’ll do it.” And I loved it, of
course, from the guitar intro. Once again it is that hook in the intro in the
song that grabs me, like the descending bass line in “Boots.” We brought in the
key rhythm players at the end of one of the [Antonio Carlos] Jobim sessions my dad
had.”
Keeping the Nancy and Lee vibe going, I just HAVE to share with you
some of the coverage of this duo’s work together as reported by Joel Selvin in
his EXCELLENT book, “Hollywood Eden.”
(HIGHLY recommended!)
https://forgottenhits60s.blogspot.com/2021/11/book-review-hollywood-eden.html
HERE ARE JUST A FEW OF THE COMMENTS WE RECEIVED AFTER OUR REVIEW OF
JOEL’S BOOK RAN IN FORGOTTEN HITS …
HOLLYWOOD
EDEN:
This is a terrific review ...
have just shared it with Joel and his publisher.
Thanks!
Bob Merlis
Based on your rave review of
"Hollywood Eden," it looks I'll be shelling out some more cash.
Sam Tallerico
I want to read ‘Hollywood
Eden’ after your glowing review.
Thanks,
David Salidor
I just finished
reading a good book on the California Sound from the 50's and 60's called
"Hollywood Eden" by Joel Selvin. Very interesting stories about
how some of the hit records became to be. Much credit given to Jan and
Dean for their contribution to Surf Music, before the Beach Boys ... Fun
reading.
Carolyn
I’ve heard about
this book but never in the detail that you described it. Now I can’t wait
to read it. (I love how you stir our interest without giving too much
away … so that we can enjoy and discover these stories just as you did when you
read it!)
Tom
There are SO many great stories in this book. (Not even in
the wildest episode of "The Twilight Zone" could I ever imagine Frank
Sinatra, Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis, Jr. entertaining at Nancy Sinatra's
Senior Dance!!!)
You'll meet the REAL Gidget ... you'll observe a lifestyle that
only exists in movies ... unless, of course, you actually lived in Hollywood,
too, during this era!
Highly recommended. (kk)
NANCY and LEE:
There are SO many great
stories about Nancy Sinatra in Joel’s book … and about so many OTHER artists
from this era as well. Today, we’ll just
concentrate on the development of the relationship of Nancy Sinatra and Lee
Hazlewood as it pertains to her hit-making career. (Many thanks to Joel Selvin, who gave us
permission to quote his book verbatim for the purpose of today’s piece. My hope is that this will give you just a
taste of what he covers in his masterpiece and you’ll go out and order your OWN
copy of his book, “Hollywood Eden.” – kk)
https://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Eden-Electric-California-Paradise/dp/1487007213/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1IBRNSAHKLYGA&keywords=hollywood+eden&qid=1655061967&s=books&sprefix=hollywood+eden%2Cstripbooks%2C76&sr=1-1
Producer Jimmy Bowen resuscitated the flat-lined career of Dean Martin with “Everybody Loves
Somebody” and made smashes with The Chariman of the Board himself, Frank
Sinatra, owner of Reprise Records.
Sinatra hadn’t had a
big, juicy hit record since the fifties … but Bowen brought in the young studio
musicians, now known as The Wrecking Crew, who had been making all the hits with Phil Spector, The Beach Boys
and everybody else and used veteran R&B arranger Ernie Freeman to cut “Strangers
In The Night” and “That’s Life,” two songs that Sinatra never liked and wouldn’t
perform in public … that both became HUGE smashes on the pop charts.
Bowen was then teamed
with Nancy Sinatra, expressly to make a hit record. They worked up a version of Cole Porter’s “True
Love” with a slow drag rhythm and enough echo it could have passed for a Phil
Spector record that at least sounded like a hit, even it if wasn’t.
After Nancy asked him
point blank, “So, this thing with Keely … is it really serious or what?” (Bowen was engaged to marry singer Keely
Smith … but lately, he had been entertaining doubts.) “Now that you mention it,” he said, “no, I
guess not.”
Their affair went bouncing
back and forth between Nancy’s place at her mother’s house in Bel Air and Bowen’s
bachelor pad in the Hollywood Hills.
They spent a weekend holed up in one of the bungalows at the Sinatra
compound in Palm Springs, but since they never took their personal relationship
public, Bowen never knew if her father knew they were seeing each one another
or not.
He remained engaged to
Keely Smith, a formidable woman eight years his senior with two small children
from her marriage to band-leader Louis Prima.
Smith was pulling down a half million a year by herself, working part-time
in Vegas. The affair with
twenty-five-year-old Nancy Sinatra convinced Bowen to call of the marriage and,
blind drunk, he flew off to Las Vegas to tell Smith in person and retrieve the
$40,000 engagement ring he had given her.
He passed out on the plane.
The next night, he met
Smith at her hotel suite, but instead of calling off the engagement, ended up
marrying her at an all-night wedding chapel with comic Joe E. Lewis and Bowen’s
assistant as witnesses.
Nancy was stunned and
shattered. She came unglued talking to
Bowen’s man, who called her in Bel Air the next day. She had already heard the news and did not
take it well. This put Bowen in an especially
ticklish situation at the record company, where he was being pressured to come
up with a hit record for the boss’s daughter or face dropping her from the
label. He went to see Lee Hazlewood.
Bowen and Hazlewood
were old friends. Bowen had bought a
house next door to Hazlewood in Toluca Lake, near the Warner Brothers
studio. A churlish character who was
considering retiring from the record business at thirty-eight years old,
Hazlewood was the son of an Oklahoma wildcatter and grew up bouncing from one
oil field to another before joining the Army and serving in the Korean
War. He got into the record business
while working as a disc jockey in Phoenix, where he produced a series of
cataclysmic rock and roll instrumental hits with guitarist Duane Eddy. He move to Los Angeles while Eddy was still hot
and been making hits in town ever since.
Hazlewood had been
partners in record labels with music publisher Lester Sill, who was a crucial
early sponsor of teenage Phil Spector in the record business. Sill sent young Spector to Phoenix to watch
Hazlewood record and ask questions, although Hazelwood never particularly cared
for the little creep. That was years
before Hazlewood went on to produce dozens of records, write songs and even
make records himself. He was a cranky
Hollywood cowboy with plenty of money who wanted to sit by his pool, drink
Chivas and tell the record business to go to hell. When Bowen came to see him about Nancy
Sinatra, Hazlewood had especially had it with celebrity offspring, after
spending the previous year making records with teenagers Dino, Desi and Billy …
Dean Martin, Jr., Desi Arnaz, Jr. and their friend Billy Hinsche … who
Hazlewood hated but put on the charts with “I’m A Fool.” He didn’t want anything to do with Nancy
Sinatra, but he agreed to take a meeting.
Bowen took Hazlewood
and arranger Billy Strange over to the Nimes Road place, where Nancy’s Father
happened to be visiting. While he
stretched out with a newspaper in the living room, Nancy and the guys retired
to the bar … which was stocked with Chivas, his favorite Scotch, Hazlewood couldn’t
help but note. They talked songs. Hazlewood took out a guitar and played a
few. He wrote songs with attitude: he laced country-flavored chord changes with
hard truths and dripping sarcasm. He was
surprised to find Nancy Sinatra so smart and engaging. She liked several of the songs, especially
one that only had two verses.
“That’s not a woman’s song,”
he told her. “I wrote that for myself to
sing at parties. It’s not even finished.”
He told her he would
try to write a third verse and that they should meet again. Hazlewood still wasn’t certain what to think,
but he was more inclined to take her on that he’d thought he would be. When they got to the foyer, her father was waiting
to let them out. Sinatra reached out and
shook Hazlewood’s hand, locking him with those famous blue eyes. “I’m glad you’re going to be working with us,”
he said.
Up to that moment,
Hazlewood wasn’t certain he was going to, but there was no way he could back out
now.
Hazlewood took the
woman he came to think of as “The Pope’s Daughter” into the studio with one of
his sneering kiss-off songs. He wasn’t
buying the coquette act. He knew she had
been married and had no reason to sing like she was a virgin. He wanted her to snarl a little, sound a
little sultry, maybe even aggressive, but whatever she was, he wanted her to
sound like an adult. Damn if “So Long
Babe,” released in October, 1965, didn’t give Nancy Sinatra her first chart
record after four years of trying. It
wasn’t some monster hit … it slipped on and off the charts in just four weeks …
but it meant Nancy Sinatra was not going to be dropped by her father’s record
company and she would live to make another record.
Lee Hazlewood wrote
that third verse to the song that Nancy Sinatra had admired. Her father had overheard the tunes from the
living room. “I like that boots song best,”
he told her after Hazlewood and the others had left Nimes Road that afternoon,
but Hazlewood was not convinced. He
wrote another song specifically for Nancy, “The City Never Sleeps At Night,”
that he was certain would be her breakthrough hit. Hazlewood saw Nancy for who she could be. (She was a twenty-five-year-old rich kid
living at home after a divorce who wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for her
last name.)
Hazlewood saw something
more. He treated her less reverentially
than she was accustomed to: his working
nickname for her was “Nasty.” He was a
crusty contrarian who carefully maintained his outsider status even after years
in Hollywood. In Hazlewood, Nancy
Sinatra finally found someone in her life who could see her as separate and distinct
from her father. It’s not that he wasn’t
impressed by who her father was … he simply didn’t care.
It was arranger Billy
Strange who thought of adding the descending quarter tones leading into the
verses. For the November 19th
session at Western Recorders, Hazlewood hired Chuck Berghofer to play double
bass … he was bassist at the house band at the Hollywood jazz club Shelley’s
Manne-Hole, owned by drummer Shelley Manne … as well as Carol Kay, a more familiar
presence at rock and roll sessions, on Fender bass. He also booked seven additional guitarists
for the session, drummer Hal Blaine, and the rest of the gang. The first time they ran the tune and heard
the bass break on the track, everybody in the room knew they were on to
something special.
“There Boots Are Made
For Walkin’” wasn’t meant to be sung as much as sneered. The message was all in the attitude. Nancy Sinatra had never been asked to inhabit
such a commanding role in any of her past performances … but Hazlewood was
determined to make a woman out of her.
He would tell her to think sexy, and she would wonder what that
meant. “Bite the lyric,” Hazlewood told
her. “Don’t sing it like a child.” Hazlewood knew what he wanted. “Sing it like you’re a sixteen-year-old girl
who fucks truck drivers,” he said.
Nancy got the
picture. What followed “These Boots Are
Made For Walkin’” for Nancy Sinatra was nothing less than a complete
reinvention, starting with golden blonde hair.
She had never been encouraged to be herself. She wouldn’t have know what to do if anyone
had. (Married to Tommy Sands, she
struggled to meet her husband’s expectations.
Being known as someone’s daughter tended to infantilize her.)
Nancy adopted the
wardrobe of a go-go dancer and posed for her album cover prone in textured
stockings, striped shirt and miniskirt, with the camera looking straight up her
skirt and her looking back with an insouciant stare.
The single caught on
out of the gate. “Miss Sinatra has top
of the chart potential with this fine folk-rock material from the pen of Lee
Hazlewood,” wrote Billboard. “Her vocal
performance and the Billy Strange driving dance beat should move this one
rapidly up the chart.
And the hits just kept
on coming … including a number of duets sung with her producer and new singing
partner.
Check out the NANCY SINATRA HIT
LIST below …
THE NANCY
SINATRA HIT LIST
Contrary to popular
belief, Nancy Sinatra did NOT ride on her famous father’s coattails for a
sure-fire recording career. Her first three
releases (dating back to 1962) didn’t even crack The Top 100 … and even after
teaming with producer Lee Hazlewood, her first song to do so, “So Long Babe,” only
peaked at #81.
But then she donned her
boots … and pulled together a string of fourteen Top 50 Hits over the course of
the next three years.
1966 – These Boots Are
Made For Walkin’ (#1)
1966 – How Does That
Grab You, Darlin’? (#6)
1966 – Friday’s Child (#36)
1966 – In Our Time
(#46)
1967 – Sugar Town (#4)
1967 – Summer Wine
(with Lee Hazlewood) #49
1967 – Love Eyes (#12)
1967 – Jackson (with
Lee Hazlewood) #13
1967 – You Only Live Twice
(title theme to the James Bond film of the same name) #44
1967 – Lightning’s Girl
(#18)
1968 – Lady Bird (#20)
1968 – Some Velvet
Morning (with Lee Hazlewood) #26
1968 – Happy (#44)
