Boots, dragonflies, and daffodils

Lee Hazlewood's autumn came last weekend. He passed away last Saturday after a three year battle with cancer. He was 78, and I was surprised to hear the news, mainly because I thought he was already dead. Hazlewood is probably best known nowadays for the hits he produced and wrote for Nancy Sinatra, most famously this one.

I remember watching that clip every day on MTV's Closet Classics. Back when MTV used to play videos, they would play old videos from the 1960s and 70s (the pre-MTV era) for an hour each day. "Boots" was in CC's regular rotation, it was on the show nearly every day, and was always one of the highlights for me. It was the first of a series of hits that Lee and Nancy made between 1966 and 1968, followed by other hits like these.

Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra
Sugar Town (1966)

Summer Wine (1967)

Some Velvet Morning (1968)

A few years before he worked with Nancy, Hazlewood made a solo album called Trouble Is A Lonesome Town, which included one of his signature songs "We Make All The Flowers Grow". Here's an mp3 of that one, as well as Lee's version of the song that helped pay his bills for the last 40 years of his life, from his 1966 album The Very Special World of Lee Hazlewood. Nancy's grrl power anthem sounds a lot different sung by a self-effacing guy.

Lee Hazlewood

We All Make The Flowers Grow (1963)

These Boots Are Made For Walkin' (1966)

As an added bonus, here's the Frank and Nancy Sinatra duet "Somethin' Stupid", a song that
Hazlewood didn't write, but did produce. This is an alternate version that Nancy released on an EP called For My Dad (available on emusic), which includes some in-studio chatter between Lee and Frank. This really is a beautiful record, and a great father/daughter duet.

Frank & Nancy Sinatra

Somethin' Stupid (1967)

Nancy Sinatra has a nice tribute to Lee on the Sinatra family forum, with some nice photos of the two of them in the studio. Their chemistry in the studio was a big part of what made these records so special. I don't want to quote the corny line about Lee Hazlewood "dying with his boots on", but he definitely did!