Lee Hazlewood’s first LP under his own name, ‘Trouble is a Lonesome Town’ in a sense functions as a chronologically incompatible bridge between the (ineffably wonderful) International Submarine Band sessions he oversaw a few years later and the far more louche / urban MGM albums that established his recording persona for good towards the end of the decade.

Lee’s eccentricities were already getting the better of him here though, and, for reasons best known to himself, he decided to corral his songs together into a sort of proto-concept album, with each track preceded by a ramblin’ spoken word introduction concerning the simple-minded populace of an isolated town named ‘Trouble’ (allegedly based on Hazlewood's own birthplace in Mannford, Oklahoma).

Unfortunately, these introductions – sometimes almost as long as the flawlessly concise songs they’re introducing – are fairly tedious, containing little of the dry wit and off-hand pessimism evidenced in the compositions themselves, and instead hewing toward a kind of cloying Lake-Wobegon-Days coziness. They’re good for one listen at best, and if subsequently scanning through them to get to the good bits on my mp3 player proves a bit of a pain, getting up every two and a half minutes to jog the needle on the original LP must have been absolutely infuriating - one good reason perhaps why ‘Trouble..’ faded into obscurity and Lee exited his deal with Mercury post-haste.

This, needless to say, is a shame, because when you do get to the songs on ‘Trouble..’, they are almost all excellent – disarmingly simple, two minute / three chord country songs that sound so instantly catchy and familiar, you’re amazed no one had written them before. Performed with tight, minimal backing and just enough off-kilter strangeness to keep you on your toes, the breeziness of the tunes and the cartoonish simplicity of the lyrics as ever plays trojan horse to the weird darkness beneath.

As an opener, ‘Long Black Train’verily owns the concept of writing a song entitled ‘Long Black Train’, Hazlewood’s voice crawling snake-like across the title just as beautifully as you might hope as the rhythm section walks the dog behind him; “ninety-nine years, is what he’ll get / I bet it feels like a hundred to Jim”. Yes, one track in on his debut album and I’m already far-gone in thrall to Hazlewoodism.

‘Son of a Gun’, ‘Run, Boy, Run’ and ‘Six Feet of Chain’ are all just as good – happy, laidback sketches of death and sex, imprisonment and criminality that see no reason to break the rhyme scheme or outstay their welcome. Hopefully I’m not just saying this due to the synchronicitous song title, but it’s easy to imagine The Vaselines playing this one a lot as they threw together the off-hand magic of tunes like ‘Ride Me Rory’; a similarly timeless, unhurried feel is very much in evidence.

I suppose it stands to reason that Johnny Cash was a big influence on the kind of style Hazlewood was gunning for here, and, given the Man in Black’s penchant for scooping up catchy, novelty country songs by the dozen during the ‘60s, it’s surprising that his people weren’t on the phone to Hazlewood’s publishers PDQ after this album’s release. (Hell, this stuff’s even in the right key, ferchrissake.) In a different world, I’d bet Cash could have ridden any of these numbers to the top of the charts, perhaps sending Lee’s career off on a rather different path in the process. As it is though, maybe JC, like most everyone else, just couldn’t be bothered to get through the spoken word bits. He was a busy man, after all. Pills to take, prisons to visit and all that.

Well, c’est la vie. Maybe in that world we’d never have gotten ‘Cowboy in Sweden’, or Nancy &  Lee, or ‘Requiem for an Almost Lady’. By plotting his own course straight to the land of the strange, Lee remained his own man, and… that’s the only it could be, I’m sure he’d agree, even if his bank balance didn’t.


I hear that at some point this year, there’s a sorta ‘cover album’ emerging on which various tedious indie-rock types re-record ‘Trouble is a Lonesome Town’ – a good idea actually I think, as these songs have tons of mileage left in ‘em (frankly, every band in the world could benefit from covering one). Details yonder.

Meanwhile, a resissue of the original with a ton of bonus tracks can currently be gotten from Light In The Attic.

Labels: album reviews, country, Lee Hazlewood

And If You Wanna Watch Something…

… this excellent documentary following Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra as they try to reignite their career as a duo via Las Vegas stage-show in ’72 should suffice.

(Thanks. Don’t mention it.)

Labels: Lee Hazlewood, music docs, Nancy Sinatra, videos

Deathblog:

LEE HAZLEWOOD:
9 July 1929 – 4 August 2007

Well it was pretty inevitable Lee Hazlewood would die sometime this year, so the world has had a long time to get used to the idea, but it’s still a little sad, and undoubtedly an event worth marking.

If I were to go for a full recap of Hazlewood’s career and the various roles he’s played over the years, his influence upon pop culture etc., this would be a very long post indeed. Whether you’re familiar with the guy or not, do a Wikipedia or a Google, and have some fun getting (re)acquainted with a flawlessly idiosyncratic CV that pretty much defines the notion of a “cult musician”.

Personally, I’ve always found Hazlewood’s work to be a bit of a cipher… easy to enjoy, yet difficult to fully engage with. That he was a masterful songwriter and producer with a singular creative vision and, of course, an extraordinary voice is obvious from the word go, but to try to get a solid line on where exactly he was coming from – there lies the challenge that sets him apart. His songs, and his public persona, walk a line between emotional authenticity and self conscious showbiz sleaze so fine that when you find yourself caught on the hook of one of his beautifully constructed dead-love laments, it feels like just that; being caught on a hook. Is Lee sharing his emotions with us here, or just grinning behind the studio console as he fashions a better hook for next time?

And similarly, even his goofiest pop songs manage to convey a weird fascination, a sense of something deeper and more personal going on. Despite his deep love of simple, accessible pop and country music, it seems like, whether by accident or design, Lee Hazlewood was incapable of ever making a record which was, strictly speaking, “normal”. Who else, when presented with the lucrative chance to help turn Frank Sinatra’s daughter into a star, would take a chance and hit the world with something as shockingly kick-ass as “These Boots Are Made For Walking”, and follow it up with a record as astonishingly unique, baffling, beautiful and otherworldly as “Some Velvet Morning”? And who else, in the whole of history, could have taken that risk and had it pay off in the form of huge financial / chart success and a some of the most amazing, distinctive pop records of all time? And then disappear into the shadows just when his face is on the cover of a million-selling LP?

Maybe it was this kind of ambiguity that was responsible for it as much as his much-praised refusal to play by the industry’s rules, but either way, there is something impeccably fucking COOL about the way Lee Hazlewood never became a massive star, something that I think serves as an inspiration to all musicians who choose to follow their own ideas of creative success outside of the mainstream. At different points in his career, I’m sure Lee could easily have made it big in the pop mainstream, whether as an Andy Williams style swinging crooner, an iconic country star or even, at a push, a Leonard Cohen-esque moody singer-songwriter. The fact he was an extremely smart and talented operator with proven hit-making potential and personal connections to some of the biggest people in Hollywood would probably have helped his case too, but, for whatever reason…. he chose not to. And chose instead to make records like these:



If nothing else, the man certainly deserves the respect of all lovers of great album covers.

At the risk or over-simplification, it is almost as if at some point, he decided that being genuinely cool was more important than being rich n’ famous…. and just went with it.

And, I would venture to suggest, Lee Hazlewood managed to die in a manner just as cool as that in which he lived his life. Not that a slow death from cancer is very cool in itself of course, but to return to the music scene as a slightly weird elder statesman figure, play a few final shows, record a typically perplexing and funny / dignified "reflections on death" album (‘Cake Or Death’), do a few warm and wisdom-filled interviews with fans and smaller publications, sit back as the plaudits roll in from hipsters the world over, and pass away quietly somewhere just outside Las Vegas (a VERY appropriate location). If you're gonna die, that's the way to do it.

So I guess everyone is gonna be playing ‘Some Velvet Morning’, and rightly so, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to share a few of my other favourite Hazlewood tracks with you, beginning with his own rarely heard version of his best-known song.

I’ll admit I know nothing of the context of this recording, but I get a real kick out of imagining it was done shortly after Nancy dumped Lee as a lover(??) / co-star / producer….. SUCH amazingly expressed ‘fuck you’ bitterness here – I love it. Also note how Hazlewood manages to put across a great “buncha guys rockin’ in the studio” vibe, even though it’s clearly quite a lavish big band production job – his vocal adlibs are solid gold. Definitely my favourite version of this song.

Mp3 > Lee Hazlewood – These Boots Are Made For Walking

Seems like Lee always had a couple of good slouching, drunken self-pity songs lying around, and this next one is a killer.

Mp3 > Lee Hazlewood – After Six

And just in case you’re getting the impression this Hazlewood guy was some kind of lounge lizard chucklemiester:

Mp3 > Lee Hazlewood – Your Sweet Love

One more for the road:

Mp3 > Lee Hazlewood - I Am a Part

So long Lee.

Labels: country, deathblog, Lee Hazlewood, pop