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Track Listings
| 1. LADY BIRD - Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood | |||
| 2. NEED ALL THE HELP I CAN GET - Suzi Jane Hokom | |||
| 3. SWEET RIDE - Dusty Springfield | |||
| 4. THE REBEL KIND - Dino, Desi & Billy | |||
| 5. THE FOOL - Sanford Clark With Al Casey | |||
| 6. HAVE LOVE, WILL TRAVEL - The Sharps | |||
| 7. SNAKE EYED MAMA - Don Cole | |||
| 8. THE GIRL ON DEATH ROW - Lee Hazlewood with Duane Eddy | |||
| 9. THE DIP - Hal Blaine & The Young Cougars | |||
| 10. HOUSTON - Sanford Clark | |||
| 11. YOU TURNED MY HEAD AROUND - Ann-Margret | |||
| 12. THE CITY NEVER SLEEPS AT NIGHT - The Shacklefords | |||
| 13. GUITAR ON MY MIND - Duane & Miriam Eddy | |||
| 14. CALIFIA (STONE RIDER) - Lee Hazlewood & Suzi Jane Hokom | |||
| 15. MY BABY PLAYS THAT SAME OLD SONG ON HIS GUITAR ALL NIGHT LONG - Duane Eddy & The Rebelettes | |||
| 16. TWELVE FEET HIGH - The Hondas | |||
| 17. (I'M AFRAID) YOU'LL HURT ME - The Darlenes | |||
| 18. THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKIN' - Rose & The Heavenly Tones | |||
| 19. WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO IN '64? - The Wildcats | |||
| 20. YOU CAN'T STAY HERE - The Barker Brothers | |||
See all 25 tracks on this disc
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Product Description
CD Description
Hazlewood enjoys a strong cult following, lauded by hipsters such as Primal Scream, Nick Cave, Beck, the Jesus & Mary Chain, Pulp and Sonic Youth. His performance at London's Meltdown Festival in 1999 found him backed by members of Stereolab and the High Llamas, while the "Total Lee!" tribute album of 2002 had the indie cognoscenti tripping over each other to record his compositions.
One of pop's genuine originals, Hazlewood was a brilliant and endlessly versatile songwriter, equally at home with twangin' rock'n'roll (dig Don Cole's wild `Snake Eyed Mama'), country, psychedelia, R&B, folk, easy listening, burlesque or blues. His songs are truly beyond categorisation. He was also a pioneer in the mysterious art of record production and taught a thing or two to the young Phil Spector, who hung around paying close attention while Hazlewood crafted magnificent guitar instrumentals for Duane Eddy. Of the 25 tracks on "Califia", Hazlewood wrote each one and produced all but four.
As a performer, he possessed an instantly recognisable bass drawl perfectly suited to his lyrical tales of low-rent heartache, self-deprecating comedy, picturesque nostalgia and mystical cowboy psychedelia. He sings on four cuts on this collection, including the folksy Shacklefords' recording of `The City Never Sleeps At Night', a song written for Nancy Sinatra. As Dionne Warwick was to Burt Bacharach, Petula Clark to Tony Hatch and the Shangri-Las to Shadow Morton, Nancy was Lee Hazlewood's perfect muse. The lushly orchestrated opening duet `Lady Bird' - one of the dozens of pop masterpieces that resulted from their partnership - was personally selected for this compilation by the lady herself.
A companion volume of Hazlewood-penned instrumentals is also in the Ace pipeline, so watch this space. Meanwhile, check out the rest of Ace's Songwriter series, which includes compilations based on the works of Randy Newman, Jackie DeShannon, Neil Diamond, Goffin & King, Burt Bacharach and many others.
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Customer Reviews
In fact there are no more than a couple of further highlights. One is track 2, a great recording by another Lee protégé and his girlfriend at the time, Suzi Jane Hokom. The other is the title track (also featuring Hokom) which hasn't surfaced on a Lee compilation for many years. But the remaining 22 tracks are a mixture of the plain average and the downright horrible - of interest only as a chronicle of how Lee developed his songwriting craft. There are five of his earliest songs from 1956-58, all wholly unremarkable, lots of syrupy strings and a couple of tunes featuring twangy guitarist collaborator Duane Eddy. Only with a few songs from the early sixties do signs of Lee's unique and brilliant writing style begin to emerge. And as for the previously unreleased track (18) - it is immediately apparent why it was never released: it is three minutes of unspeakable cack, a truly atrocious version of 'These Boots'.
The best thing about this CD is the accompanying 24-page booklet, thoroughly researched, well written and imaginatively illustrated. But the music is forgettable. You will probably play most of the tracks just once and never again. If you don't have 'Lady Bird' in your collection you would do better to dig it out on another compilation or, better still, on the all-time classic LP 'Nancy & Lee' (1968, Reprise) if you can find a copy. But my advice is to give this CD a swerve. Definitely for Lee completists only.
Many of the songs are pop and r'n'b in search of a winning commercial formula; some are winners, some are Hazlewood-crazy, and Ann-Margret's You Turned My Head Around - for example - is both. Generally, though, this is a good compilation of obscure 50s and 60s pop I'd happily play repeatedly.
Hazelwood may have been the first to badmouth Phil Spector and desevedly so if the books are right but somewhere along the way his partner Lester Sills jumped ship and he became the LES of the Philles label.
In 1956 Lee Hazelwood was connected with Sanford Clark and his hit The Fool was credited to Naomi Ford along with Hazelwood's-this was his first wife.Years later Clark would cut the original of the song Houston
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