The Saccharine Underground

I’m addicted. It’s a term the members of the club use to describe their affection for the songs and music of Lee Hazlewood.

For those who know, you’re wasting your time here. For those who don’t, bear in mind that Mr. Hazelwood has written songs for, or that have been performed by:

Duane Eddy, Nancy Sinatra, Dean Martin, The Shacklefords, B.B. King, Tindersticks, Vanilla Fudge, Primal Scream, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Lydia Lunch, Slowdive, Flat Duo Jets, Sanford Clark, Bill Anderson, Flat and Scruggs, Dusty Springfield, St. Etienne, Belle and Sebastian, Marc Almond, Evan Dando, The Corrs (with Bono), Calexico, Ben Vaughan, Link Wray, Elvis Presley, Al Casey, The Astronauts, The Ventures, and he has worked with on production, or produced, Sanford Clark, Duane Eddy, the Shacklefords, Ann-Margret, and Waylon Jennings. He is alleged to have mentored, somewhat begrudgingly, and maybe inadvertently, Phil Spector. Supposedly Mr. Hazlewood did not care much for Spector, who some sources say more or less ripped off his signature “wall of sound” production style and techniques from Hazelwood. I can’t prove or disprove that. It is true that an “in-training” Spector more or less worked, briefly, under Hazelwood’s supervision. It’s also said that many of Mr. Hazelwood’s hand-picked session players became members of the legendary “Wrecking Crew,” at one time Hollywood’s most in-demand group of session musicians.

Anyhow, the old Oakie comes from Mannfred, Oklahoma. He lived in Arkansas, Louisiana, and then Texas before finding himself at the center of the Phoenix, Arizona, music scene in the mid-1950s, where he was instrumental in launching the careers of Sanford Clark and Duane Eddy. The rest is history. His own singer-songwriter dusty troubadour-styled driftin’ cowpoke ramblins, followed with writing and production for Hollywood brats Dino, Desi, and Billy—Dean Martin, Jr., Desi Arnaz, Jr., and William Hinsche, who became a Beach Boy some years later. These kids had several minor hits in 1965 with Hazelwood’s songs. Then, the Boss stepped in. No, I’m talking the Chairman himself. The Pope’s daughter Nancy had a whopper of a hit in 1966 with “These Boots are Made for Walking,” which some of you may recognize as the Fem-Bots theme in Austin Powers.

I first heard Lee and Nancy’s pop duets in 1991 when I was living in Richmond, Virginia. Or so I thought. If I’d a paid more attention, I would have known I was first introduced to their collaborative work in 1985, when one Dave Werth, my old boss at an annuities company I worked for (handily “man”-ning the phones) let me tape his old Vanilla Fudge records (he was an ex-hippie, an authentic one, from the ’60s). By the way, “home taping is killing music!” So was the gripe back in the early 1980s. Eat yer heart out Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. Home taping didn’t kill music. It exposed me to great stuff that you couldn’t buy at Peaches, Penguin Feather, or Waxie Maxies at the time. Then I went looking for the actual vinyl, and spent way too much money getting stuff off of nerdy old collectors. None of the $20.00, or $30.00 or more that I paid for some of those old records ever made it into the pockets of any of the original artists. Then, between 1994 and 1995, my ENTIRE record collection was lost and destroyed. My CDs were finished off in 2004, with a contentious divorce. I started collecting albums back in 1975. I had more than 400 records in 1991. Gatefolds, singles, EPs, imports, etc. Now I have ZERO! Home taping didn’t do it, either. But that’s another topic.

Anyhow, I’m way off on a tangent here. Lee Hazlewood was absolutely peerless when it came to sneaking somewhat psychedelic, sometimes filthy, elements into mainstream American pop. Thinly veiled references to drugs, sex—even sado-masochism—eked their way into the charts. His post-Boots solo work, is, for me, his most compelling. A series of albums from 1967 through 1973 showed that Hazelwood was more than a capable singer-songwriter. At times dark, sometimes eerie, lush orchestrations, occasionally sparsely arranged, often somber, and frequently reflective, his songs today resonate mainly with the über hip crowd. Even though some of the work can best be described as country. Or country-esque. Really, its not country-western at all, at least not in any traditional sense. And therein lies part of the attraction. The music is, frankly, hard to pigeonhole. Hazelwood drew from a variety of genres, in effect crafting one of his own. I’d call it proto-baroque pop.

The other part of the attraction, for me, at least, is the voice. That voice! It is at one and the same time world-worn, weary, and yet warm, and then sleazy, now sardonic, and always a deep-barrel baritone, draped in shades of the mid-South drawl. It’s a little rusty, in a nostalgic and not gravelly sense, a bit edgy and yet silky smooth. And I mean all that in the best possible way. I’m sometimes a romantic, and this guy’s music does it for me when I need to flounder in a din of pathos.

http://www.leehazlewood.net/

http://www.amazon.com/