Description
* Album remastered from the original tapes with bonus tracks
* Liner notes booklet with exclusive interviews and archive photos
* LP housed in a deluxe gatefold Stoughton tip-on jacket
The mid-to-late 60s were strange days for Lee Hazlewood. Having struck gold as songwriter and vocal foil for Nancy Sinatra, he signed up to MGM as an artist in his own right, and between 1966 and 1968, produced three ambitious solo albums that were eclectic, idiosyncratic, and most of all, unpredictable.
It was a happy time for Lee; his music was hot on the charts, he was fully immersed in his collaboration with his muse, Suzi Jane Hokom.
The second of his MGM trilogy1967s peculiarly named Lee Hazlewoodism: Its Cause And Curetook on countrified French ye-ye (The Girls In Paris), a tale of a young bullfighter built on Spanish guitar and choral cowboys (Jose), a string-drenched song about the passing of time (The Old Man And His Guitar), and a western epic about a Native American tribe (The Nights). And that was just the first four tracks. Elsewhere, the honky tonk madness of Suzi Jane Is Back In Town, the Byrds-like jangle of In Our Time andin the bonus tracksan instrumental named Batman confirm this to be one of Hazlewoods most far-ranging, far-out LPs ever.
Its the result of two main factors: ambitionto top Phil Spector, primarilyand cash, which paid for orchestras, plush studios, and the inestimable talents of arranger Billy Strange. I think the big sound of those records came out of the Spector thing, says Hokom, in the new liner notes. If you can have a big sound and you have money to burn it was a flamboyancy.
Released before the Nancy & Lee LPa bona fide hit for Reprise RecordsHazlewoodism was a tougher nut to crack, a record that confused by combining po-faced delivery with unabashed comical touches. By 1967, Hazlewood had founded the LHI imprint, and was busy building his own empireone weve been lovingly archiving for the past few years. We now present this missing link in the story, plus predecessor, The Very Special World Of Lee Hazlewood and follow-up, Something Special. Welcome to Hazlewoods magnificentand madMGM years.
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