Riding the crest of successive hit-making for Duane Eddy, Sanford Clark, Dean Martin and Nancy Sinatra, the ever-industrious Lee Hazlewood still found time to release his excellent third solo album in 1965. His second solo recording for the Reprise label, Friday’s Child indulges his signature country-pop flare and pioneering use of vocal reverb. With electric guitar leads, harp and female backup vocals, the album finds Hazlewood embellishing his arrangements, though some of its strongest moments draw their impact only from his rich timbre. Some artists develop their voice for years; Hazlewood’s third album proves it was an innate and irrevocable gift. Weepy guitar leads kick off the title track and Hazlewood takes up the story of twinkling sorrow and bad luck. He often speckles pain with humor, but “Friday’s Child” is one of his most purely somber ballads. Elsewhere, with finger snaps, sparse backup vocals and Hazlewood’s emotive intonation, the intro of “Houston” alone could carry on entirely a cappella and still endure as a classic. The composition made a hit for Dean Martin, but the Friday’s Child version shows Hazlewood’s inimitable skill as a vocal stylist. Mostly lacking the dada-esque humor of his first two albums, Friday’s Child places Hazlewood in league with the era’s greatest traditional songwriters, though one for whom pop conventions were to be bucked and cast aside.
LP $20.25
08/05/2014
Lee Hazlewood’s partnership with Reprise Records in the 1960s resulted in timeless hits for Dean Martin and Nancy Sinatra. Throughout the decade, though, the label also released three of the artist’s most highly regarded solo works: The N.S.V.I.P.’s, Friday’s Child and Love and Other Crimes. Hazlewood’s 1964 sophomore album The N.S.V.I.P.’s (Not So Very Important People) is the perfect companion to his classic debut, Trouble Is a Lonesome Town, released the year prior. Setting his signature spoken intros to a new cast of small town eccentrics (perhaps modeled on his childhood locale in Mannford, Oklahoma), this early career high-point presents Hazlewood with all of his singular assets already intact: playful lyrics veering toward the bizarre, wry delivery and wonderfully understated pop-country song craft. “First Street Blues” opens The N.S.V.I.P.’s with the saga of Leroy, the once-irascible dragon who converts to a cheerful wino. The small-town drunkard’s likely story merges with fantastic whimsy in Hazlewood’s strange world. Elsewhere, he waxes absurd on “I Had a Friend” about Tarzan’s deficiencies as a citizen and marital prospect for Jane. He even imparts some simple wisdom about the presidential election on “Save Your Vote for Clarence Mudd.” As always, Hazlewood’s tongue is firmly rooted in cheek. Still, it’s easy to just forget that and live inside the poignant songs he creates for each and every one of the not so very important, but absolutely riveting, people—and dragons, too.
LP $20.25
08/05/2014