Lee Hazlewood

[1] His collaborations with Sinatra as well as his solo output in the late 1960s and early 1970s have been praised as an essential contribution to a sound often described as "cowboy psychedelia" or "saccharine underground".

[6] He spent his teenage years in Port Neches, Texas, where he was exposed to a rich Gulf Coast music tradition.

He partnered with pioneering rock guitarist Duane Eddy,[4] producing and co-writing a string of hit instrumental records.

[8] Hazlewood also wrote "How Does That Grab Ya, Darlin'", "Friday's Child", "So Long, Babe", "Sugar Town" and many others for Sinatra.

Early in 1967, Lee produced the number 1 hit song for Frank and Nancy Sinatra "Somethin' Stupid".

For Frank Sinatra's 1967 detective film, Tony Rome, Hazlewood wrote the theme song which was performed by Nancy.

Though it did not receive much attention at the time, the International Submarine Band, led by a then-unknown Gram Parsons, signed with LHI in 1967 and released their one and only album, Safe at Home.

He had a supporting role in the movie The Moonshine War, released in 1970 from a story by Elmore Leonard, starring Patrick McGoohan, Richard Widmark, Alan Alda and Will Geer.

In the 1970s, Hazlewood moved to Stockholm, where he wrote and produced the one-hour television show Cowboy in Sweden together with friend and director Torbjörn Axelman, which also later emerged as an album.

According to a retrospective of his career, the move to Europe was motivated by his "tax problems", concern that his son might be drafted for the Vietnam War and the fact that his record label "LHI was dying anyway", so Sweden looked like the perfect escape route.

However, his own output also achieved a cult status in the underground rock scene, with songs recorded by artists such as Miles Kane, Primal Scream, Nick Cave, the Jesus and Mary Chain, The Ukiah Drag,[14] Beck, Baustelle, the Tubes, Thin White Rope, Yonatan Gat, Zeena Schreck/Radio Werewolf[15][16] and Slowdive.

The 2 CD collection, totaling 55 tracks, covers three of his solo albums as well as production work for other artists, such as Duane Eddy, Sanford Clark, Jack Nitzsche and Dino, Desi & Billy.

"[9] In 2005, Hazlewood was diagnosed with terminal renal cancer,[4] and he undertook an extensive round of interviews and promotional activities in support of his last album, Cake or Death.

Hazlewood died of renal cancer in Henderson, Nevada, on August 4, 2007, survived by his wife Jeane, son Mark and daughters Debbie and Samantha.

[27][30] Phaedra joined Hazlewood on his introspective version of the track "Some Velvet Morning" from his final album, Cake or Death.

Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra on The Hollywood Palace , 1968