Immer ein Lächeln auf den Lippen, nie eine Frau geschlagen & tolle Songs geschrieben

Tolle Songs geschrieben – ja, das hat er tatsächlich. Abgesehen von seinem größten Hit „These Boots Are Made For Walking“ schrieb er rund 600 weitere Lieder, darunter Kaliber wie “Houston”, „Summer Wine“, oder „The Fool“. Letzteres wurde z.B. ebenfalls unzählige Male gecovert - von Elvis Presley bis Richard Thompson.

Was hinterlässt Lee Hazlewood außer einem riesigen Backkatalog und unsterblichen Liedgiganten? Nun, einen guten Ratschlag an die Musikindustrie und an TV-Sendern. Im oben erwähnten Spiegel-Interview erklärte der Sänger, dass er zwar sehr genau verfolge, was heute gehört wird und im Trend liegt, „aber“, so Lee Hazlewood, „ich gebe zu, dass ich nicht mehr Schritt halten kann. Ich glaube, das ist das eigentliche Problem dieser Branche geworden. Mit wem sollen sich die Kinder heutzutage noch identifizieren können, wenn es jede Woche einen neuen Superstar zu feiern gibt? Wer soll sich die ganzen Platten kaufen und den Überblick behalten? Es wird immer schwieriger, sich als junger Mensch zu positionieren. Aber wenn man selbst in der Musik keinen Halt mehr findet, wo dann? Besonders die Casting-Shows machen eine Menge kaputt. Sie gaukeln den Kandidaten ein Leben vor, das rein gar nichts mit der Realität eines Musikers zu tun hat. Zu Erfolg gehört auch Misserfolg, aber den lernen die blonden Püppchen da gar nicht kennen. Junge Musiker wollen zu schnell zu viel. Musik ist heute neben der Filmkarriere, der eigenen Modelinie und einem selbst kreierten Parfum nur noch ein Baustein von vielen.“

 „Auch die besten “Boots” stehen einmal still“, hieß es also in der CD-Kritik zu Cake Or Death an dieser Stelle. Ein Widerspruch, wenn man die Überschrift im Nachruf des Labels BPX 1992 kennt. Ein Nachruf übrigens, der es wert ist, gelesen zu werden

His Boots Will Keep On Walking

Kiss all the pretty ones goodbye
Give everyone a penny that cry
You can throw all my tranquil' pills away
Let my blood pressure go on its way
For my autumn's done come
My autumn’s done come.
(Lee Hazlewood, My Autumn’s Done Come)

LEE HAZLEWOOD has died peacefully at his home outside Las Vegas, USA, after a three year struggle with cancer. He celebrated his 78th birthday earlier this month surrounded by family and friends from around the world. He passed away on August 4th, 2007, in Henderson, Nevada, and is survived by his son Mark, his daughters Debbie and Samantha, and his devoted wife Jeane.
 
For over half a century, LEE HAZLEWOOD proved himself to be one of the most ingenious, inspired and impressively stubborn sons-of-a-bitch the music industry ever saw. His career – a word that HAZLEWOOD himself scorned – saw him take on almost every aspect of the music industry – a word that HAZLEWOOD himself was equally dismissive of – and come out on top every time. Most famous for his work with Nancy Sinatra – he wrote and produced many of her biggest hits, including These Boots Were Made For Walking, Sugartown and the unforgettable Some Velvet Morning – HAZLEWOOD in fact started his musical career as a DJ in Coolidge, Arizona. It was here he first met Duane Eddy, with whom he began to flesh out and record some of his songs. In 1955 he set up Viv Records and in 1956 hit paydirt with Sanford Clark’s legendary The Fool , and the following year he gave up DJing to focus on production and writing. In the early 1960s he established the LHI label (which is best known for having released the debut album by Gram Parson’s first group, The International Submarine Band) and began releasing his own solo albums, including the extraordinary "Trouble Is A Lonesome Town".
 
In the mid sixties, in the face of The British Invasion (led by the likes of The Beatles), HAZLEWOOD retired to the shadows (where he was always most comfortable) only to be reluctantly dragged out to work with Nancy Sinatra. Their work together – including the iconic Boots – was an overnight success and saw her become a star in her own right worldwide, but she also insisted that HAZLEWOOD step out in front of the microphone himself, leading to the release of three "Nancy & Lee" albums.
 
In the early 1970s HAZLEWOOD moved to Sweden to ensure his son was not drafted by the US military. He recorded a series of solo albums there as well as collaborating with film director Torbjörn Axelman, but then ‘retired’ again, working only occasionally over the next two decades. Instead he began to follow an itinerant lifestyle which he pursued until very recently, living in Ireland, Germany, Spain and of course America. However it was the rediscovery of this work two decades later by a new generation of musicians – including the likes of Sonic Youth, whose drummer Steve Shelley tracked HAZLEWOOD down and reissued a number of his solo albums on his Smells Like Records imprint – that led to a resurgence of interest in his work as a performer. In the late 90s he returned to the studio to record the typically cryptically titled standards album "Farmisht, Flatulence, Origami, ARF!!! and Me", and in 1999 he returned to the stage at the invitation of Nick Cave who was curating that year’s Meltdown Festival in London. Following a sold out show at the Royal Festival Hall he sanctioned the release of two albums of unreleased material, most notably "For Every Solution There’s A Problem", toured Europe, and then returned to the studio to record his final album, "Cake Or Death", which was released to worldwide acclaim in 2006.
 
HAZLEWOOD ’s music has always been a staple of movie soundtracks, but it has continued to become more and more fashionable, regularly turning up in films as diverse as The Dukes Of Hazzard – which saw Jessica Simpson perform These Boots Were Made For Walking for the title track – and the arthouse flick Morvern Callar – which used Some Velvet Morning to great effect.
 
The family have requested that those wishing to honour LEE HAZLEWOOD should make donations to the Salvation Army…

(Text: Manfred Horak; BPX 1992; Fotos: Fourservice.com) 

Link-Tipp:
CD-Kritik Lee Hazlewood "Cake or Death"