walking upstream…
Lee Hazlewood
photo: scanpix · public domain ↗Lee Hazlewood
sourcesWikipedia
An Oklahoma-born songwriter, producer, and crater-voiced baritone, Lee Hazlewood invented worlds the way other writers invented hooks — dusty saloon-noir story-songs delivered with a wink and a shrug. He engineered the twang heard round the world on Duane Eddy's instrumentals, wrote and produced Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'," and with their duets built a strange, gorgeous corner of pop where country, orchestral kitsch, and psychedelia drink together. Decades of cult rediscovery have made him the patron saint of every artist who'd rather build a world than chase a chart.
the sound in question
1967
Some Velvet MorningLee Hazlewood
walk the tributaries ↓
Eddy Duchin1930s · Big band / Sweet jazz / Pop
Hazlewood said the low-slung guitar sound he became famous for producing came straight from this 1930s society bandleader: "It was from Eddie Duchin back in the Forties playing the melody on the low keys of piano. It was low on the piano, it made it low on the guitar." Melody voiced at the bottom of the register became Hazlewood's lifelong signature — in his productions and in his own subterranean baritone.
listen: upstream & heresource: The Arts Desk Q&A ↗
1938
Ol' Man MoseEddy Duchin
1963
Trouble Is a Lonesome TownLee Hazlewood
listen forIn Duchin's band recordings the piano keeps sliding the tune down into the dark end of the keyboard; carry that idea to Hazlewood's "Trouble Is a Lonesome Town," where the whole record lives in the cellar — melody, guitar, and voice all pitched low, proof that a tune sung at the bottom hits different than one sung at the top.
Howlin' Wolf1950s · Chicago blues / Electric blues
As a 1950s Arizona DJ, Hazlewood named Howlin' Wolf among the R&B records he insisted on spinning over his station owner's objections — a blues education that seeped into the darker end of his songwriting, where drones, dread, and freight-train imagery roll under the cowboy-crooner surface.
listen: upstream & heresource: The Arts Desk Q&A ↗
1956
Smokestack Lightnin'Howlin' Wolf
1963
Long Black TrainLee Hazlewood
listen forHear how "Smokestack Lightnin'" rides a single hypnotic riff while the voice moans like a distant train whistle, then Hazlewood's "Long Black Train" — a spare, ominous blues built on the same locomotive fatalism, his baritone rumbling down where Wolf's howl scraped the sky.
Little Willie John1950s · R&B / Soul / Blues
Little Willie John was the other name Hazlewood cited from his renegade DJ playlists — R&B records a country station wasn't supposed to play. That schooling in sultry, less-is-more R&B shows in how Hazlewood's own productions withhold: sparse arrangements, close-mic'd voices, heat generated by restraint rather than volume.
listen: upstream & heresource: The Arts Desk Q&A ↗
1956
FeverLittle Willie John
1966
My Autumn's Done ComeLee Hazlewood
listen for"Fever" is a masterclass in emptiness — bass, snaps, and a voice smoldering in all that space. Then try "My Autumn's Done Come," where Hazlewood lounges back into strings and lets his half-spoken baritone do almost nothing, gorgeously; both records trust the space between notes to carry the mood.