Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra
★★★★ Nancy & Lee LIGHT IN THE ATTIC. CD/DL/LP/MC
The first of their three duets albums. After masterminding These Boots Are Made For Walkin’ in 1965 and hitting duet gold with her on Some Velvet Morning two years later, Lee Hazlewood’s next move was an album of duets with Nancy Sinatra. This being the ’60s, albums were still afterthoughts, so Hazlewood simply padded out the tracklisting by revisiting material he’d recorded with former amour Suzi Jane Hokom and adding Sand, Jackson and Summer Wine, their collaborations on recent Sinatra albums.
For all its jerry-built provenance, this shotgun marriage of off-piste Hazlewoodpenned
originals and outside efforts such as You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ and Ray Davies’ Tired Of Waiting For You (one of two extra tracks here) worked splendidly. His raised-eyebrow growl and her straighter, more tender tones meshed faultlessly against a lavishly arranged backdrop, not least on Elusive Dreams, which Elvis Presley spent a whole night analysing with Sinatra at Graceland.