Gruesome Twosome: Poet, Fool, Bum Edition
Lee Hazlewood: “What’s More I Don’t Need Her”
LP: Cowboy In Sweden, 1970 | BUY
Honey LTD.: “Louie, Louie”
LHI Records single, 1968
For today’s aural delights, I turn to the enigmatic Lee Hazlewood. Richie Unterberger nicely sums up Hazlewood’s appeal in his book Unknown Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll: “How can you judge a man who sounds like Johnny Cash might after gargling razor blades? Who can’t seem to decide whether to be a Nashville cornball or a brooding desert Leonard Cohen? Who experienced immense commercial success producing pop stars like Nancy Sinatra and Duane Eddy, but regularly churned out oddball solo albums that could only have appealed to the most narrow of audiences? Who invested a great deal of time and effort in the sessions he produced for others, but seemed to make many of his own records as if he were in a race with the studio clock?”
I can’t elaborate much on that, except to say that Lee’s two songs here are a testament to doing your own, quirky thing. The Cowboy In Sweden track layers Hazlewood’s laconic speak-singing atop a lovely David Whitaker string arrangement. Honey LTD was a quartet of groovy looking ladies signed to Hazelwood’s own LHI Records label. Hazlewood infused their swinging remake of “Louie Louie” with simultaneous Girl Group and hippie sensibilities, even contributing a spoken intro (in which he sounds bizarrely like George W. Bush).
January 19th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Clearly the only answers to questions about Hazlewood are more questions, specifically:
who can sail without the wind?
who can row without an oar?
January 21st, 2006 at 12:10 am
You’ve turned me onto to Honey Cone, so it’s fitting that you should expose me to Honey Ltd. as well. Loved the cover of Louie Louie, and want to hear more by these dolls. Do you have anything else by them?
January 21st, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Sorry, Ion, I don’t have any more Honey LTD. What I really want to see is their appearance on The Joey Bishop Show!!