Lee Hazlewood might have been born in Oklahoma, lived in Sweden, and died in Nevada, but like a lot of modern American music figures, he spent a considerable and important period in LA. Although his most famous work was for Nancy Sinatra, his production influenced other LA transplants like Phil Spector and Gram Parsons, and his style was mined by both groups shitty (like the Eagles, who latched onto his pioneering country rock boogie) and artists spectacular (both Marvin Gaye's break-up masterpiece "Here, My Dear" and Bob Dylan's "Blood On the Tracks" can be easily credited to Hazlewood's "Requiem For An Almost Lady"). In recent years Hazlewood's music was devoured by a new generation of fans, as contemporary musicians had varying degrees of success in tributes to Hazlewood (Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley did a strong version of "A Cheat," but Primal Scream and Kate Moss' dancey cover of "Some Velvet Morning is fucking atrocious), and many films have either featured his music (to powerful effect in "Morvern Callar") or strangely neglected it ("Little Miss Sunshine" was named after a Hazlewood tune but its soundtrack had none of his work). After's Hazlewood's passing this weekend, his family released a statement that ended with a quote from his song "My Autumn's Done Come," but I thought first of his song "If It's Monday Morning," with its poignant and striking verse.
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