DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS
My Fellow Americans, Life is actually just a microscopic, deluded moment in time, so let's cut to the freakin' chase. One look at our impending election debacle can solidify my case. It has been my contention since birth, that the answer to every difficulty we encounter on this sacred yet demented Stone, can be revealed with ultimate clarity through the ultra neurotic engagements of Music, Art, Literature, Film, Poetry and a good Pastrami sandwich. Why would any sane human spend so must time on a film set (Do you know how long you gotta wait until your 8 second deliverance of an edited beyond repair line gets a chance to become a professional embarrassment etched in time forever? ) or expend so much energy in a recording studio, piecing together another ode to a man or woman who could not care less how much love existed within your digestive tract? It's all about hymns and prayers and a quest for mercy and forgiveness and silence and faith. We were blessed with Charles Bukowski, Gene Chandler, Lenny Bruce, Mitch Ryder and a legion of creative explorers whose influences provided the air we breathe. So Let's Dance! This site shall explore the reaper, find a way to disarm the stench of injustice, discover some true loves and talk it all over before it's all over. So what's the worst that our desires could produce? Failure? So sue me. I'm going to require your assistance in making as much trouble for the grown-ups as possible. Let the record show that my childish heart yearns to disrupt the madness. Join me Ladies and Germs!
With Gratitude For Gena Rowlands, Nancy Sinatra, Jerry Quarry, Leo Gorcey, Arthur Alexander and Joey Heatherton, Your Splendid Bohemian, Rich Buckland.
DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS
"PUT ON A STACK OF 45's"- NANCY SINATRA AND LEE HAZLEWOOD- "SOME VELVET MORNING" - Dig This With The Splendid Bohemians - Featuring Rich Buckland and Bill "The Mighty Mez" Mesnik -The Boys Devote Each Episode To A Famed 45 RPM And Shine A Light Upon It
This essay is one in a series celebrating deserving artists or albums not included on NPR Music's list of 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women.
Nancy Sinatra, the force who brought "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" to life, was never meant to sing the song at all. The late Lee Hazlewood, a songwriter and producer for the likes of Duane Eddy, had written the single and intended to sing it himself. But once Sinatra heard it, she immediately had a better idea. "He said, 'It's not really a girl's song. I sing it myself onstage.' I told him that coming from a guy it was harsh and abusive, but was perfect for a little girl to sing," Sinatra told Los Angeles Magazine last year. The song soared to the top of the Billboard pop charts, scored Sinatra two Grammy nominations and has been covered dozens of times by the likes of Loretta Lynn and a baby-faced Nick Cave.
The 1966 hit became an anthem for women who refused to be walked all over, and who threatened to do the very same if crossed. It also proved that Sinatra and Hazlewood collaborations were pure magic, a fact writ large on their first collaborative album, 1968's Nancy & Lee. Composed of covers and Hazlewood-penned tunes, Nancy & Lee is a linchpin of horn-driven, off-kilter, sing-speak '60s pop. While Hazlewood's lysergic jilted cowboy baritone purrs throughout the album, and Billy Strange, of the famed Wrecking Crew, lends a hand arranging and composing the songs here, Sinatra's crystalline pipes, made all the more wonderful because of her expressive singing style, make it glisten.
The way Sinatra so nonchalantly sings "go ahead, see if I care" on the album's Johnny and June Carter Cash cover "Jackson", you can almost see her shrugging. On the twinkling closing track "I've Been Down So Long (It Looks Like Up To Me)," Sinatra admits: "Well I pushed him off the ladder of success," giggling; Hazlewood chimes in and says: "That's true!" (The vinyl version of the album features Sinatra and Hazlewood in a Q&A, in which they're asked: "Does 'Lady Bird' contain political overtones?" The two reply: "The only overtones 'Lady Bird' contains are the high notes Lee misses and Nancy laughs at").
What stuns about Nancy & Lee, though, is how Sinatra and Hazlewood masterfully marry sunshiny orchestral elements with lyrics that dig at something darker about the human condition, ranging from fleeting lovers and feeling so devastatingly lonesome that another romance seems outside the realm of possibility. On the swelling "Sundown, Sundown," Hazelwood growls: "There's no one in this world for me / There's never gonna be." Then Sinatra comes in, sweeping Strange's orchestral arrangements — and listeners — off their feet as she croons: "Sundown / I miss you, sundown / I need you sundown / Come on, come on, come on, come on back to me."
Love is always just out of reach on Nancy & Lee; no one is anyone's baby. It's a sweet, elusive dream thing that lives on only in song. Loving feelings are lost, and in "Summer Wine," characters wake up with their pockets empty, head swelled and with only a fading memory to remind them of the one who got away. The album's core is the
