Lee Hazlewood - "A Cowboy In Sweden" (1970)

I have a fascination for Lee Hazlewood. His deep baritone voice, the slightly twisted half psychedelic country & western music, and his humorous undertone makes me always feel comfortable in his company. This is a record I’ve been looking for, for some time and finally found at a store for used records on the run-down street Andra Långgatan in Gothenburg, of all places. Thanks to a price under a hundred Swedish kronor (around 14 USD) it felt like a good day.
(You can certainly find this LP online, but I have a policy to buy (almost) all my vinyls in physical stores. It's fun to go and rummage in the record shelves and it's easier to check the condition of albums. Moreover, some of the joy of the hunt is lost if you take the easy way out through the internet).

Lee Hazlewood was born in 1929 and died in 2007. For a number of years in the 70's he lived in Sweden. One reason for this choice was that he had become good friends with TV-producer / screenwriter Torbjörn Axelman (who nowdays spends his time in a psychiatric ward thanks to a shooting incident at his home in Brucebo, Sweden. You can’t go around shooting people and police officers without consequences, apparently). Torbjörn’s work included the TV show A Cowboy In Sweden to which today's album was the soundtrack. Lee also starred in the TV show. On the record two female singers are also involved, Nina Lizell and Suzi Jane Hokom, contributing with a fine contrast to Lee’s drawling, deep voice.

Thanks to that Lee lived here in Sweden there are a few albums that are only released here, as I understand it. According to discogs.com this album was only released in Sweden and the U.S in 1970. A reissue was released in the U.S in 1999. The album has a gatefold sleeve, and on the inside you can read:

'Here's some of the music from "A Cowboy In Sweden."

I hope you like the show and the album. It's a part

of my life I'll always remember. I love you, Sweden,

and all you wonderful people. Lee Hazlewood'

Seems to have been a nice man, our Lee.



Lee and Torbjörn

Most of the songs are really good, especially the B-side is filled with beautiful creations. Here and there fat string arrangements present themselves, vibrating electronic organs and soaring flutes also come to visit, while many songs are fairly simple in their sound - acoustic guitar, bass and drums. But thanks to Lee's touch of humor, sadness, irony and psychedelia, it's always interesting. Who can resist such a cocktail? The album and its sound really smells the 70s which in today's text is a compliment.
The album ends with Nina and Lee's collaboration on the song Vem Kan Segla (Who Can Sail). Nina sings it in Swedish and Lee translates. Apparently this was a minor hit, but personally, I’m fed up with this song, I’d heard too many times already in my childhood. How many times did we have to sing it in school? And already then I didn’t like the song - sad, slow and boring.
Cockaburra sits in the old gum tree, eating all the gum drops he can see... Now, that was a song!

Those who previously have heard Lee Hazlewood will recognize the mood. He delivers as always. For those who have never heard him this album is probably as good a starting point as anyone else of his albums. Lee is well known for his collaboration with Nancy Sinatra, but one should certainly not be satisfied with what they did together. Lee had a solo career that was at least as interesting. Should I describe his music it always ends with me reusing a term I have seen others use - psychedelic country & western music. So those who have never heard him will get a perfect understanding of what it is about.


Tracklist

Side A
1 Pray Them Bars Away 3:42
2 Leather & Lace 3:01
3 Forget Marie 2:00
4 Cold Hard Times 2:20
5 The Night Before 3:15
6 Hey Cowboy 3:16

Side B
1 No Train To Stockholm 2:16
2 For A Day Like Today 4:05
3 Easy And Me 2:50
4 What's More I Don’t Need Her 3:28
5 Vem Kan Segla 2:15