On April 21, 1995, at the House of Blues on Sunset, I saw not one, but two of my all-time favorite acts. The first one was Nancy Sinatra. The second one was even bigger: Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood, whose music still drives me crazy after all these years.
Yes, you heard it right. I did say Nancy Sinatra. Not once,
but twice. Go ahead, look up "guilty pleasure" in any dictionary and most
likely you will find a picture of me listening to Nancy - I’ve always liked her
songs and her singing, too. Many have
laughed at me for my uncool taste, but I ignored them all and kept listening. When
they announced her unexpected comeback in 1995, my first thought was "I just
hope she won’t make a fool of herself". So did she? Read on.
I went to the show with my Better Half and our good friends
Ron and Bobbie. At first, Nancy's vocals were a bit shaky, but soon she found
her bearings and from that point on she sounded pretty much like her own old self. Wearing her signature boots and showing a lot of leg, she looked great, too. For the following 70 minutes or so, we got to hear most of her radio hits from the sixties,
interspersed with the best songs from "One More Time", her then-current album.
Listening to "Sugar Town", "How Does That Grab You, Darlin'" and "Run For Your
Life" was fun, but I must say that her newer material did not make a lasting
impression on me.
When Lee Hazlewood took the stage, it was goose-bumps time. My
beloved duo of Nancy & Lee sang six songs: "Summer Wine", "Jackson", "Some
Velvet Morning", "Did You Ever", "Sand" and one other song I can't recall.
Overall, they sounded quite well, with just a touch of rust showing up here and
there.
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| Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood a few days before the show |
When Nancy said "And now I'd like to sing a song in which the
bass guitar plays a special role", we all knew that it was time for the song that
put Nancy on the map. Her 1995 version of her 1966 mega-hit "These Boots
Are Made for Walkin'" came complete with the same dance steps seen in her old video. The crowd went crazy, needless to say.
Overall, it was a great evening - Nancy most definitely did not make a fool of herself and I will never forget the boundless joy I got from hearing and seeing Lee Hazlewood perform live.
Band line-up: Don Randi (leader), Melanie Vasquez, Michael Hakes, Bobby
Furgo, Charles Camper, Tom Lilly, Miles Robinson & Mike Faue.
I too was privileged and lucky to have been there. Fun fact...I was dressed in drag as "1966 Nancy". My friends that took me continued to push me towards the stage until Nancy saw me. She was singing a serious "Lee" ballad, caught a glance of me and struggled with the lyrics for a moment. At the end of the show she said it was more than 30 years since she done such a show and hoped we wouldn't think of her as "corny" for taking some pictures from the stage for lasting memories. She pulled out her Instamatic camera, took a shot of the audience, another shot up in the balcony (where her friend Morgan Fairchild was seated) then spun around towards me for the final shot, said "Thank you and Good night" and exited stage left.
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