Review: The weird and wonderful Lee Hazlewood

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Something of a modern-day Brigitte Bardot, Georgia May Jagger is the youngest daughter of supermodel Jerry Hall and Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Jagger. She’s taken a liking to modeling, with her signature asset: a gap between her two front teeth. (Henry S. Dziekan III / Getty Images for Sunglass Hut)

2/10

Zoe Kravitz took the my-dad’s-a-rock-star-and-I’ll-be-one-too-thing to heart. As the lead singer of Elevator Flight, Zoe and her mates have performed on the same stages as the Roots and the Black Keys. She’s also acted in “X-Men: First Class” (2011), “After Earth” (2013) and “Californication.” ( Ilya S. Savenok / Getty Images for H&M)

3/10

Kelly Osbourne was introduced to the world as a harshly honest, tatted teen on MTV’s reality show “The Osbournes.” She turned to music, launching two albums: “Shut Up” (2002) and “Sleeping in the Nothing” (2005), but has since evolved. She now gives style advice on E!’s “Fashion Police.” (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images for Variety)

4/10

Early on, Lily Collins took an interest in journalism and acting. She wrote the “NY Confidential” column for Elle Girl and was a Nickelodeon TV correspondent. Now an actress, she’s appeared in “The Blind Side,” (2009), “Mirror Mirror” (2012) and “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” (2013). (Abraham Caro Marin / AP Photo)

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Kimberly Stewart shot to fame as Paris Hilton’s club-hitting sidekick. These days, she’s a mother to young Delilah, whose father is Puerto Rican actor-producer Benicio Del Toro. (Danny Martindale / Getty Images)

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A paternity test revealed that Daisy Lowe was rock royalty. Since then she’s been handpicked by designer Karl Lagerfeld to walk the Chanel runway and later modeled for Nanette Lepore, Vivienne Westwood and Burberry. She also posed topless for Esquire and nude for Playboy. (Ben A. Pruchnie / Getty Images)

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Fashion designer Stella McCartney didn’t need to lean on her father’s Beatles fame. At 16, she interned with French fashion designer Christian Lacroix and went on to study fashion design in London. Stella became chief designer of French line Chloe and then launched her own popular label. (Peter Kramer / Getty Images for North America)

8/10

Theodora began modeling at 14 years old for a Tommy Hilfiger campaign alongside Mick Jagger’s daughter, Lizzy. Since then she’s been snapped by world-renowned photographers and scored the covers of Glamour Italy, Nylon UK and Rolling Stone. Her younger sister Alexandra plays the model cards as well. (Henry S. Dziekan III / Getty Images for Sunglass Hut)

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Frances Bean Cobain’s mother, Courtney Love, supposedly used heroin during her pregnancy, so Frances was taken away. She also visited her father, Kurt Cobain, in rehab until he died. Love later disowned Frances, and photos of her taken by YSL’s Hedi Slimane also drew a spotlight. (Steve Granitz / WireImage)

10/10

Peaches wrote and starred in a documentary about herself as a teenager, “Peaches Geldof: Teenage Mind” (2005). That was after photos of her using heroin hit the Web. In addition to taking care of her two sons, she hosted TV specials. Geldorf was found dead in her home on April 7. She was 25. ( Mike Marsland / WireImage)

By Randall Roberts, Los Angeles Times Pop Music Critic

Dec. 17, 2013 6:30 AM PT

What to do with Lee Hazlewood? Too obscure for the Rolling Stone/Grammy canon, too cheesy for most hipsters, too square for hip-hop producers to sample and just freaky enough to startle the conformists, the late singer, producer and label head only dented America’s musical imagination a few times during his 40-plus-year career. Most notably, this occurred when he teamed with his most famous collaborator, Nancy Sinatra, to write and produce “These Boots Were Made for Walkin’.”

Fewer realize that behind that just-weird-enough hit — its trippy bassline, Sinatra’s seductive growl and Hazlewood’s baritone-bass vocals — was a would-be label kingpin. In the period following the “Boots” breakthrough, Hazlewood, who first made his mark co-writing and producing guitarist Link Wray’s incendiary instrumental, “Rumble,” secured financing and distribution through ABC Records to create Lee Hazlewood Industries.

FOR THE RECORD:
Lee Hazlewood: A review of the album “There’s a Dream I’ve Been Saving 1966-1971: Lee Hazlewood Industries” in the Dec. 17 Calendar section said that Hazlewood co-wrote and produced guitarist Link Wray’s instrumental “Rumble.” He didn’t. It was Duane Eddy’s instrumental “Rebel-’Rouser” that he co-wrote.

Those five years are collected in “There’s a Dream I’ve Been Saving 1966-1971: Lee Hazlewood Industries,” a vast trove of hidden songs, many recorded in Los Angeles, from Hazlewood, his post-Sinatra collaborators Ann-Margret and Suzi Jane Hokom and a host of obscure pop rock bands, country artists and singer-songwriters.

PHOTOS: Unexpected musical collaborations

As spread over four CDs and a DVD, “There’s a Dream” is a lot to consume, especially if you’re not into Hazlewood’s in-your-face approach. One of the least subtle producers of the ‘60s, the artist reveled in grand gestures and momentous hooks.

In fascinating liner notes, Hokom (who produced artists, designed album covers and recorded solo music for LHI) describes Hazlewood. “He drove a huge green Lincoln Continental convertible with a mobile phone the size of a suitcase and we’d cruise around with my big black Afghan dog Kija in the back seat,” she recalled. (For much of this time, the two were a couple.)

Hazlewood’s outward joy was tempered, though, by a sad-sack demeanor in song. He cries “loser’s tears” in “Forget Marie,” elsewhere offers that “dreams have never been my friends” and passively dismisses a “stoned lost child” who leaves him for another. He goes “looking for a dog named kindness — which you’ll never find.” Bummer.

PHOTOS: Iconic rock guitars and their owners

Lighter — and at times cheesier — is the work Hazlewood produced by a roster of unestablished groups. The five guys in the Kitchen Cinq never stood a chance on the charts but, revisited four decades on, shine with renewed sparkle. Honey Ltd. were four women from Detroit who showed up at the LHI offices with dreams of fame. Hazlewood signed and teamed them with members of the L.A. session musicians known as the Wrecking Crew for a few hits that never were.

Best, though, are some of Hazlewood’s sides with Ann-Margret, recorded in Nashville. The two had a natural chemistry best showcased on their concept album “The Cowboy and the Lady” and the revelatory single “You Turned My Head Around.” A song that explodes courtesy Hazlewood’s thrilling ear for sound, the cut should have been a hit.

In another, more cockeyed, universe, it is.

randall.roberts@latimes.com

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Various artists: “There’s a Dream I’ve Been Saving 1966-1971: Lee Hazlewood Industries”

(Light in the Attic Records)

3 stars