Listen: Ladybird / Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood
Ladybird

These two were a virtual hit machine for a few years there, ’66 to ’68 basically. We’re talking thirteen US chart singles on BILLBOARD’s Top 100. Even her solo releases during the period were written by Lee Hazelwood, who kickstarted an almost cancelled record deal in ’66 with ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’. By then, she’d been signed to Reprise for close to five years. Despite her Dad owning the label, even he was about to okay the plug being pulled.

Together with Lee Hazelwood, their duets, often initially B sides, got played regularly, and charted as free standing titles alongside the A’s. The most historic of the bunch being ‘Some Velvet Morning’, then and now considered a page out of some psychedelic bible, particularly it’s cold, almost deathlike theme.

Almost as disturbing for it’s chilly minor key, and always overlooked by the media, ‘Ladybird’ perfectly understated Lee Hazelwood’s omnipresent country song formula and once again combined some unlikely musical parts, giving the two yet another hit (#20 US / #47 UK) in late ’67.