Sony / Bmg Import
2006
Cake Or Death
About This Album
It's supremely fitting that Lee Hazlewood would greet his impending death from renal cancer with an album that expresses a healthy dose of cheery fatalism, the same nature that has kept the listeners of several generations tuned in to his every word. It's also fitting that Hazlewood goes out on his own terms, with no celebrity cameos but help from plenty of unknowns, family members, and old friends. (One of the latter gets a full vocal feature since, in Lee's words, "He literally saved my life some time ago, so this is a promise given and a promise kept.") Hazlewood entered no name studio, allowed no adoring producer or musician from a recent generation onto his record, and shows virtually no patience for writing or producing the type of album that many of his fans -- who are doubtless looking for a snapshot of Lee Hazlewood circa 1967 -- will want to hear. The opener, "Nothing," comes closest, with a suitably wry vocal -- "I took the time to say nothing to her/She took the time to say nothing to me/And in the time I said nothing to her, she said...nothing." Fans will recognize echoes of different Hazlewood eras in these songs, like the stark, proud political/social statement "Baghdad Knights" (a cousin to "José") and a slick weeper named "Please Come to Boston" along the lines of his mid-'70s countrypolitan records (complete with an overripe vocal from Lee's female duet partner).
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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