Nancy Sinatra - The Singer in Boots

On the evening of May 12, 1960, Americans were glued to their TV sets for a major event broadcast on ABC: it was time to welcome back the messiah, Elvis Presley, returning from his military service in Germany. For the occasion, none other than the crooner of crooners, Frank Sinatra, had been called in. It would be he who declared "Welcome Home Elvis" on behalf of the nation to the King of rock. A paradoxical gesture for a man who, only a few years earlier, had called rock'n'roll "the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear" (in an interview with Western World magazine) — words that Presley himself had not taken lightly, going so far as to call a press conference to denounce them.

But to make amends, Uncle Frankie had a surprise up his sleeve: at Fort Dix airport (New Jersey), where Elvis was about to land, he sent a charming ambassador to greet him — a young woman named Nancy, who just happened to be his daughter. The black-and-white photographs captured by photographer Ken Regan show a deferential Miss Sinatra showing postcards to a slicked-back Elvis, buttoned into his sergeant's uniform. The two would meet again a few years later on the set of the musical film "Speedway" (1968) by Norman Taurog.

But that hostess role was decidedly too small for Nancy. Trained at the UCLA academy of music, dance and voice in Los Angeles, the eldest of Frank's three children from his first wife, Nancy Barbato, dreamed of becoming a star of the stage, and she wasn't about to pass up the chance of that TV debut to sing and dance a duet with her father to the tune of "You Make Me Feel So Young/Old". Bang bang. Everyone floored. The career of the queen of beat had officially begun.

You can't keep singing like Nancy Nice Lady anymore, now you need to start singing for truck drivers

(Lee Hazlewood)

Nancy Nice Lady

At 20, Nancy Sandra Sinatra (Jersey City, June 8, 1940) already had a fairly clear sense of direction. Starting with her love life: in 1960 she married actor and singer Tommy Sands, the teen idol of the day (though it wouldn't last long — just five years). But above all, she had chosen what to do with her life: she would follow in her father's footsteps, though rather than old Frank's nostalgic ballads for retro nightclubs, she preferred the contemporary pop sound of the glittering Sixties. Of course, family connections helped: it took just a year to land her a contract with Reprise Records, her father's label. And yet her first single, the utterly vacuous "Cuff Links And A Tie Clip", was a total flop. Strange as it may seem, nobody wanted to write a decent song for the daughter of Frank Sinatra — a woman marked for stardom as far back as 1945, when she was 5 years old and her father dedicated "Nancy (With The Laughing Face)" to her. Harmless bubblegum 45s like "Like I Do", "You Can Have Any Boy", "I See The Moon" and "Where Do the Lonely Go?" came and went without a trace; things went a little better with her cover of Phil Spector and his Teddy Bears' "To Know Him Is To Love Him", as well as with the sentimental ballad "June, July, And August". But nothing that could catch the public's attention, let alone make a dent in the US charts.

This went on for four years, and by 1965 Nancy was on the verge of being dropped. That's when — straight out of a Hollywood movie — the saving mustache appeared on the horizon, the one that would launch her fortunes: specifically, the mustache belonging to Barton Lee Hazlewood, an eccentric singer-songwriter/producer/arranger who had been putting out records for about a decade, mostly alongside his friend Duane Eddy. It was Frank Sinatra himself who reached out to him, effectively placing his daughter's career in his hands. Hazlewood adored Nancy, but found her a touch too prim and proper for his tastes, with those checkered outfits, teased hair, and good-girl-from-New-Jersey air: "You can't keep singing like Nancy Nice Lady anymore, now you need to start singing for truck drivers," good old Lee is said to have told his protégée as he prepared to hand her the hit that would change her career forever. Years later, she would describe her mentor as "a cross between Henry Higgins (the professor from My Fair Lady, ed.) and Sigmund Freud".

But eccentricities aside, Lee's instinct was spot on. And Nancy seized it without hesitation — wearing, for the occasion, a pair of white boots: the very ones that would lead her straight to the gates of stardom.

These boots are made for walkin’

And that’s just what they’ll do

One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you

(“These Boots Are Made For Walkin’”)

Boots for Stardom

In reality, though, the moustachioed Oklahoma singer-songwriter would rather have kept “These Boots Are Made For Walkin'” for himself, since after all “it's not a song for girls” — considering also its inspiration (a line of dialogue from the 1963 western “4 for Texas”, directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra himself). Nancy, however, cunningly talks him out of it, convincing him that lines like “these boots are made for walkin', and that's just what they'll do — one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you”, coming from a man's mouth, “can sound tough and violent”, whereas “they're perfect for a girl”. In short, the step from machismo to feminism is a short one: all it takes is a change of performer. Nancy already understood, from that very bassline, that this wasn't just any song — it was the song. The one that could completely change an artist's fortunes, turning her from a backing act into a star. And she even got her father's blessing. While Hazlewood and arranger Billy Strange were running through some songs at Nancy's house, Frank was in the next room reading the newspaper: at the end of that impromptu session, he went up to his daughter and assured her that “Boots” was the best of them all.

How can you blame her? There's that irreverent, brazen lyric, in which the young betrayed girl, instead of bursting into tears, plays cat and mouse with the hapless interlocutor "who's been messin' where he shouldn't have been messin'". A part that Nancy performs with unmatched icy composure, merciless and relentless, showing the same comic timing as her father in nailing those quick little asides. Like that mocking "ah", dropped right in the middle of the song. Or the brilliant finale: "Are you ready boots?!/ Start walkin'!", before the frantic closing trumpet. And there's a brilliant arrangement, as simple as it is sophisticated, built entirely around that descending bass line, with steady drums, twangy guitar and a trumpet in the background. The horns in particular play a crucial role: silent during the first verse, minimal soul fanfares during the second, exploding into joyous riffs in the third right up to the final fade-out.

Recorded with the Wrecking Crew collective and released in December 1965, "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" shoots to the top of the charts in the US, Canada, Australia and Germany for 6 weeks, in the UK for 4 weeks, while in Italy it reaches number three. It will go on to sell over a million copies worldwide. The glamour video, with Nancy in a skimpy mise surrounded by a squad of leggy girls – all strictly wearing boots – will become one of the most celebrated icons of the Swingin' Sixties. The song would also be adopted by American troops during the Vietnam War as a marching chant, and Sinatra herself would at one point travel there to perform for the soldiers. It's no coincidence that the song also appears in a cult scene from Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" (1987), set during that very war.

Its status as an evergreen, built to last from here to eternity, is confirmed by a multitude of covers in every style imaginable (metal, pop, rock, punk-rock, country, dance, industrial), recorded among others by The Supremes, Adriano Celentano, Dalida, Planet Funk, Nick Cave, Billy Ray Cyrus, Boy George, Megadeth and Jessica Simpson, not to mention its countless uses in commercials, films and TV shows.

Through the sheer defiance of “These Boots Are Made For Walkin'”, Nancy Sinatra buries the squeaky-clean girl-next-door image submissive to her man – much like The Supremes had done with “Stop! In The Name Of Love” and “You Keep Me Hangin' On” – becoming one of the undisputed icons of Sixties beat/pop, on a par with international divas such as Cher, Marianne Faithfull, Sandie Shaw, Sylvie Vartan, Françoise Hardy and, in Italy, Caterina Caselli and Patty Pravo. The daughter of the crooner behind “My Way” stands out for her cheeky aggressiveness, her voluminous blonde hair, miniskirts and trademark red boots sealing a sensual California dreamin' image that echoes the endless summer of the Beach Boys.

Reprise wasted no time seizing the opportunity to release Nancy Sinatra's debut album as well, Boots (1966), which alongside the miraculous 45 includes a handful of covers and previously unreleased tracks. Among the latter, a couple of other Hazlewood gems stand out: the emphatic “I Move Around”, featuring another disenchanted performance from Sinatra, buoyed by backing vocals and robust horn arrangements over a folk-rock backdrop reminiscent of The Lovin' Spoonful, and the more bitter “So Long, Babe”, the soundtrack to a farewell marked by insistent drumming and a finely pompous orchestration in the style of 60s baroque pop.

Among the covers, special mention goes to the mournful "As Tears Go By" by Marianne Faithfull/Rolling Stones, the Beatles-esque double hit "Day Tripper"-"Run For Your Life", and a version of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" done in an almost lounge style, complete with a brass section. "In My Room", written by Lee Pockriss and Paul Vance for Verdelle Smith, turns into an intense bolero, while "If He'd Love Me" leans more toward a classic torch-song feel — one of those songs Lana Del Rey must have listened to on repeat. But also pleasant, if a bit naive and undeniably dated, are divertissements like "Lies" and "Flowers On The Wall", which at least show the self-deprecating wit of a performer who always sounds fresh and graceful, even without a top-tier vocal range.

Strawberries, cherries and an angel’s kiss in spring

My summer wine is really made from all these things

Take off your silver spurs and help me pass the time

And I will give to you… summer wine

("Summer Wine")

Nancy shot them down

The go-go boots become Nancy Sinatra's magic wand: she suddenly starts churning out hit after hit, promptly gathered into a new album released that same year to strike while the iron is hot. The sophomore effort How Does That Grab You? (1966) sticks to the formula of its predecessor: a successful title track — which essentially follows the structure of "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'", with horns to the fore and Sinatra's aggressive spoken delivery — a handful of classy numbers penned by Hazlewood — the jazzy opener "Not The Lovin' Kind", the irreverent anti-serenade "My Baby Cried All Night Long", and one of the duo's first dazzling duets on the hypnotic "Sand" (an unsettling little tale of a girl who offers hospitality to a shady character, built on layers of harpsichord and interwoven guitars) — plus a handful of pop covers. And the masterpiece lies precisely among the latter: a smoldering, sensual rework of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" by "rival" Cher, which Nancy turns into a slow-motion, moonlit ballad, her thin, bloodless voice lost amid the reverb of Billy Strange's tremolo guitar. A feat that Quentin Tarantino would deservedly remember when he used it on the soundtrack of his film "Kill Bill Volume 1", giving it a second life.

The CD reissue adds 4 bonus tracks: a cover of Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Until It's Time For You To Go", the lively single "Lightning's Girl" (complete with fuzz guitar), the other excellent 45 "The Last Of The Secret Agents" (the driving theme of the same-titled spy comedy) and the breezy pop duet with her father Frank on the caressing "Feelin' Kinda Sunday".

Closing out Mrs Sinatra's magical 1966 is her third album in just a few months, Nancy In London, again arranged by Billy Strange and produced by Lee Hazlewood. Beyond the usual covers — the pompous "On Broadway", a tribute to Burt Bacharach's refined pop with "Wishin' And Hopin'", the syrupy "The End" (a remake of a 1958 hit by Earl Grant) and the revival of the even older "The More I See You", written by Harry Warren in 1945 — it's once again Hazlewood's touch that leaves its mark. Not so much with the easygoing, second-hand country of "Hutchinson Jail", but with the other two tracks credited to him. The slow-rock of "Friday's Child" immerses Nancy's soft vocals in a dark, depressive setting, with backing vocals this time far more unsettling and sinister guitar flourishes.

But the real high point is "Summer Wine", the second duet — and definitive masterpiece — from the celebrated Sinatra-Hazlewood pairing: originally performed by Lee with Suzi Jane Hokom, the song finds in Nancy's voice the perfect counterpart to its author's shadowy register, a sensual and formidable muse who manages to draw out all of the track's overflowing melodiousness. The murky lyrics, with their vaguely country-tinged inspiration, tell of a man fixated on his silver spurs who meets a woman who invites him to drink wine together (sangria, according to the lyrics, though some have read a sexual metaphor into the verses). After drinking, the man wakes up with a hangover, only to discover that his spurs and money have been stolen by the mysterious girl — and yet he dreams of returning to that enchanted moment for another drink. The cinematic duel between the two plays out entirely on the contrast between Lee's deep, romantic baritone and Nancy's sensual, elusive, subtly wicked voice, a confrontation that reaches epic heights in the "spiraling" construction of the musical phrase. A sumptuous, almost gothic orchestral backdrop makes everything even more aching, playing on the contradiction between the radiant summer imagery and the penetrating melancholy suggested by the melodies and string arrangements. Another timeless classic, "Summer Wine" would become something of an archetype for a certain kind of duet, built on the contrast between a cavernous male voice and an angelic female one (from Serge Gainsbourg–Jane Birkin to Nick Cave–Kylie Minogue, all the way to Mark Lanegan–Isobel Campbell). Yet, by a strange twist of fate, the song would only be released as a 45 B-side (to the saccharine — in both name and nature — single "Sugar Town"), before later being included on the duets compilation Nancy & Lee. In 2013, her fan Lana Del Rey would record a cover of it together with her then-boyfriend Barrie-James O'Neill.

Is Something Stupid an incest song? Do people really think that? I actually think it's very sweet

(Nancy Sinatra)

You Only Live Twice

After this knockout trio of albums, Mrs Sinatra has the road wide open ahead of her, bolstered too by the film stardom she gained with movies like Roger Corman's "The Wild Angels" (1966), with Peter Fonda, and "Marriage on the Rocks", the comedy in which Frank and Nancy play father and daughter. That on-screen dynamic would play out musically in the swooning duet "Something Stupid" (1967), which, reworking an old tune written by C. Carson Parks and originally performed with his wife Gaile Foote, broke the hearts of America, shooting straight to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart (the first and only time in history a father-daughter duet has achieved that feat). To those who call it an "incest song", Nancy would sarcastically reply: "Do people really think that? Well, I think it's very sweet!". In 2001 it would be dusted off again by Robbie Williams together with actress Nicole Kidman, repeating the No. 1 miracle (this time on the UK Singles Chart).

But what further cements Nancy Sinatra's "cinematic" status is an offer too good to refuse: recording the theme song for the soundtrack of the new James Bond film, "You Only Live Twice" (1967). In the liner notes of the Nancy In London CD, to which the track would later be appended, Sinatra recalls being "scared to death" by the undertaking, and asking the song's authors if they were really sure they didn't want Shirley Bassey instead... But the production stood firm in its choice. Lucky for her, because for the occasion veteran composer John Barry — with the help of lyricist Leslie Bricusse — pulled yet another trick out of his hat: "You Only Live Twice" is an instant classic of austere grandeur, its prodigious orchestral opening — a simple two-bar theme in the high octaves of the violins and lush French horn harmonies — framing the smooth, wistful vocals of a Nancy in finer form than ever. It remains one of the finest themes in the entire vast catalogue of 007 soundtracks (complete with the inevitable covers, courtesy of Coldplay, Soft Cell and Shirley Bassey herself, plus a memorable use in the final sequence of the fifth season of "Mad Men").

In Nancy Sinatra's prolific 1967, two more albums under her name were released.

Sugar delivers another little gem from Hazlewood ("Coastin'") and another round of covers, including a tasty jazzed-up version of Irving Berlin's "All By Myself", but it serves mainly to capitalize on the success of "Something Stupid", of the almost-identically-titled "Sugar Town" — which, behind its breezy little tune, hides a bold allusion to sugar cubes laced with LSD — and of the languid ballad "Love Eyes", embellished with piano and strings.

For Country, My Way, on the other hand, Nancy trades her go-go boots for cowgirl boots, performing a selection of country hits. The highlight is undoubtedly the brilliant cover of "Jackson" (already a hit for Johnny Cash and June Carter) in a duet with Hazlewood, who also lends his voice to a revival of Don Gibson and Chet Atkins's old standard "Oh Lonesome Me" (1957). Oklahoma's fastest mustache sings on just one song, the languid "By The Way (I Still Love You)", but his presence is strongly felt throughout the record's grooves, which also include some extremely sugary pop confections, such as a slowed-down version of Skeeter Davis's immense "End Of The World", clearly well-suited to Nancy's voice, though in this new guise it loses a bit of the original's power.

Generally speaking, the saloon-queen costume doesn't seem especially suited to the slender silhouette of the ever-teased Nancy, who was decidedly more at home in pop and easy listening.

But the puss in boots of American pop had another ace up her sleeve, conceived once again with her favorite cowboy. Soft and velvety, right from the title: "Some Velvet Morning." A simply perfect ballad, with its airy string intro, its country inflections streaked with psychedelia, and its interlocking structure that turns relentlessly like a music box, shifting gears according to the alternation between the two voices in a classic call and response format: in common time, disorienting and reverb-drenched, Hazlewood's voice reckons with a heavy hangover and the memory of a lost love; in three-quarter time, Sinatra's whispers flute-like, mysterious lines like “Flowers are the things we know, secrets are the things we grow/ Learn from us very much, look at us but do not touch/ Phaedra is my name”. And the whole lyric is mysterious, dusting off from mythology the enigmatic figure of Phaedra, "the saddest of all the Greek goddesses." "Some Velvet Morning" first appeared on the album Movin' With Nancy (1967), the soundtrack to the eponymous TV special which featured a passionate performance of the song, and it would go on to become the lead single from the subsequent duet album Nancy & Lee. It would be covered by hosts of artists, including Vanilla Fudge, who turned it into something psych-gothic, and Thin White Rope, who transformed it into a blazing desert-rock ride.

In full creative symbiosis, the odd couple dishes out another lively nursery rhyme with "Lady Bird" and even follows in the cumbersome footsteps of another celebrated American music duo, Johnny Cash & June Carter, trying their hand at a new cover of "Jackson" (the country standard written in 1963 by Billy Edd Wheeler and Jerry Leiber) that the two had taken to success just a few months earlier (on a 45 with the evergreen "Sand" as the B-side).

The golden new year for the daughter of ol' blue eyes Frank closes with the eccentric theme from the film "Tony Rome," with her father playing the title detective role, a track that would be added to reissues of Nancy In London.

He is romantic, disillusioned, dark in complexion and voice, while she is sensual, elusive, secretly formidable and, mark this, almost always the winner

(Antonio Vivaldi)

Nancy & Lee, the perfect couple

From here through to 1968 - as Antonio Vivaldi writes on TomTomRock - "what dominates is the woman-man/angel-devil/cowboy-city girl dialectic; with Nancy, these pieces become dialogues-as-duels where he is romantic, disillusioned, dark in complexion and voice, while she is sensual, elusive, secretly formidable and, mark this, almost always the winner. All set against a sonic backdrop we might call gothic pop: beautiful melodies, dark sounds and plenty of almost cinematic epic sweep."

Sealing the magical alchemy of this new golden couple of sixties pop comes the album Nancy & Lee (1968), credited to the two of them equally. It's the first record to collect the best-known Sinatra-Hazlewood duets recorded up to that point ("Summer Wine," "Some Velvet Morning," "Jackson," "Sand," "Lady Bird"), plus a few unreleased and no less memorable tracks, starting with the opening cover of the Spector-esque "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," which in the Righteous Brothers' version stood as one of the supreme expressions of the Wall of Sound technique, and which Hazlewood slows down into something subtly lysergic and sepulchral.

Equally effective are the original episodes from the mustachioed Oklahoma playboy, such as the dusty (and doomed) love story of "Sundown, Sundown" and the self-mocking "I've Been Down So Long (It Looks Like Up To Me)," an orchestral country-pop number built on irresistible vocal harmonies, all played on the contrast between Hazlewood's deep, baritone voice and Nancy's childlike, sensual-lolita timbre.

It's hardly worth pointing out how the rapport between the two is at its peak throughout the record: you can feel the sheer fun with which Nancy and Lee ham it up and nudge each other while delivering Tom T. Hall's lines in "Greenwich Village Folk Song Salesman," or bask in the sticky-sweet sentiments of "Storybooky Children" and "My Elusive Dreams" (the No. 1 country hit by David Houston and Tammy Wynette).

As a sort of weird anticipation of the sophisticated dream-pop later coined by the duo David Lynch-Angelo Badalamenti a few years later, Hazlewood paints multiform arrangements, in which the radiance of pop is constantly undermined by hypnotic orchestrations, faint lysergic streaks, surreal music-hall tones and menacing country-western inflections. As if the sugary sweetness of the melodies had been irreparably altered by some mushroom or psychedelic flavoring. It's no coincidence that some would come to define the genre as "underground saccharine" (or even "cowboy psychedelia").

Nancy & Lee remains one of the greatest essays in sixties pop and one of the best duet albums ever made, the unique testimony to the encounter/clash between counterculture and the mainstream at the height of the psychedelic era. As Vivaldi writes again, "in Nancy's best songs it's impossible not to sense an oblique allure, a streak of darkness within the limpid melodic light, a disconnect between what is said and what is suggested. With her dyed blonde hair, short dresses and that cumbersome surname, she belonged entirely to pop's mainstream. At the same time, though, she transfigured it from within, making it dazzling and hyperreal. Or perhaps it was above all Lee Hazlewood who made sure things turned out that way."

Nancy & Lee would cast its shadow over future generations, setting a formidable standard that many would try to imitate, in some cases even successfully (the aforementioned examples of the duos Serge Gainsbourg-Jane Birkin, Nick Cave-Kylie Minogue, Mark Lanegan-Isobel Campbell), though almost never managing to renew its freshness.

These are years of intense television and film activity for Nancy, who also appears in the comedy "Speedway," starring Elvis Presley: an ideal closing of the circle for her, given that it all began with her greeting to the Messiah of Tupelo, and given that this would indeed be her last film. Because, at the height of her success as a singer and performer, the American artist would vanish from the scene - from film first and foremost, but later also from music.

What would leave the deepest mark, though, was the decision of her partner (always in art, never in life) Lee Hazlewood to leave the United States for Sweden, perhaps to save his son from the draft and a probable one-way ticket to Vietnam. It's 1968, and the echo of their duet album's success has yet to fade. By her own admission, Nancy feels "betrayed". And she quickly loses the thread of her career.

Ok Nancy, can I go back to Sweden?

Alright, boy

(“Got It Together Again”)

Eclipse of a Star

Songs like the melancholy "100 Years" and the breezy "Highway Song", written by Kenny Young and produced by Mickie Most for the European market, miss the mark entirely. And even the album that closes out the magical Sixties, Nancy (1969), loses all the oblique, restless charm of the duets with Lee, seeking refuge instead in a reassuring mainstream pop sound ("God Knows I Love You"), in airy covers of classics (from a Presley-esque "Memories" rearranged by Strange to an unlikely soft-jazzy take on the Doors' "Light My Fire"), in velvety rhythm'n'blues numbers (the catchy "Just Bein' Plain Old Me", the timeless standard "Son Of A Preacher Man", already tackled by Dusty Springfield just a few months earlier) and well-worn country standards ("Here We Go Again" by the duo Donny Lanier-Red Steagall, already covered by Ray Charles). There's also an affectionate tribute to her father, tucked into the bare but effective two-and-a-half minutes of "My Dad (My Pa)".

But the sense that the flame is dying out is stronger than ever. And the new decade has the ruthless job of confirming it.

As the decade turns, the woman who at the end of the magical Sixties seemed the undisputed queen of American pop risks, just a few months later, looking like a fossil from another geological era. These are years of intense, whirlwind change. Years of social struggles and victories, of rapid advances and cultural shifts. Years dominated by protest folk songs and rock played out before oceanic crowds. Suddenly Nancy seems trapped in a reactionary, outmoded image, like the covers of those glossy magazines that showed her smiling in a bikini, guitar in hand. Not even the country music she had long flirted with seems willing to offer her political asylum.

Nancy, in short, is at a dead end, as confirmed by Woman (1972), which finds her at best polishing the family's pop china (the sinuous "Kind Of A Woman", the far more saccharine "We Can Make It", "Flowers" and "I Call It Love") and reviving the stars-and-stripes country tradition ("One More Time", "There's A Party Goin' On") without any particular conviction.

Not even the pairing of ballads "Fell In Love With A Poet" and "It's The Love (That Keeps It All Together)", contributed by a young Kim Carnes - who would find her own big success almost ten years later with "Bette Davis Eyes" - manages to make an impact.

Perhaps feeling guilty for having abandoned her, a resurfaced Hazlewood comes to her rescue for the nostalgic encore of Nancy & Lee Again (1972). A collection of ten songs, mostly faded copies of what came before, which at best renews the pleasure of seeing the two reunited friends in front of the microphone again, with their evocative vocal interplay - though it rarely adds anything meaningful to the heights they'd already reached. When it does, as in the opening mining melodrama "Arkansas Coal (Suite)" with its dark, mysterious cadences, in the aching, illicit love story of "Paris Summer" (the album's peak and almost a sequel to "Summer Wine"), or in the fun back-and-forth of "Did You Ever" (No. 2 in the UK), the magic flickers back to life, while in the angry defiance of "Big Red Balloon" and the mournful "Down From Dover", Sinatra shows off a rawer, more pained performance that distances her from the perfectly polished, cool cliché of "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'".

But the real point of the whole exercise seems above all to be a reunion over a glass of whisky (or brandy), a delightful, intimate chat, like the playful "Got It Together Again" that closes the record, revealing the two's plans, with wishes along the lines of “I wish everybody would be quiet, and nice/ Yeah, and don’t throw rocks/ Yeah/ And don’t shoot guns/ Right/ And come home safe/ Right/ Because we miss ya”. With Lee teasing: "Ok Nancy, can I go back to Sweden?" And her wrinkling her nose and replying: "Alright, boy", before exiting the scene.

With the curtain drawn on the reunion with Lee Hazlewood, it also falls on Nancy Sinatra's recording career, with an eclipse lasting a full 23 years (save for her 1981 collaboration with country singer Mel Tillis on Mel And Nancy). During the Seventies, only a handful of singles appear, now rare items coveted by collectors, such as the lovely "Hook & Ladder" (featuring Ry Cooder on mandolin), the sparkling "Sugar Me", built entirely on delightful funk-soul grooves, the equally enjoyable "Kinky Love" (banned by some radio stations for its risqué lyrics and later turned into a dream-pop cover by Pale Saints), "Annabell Of Mobile", "It's For My Dad" and the "Indian Summer" recorded with Hazlewood, which is nothing but a cover of Joe Dassin's "L'été Indien", itself a cover of "Africa" by Albatros, the group founded by Toto Cutugno (!).

Midway through the decade, Nancy announces she wants to stop working in order to focus on her family life (in 1970 she remarried, to the dancer and choreographer Hugh Lambert, who would die 15 years later, leaving behind two daughters, Angela Jennifer and Amanda Kate). She would break her silence only to publish an affectionate biography of her father, "Frank Sinatra: My Father" (1985).

After learning from his daughter how much she would be paid for that photo shoot, father Frank is said to have given his blessing by exclaiming: 'Double it!'

A fifty-something pin-up

In 1995, though, came an unexpected comeback into the spotlight. A double surprise, no less. At 54, Nancy Sinatra agreed to pose nude for Playboy and returned to TV to promote a new album, One More Time. Legend has it that when her father Frank learned from his daughter how much she'd be paid for that photo shoot, he gave his blessing by exclaiming: "Double it!"

But beyond her enviable physical shape, Nancy could finally go back to flaunting her status as a pop muse, thanks to the interest in her songs (especially the duets with Lee) shown by new generations of chanteuses and by rockers like U2, Thurston Moore, Jarvis Cocker, Calexico and Morrissey. And that's nothing compared to the revival that would explode after the year 2000, triggered by new pop lolitas and above all by the Hollywood sadcore of Lana Del Rey, who not coincidentally dubbed herself "the gangster Nancy Sinatra".

Musically, One More Time (1995) offers no surprises or real novelty. Guitar in her lap and the inevitable go-go boots on her feet, Nancy shows up on the cover with an aggressive look, in keeping with her foray into the pages of Playboy. The album's content is certainly less aggressive: for the most part, these are Nashville-style country tracks, performed without much bite by a Sinatra who seems less than comfortable playing the part of an aging cowgirl (the title track, "Crocodile Tears", "Roadblock"). She fares better when slipping into the role of the sinuous chanteuse on "Now I Have Everything" and "Right Track, Wrong Train", skillfully blending pop melodies with country-folk flavors. Dull, on the other hand, is the country version of her father's classic "One For My Baby", next to which even the wildly out-of-place cover of the evergreen "Nights In White Satin" by the Moody Blues makes more sense, with the Jersey City singer pulling it off by staying fairly faithful to the original.

Three years later, Sheet Music: A Collection Of Her Favorite Love Songs (1998) is a pure exercise in maquillage for the benefit of the Sinatra brand. Twenty-one of her "favorite songs" performed in a syrupy crooner style that recalls her father (in chloroformed form) far more than her own scratchy duets with Hazlewood.

Here then come the signature tunes of two former Beatles, George Harrison ("Something") and Paul McCartney ("Maybe I'm Amazed"), alongside classics by The Mamas & The Papas (a tranquilized "California Dreamin'") and Ray Davies (a "Tired Of Waiting For You" airily rearranged by Strange). Also dredged up from her back catalogue are the versions of "Light My Fire" and "Kinky Love", while the saccharine ballads "The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning" and "When I Look In Your Eyes" seem to echo from another geological era entirely — though perhaps, paradoxically, that's exactly why they work better.

An album that is nothing more than nostalgia for a past that can never return. Today it can only make sense as big game for online collectors.

More interesting, if anything, is the following How Does It Feel? (1999), which digs out of the '70s drawers the fizzy "Sugar Me" and pairs it with the catchy, driving rhythm'n'blues of "Sweet Talkin' Candy Man", a "You're Gonna Make Love To Me" that sounds like a wildly belated ABBA hit, a deliriously funky version of the Dylanesque "Like A Rolling Stone", a scorching "Drummer Man" (with Hal Blaine front and center) and a "Happy" carried by the organ that brings the Hazlewood touch back to life.

But the album's real feat is the bizarre cover of "Walk On The Wild Side": not Lou Reed's classic, but Brook Benton's song from the 1962 camp film of the same name starring Laurence Harvey, Capucine and Jane Fonda. The dramatic drum intro and the interplay of piano and guitar supporting Nancy's smooth vocals make it a small gem of her late-period output.

At a time of new female rockers and Lilith Fair, Mrs. Sinatra was there as a reminder, if one were even needed, that she had gotten there first — and gone further — than many of them.

Three years later came the homage to the Golden State from the New Jersey girl, who transformed herself for the occasion into California Girl (2002). A strange collection of California-themed songs from Sinatra's repertoire combined with new versions of Bobby Troup's "Route 66", the evergreen Burt Bacharach tune "Do You Know The Way To San Jose", Chicago's "Saturday In The Park" and even a duet with his majesty Brian Wilson on the inevitable "California Girls". Beyond the bounds of kitsch, meanwhile, is a "Cuando Calienta El Sol" sung in questionable Spanish, backed only by bass and guitar.

Always a pleasing trademark, Nancy's distinctive voice has evolved over the years toward more jazzy, aching tones, which let her turn the Mamas and Papas' "California Dreamin'" into a blues lament and even flirt with rock on a poignant cover of Art Garfunkel's "99 Miles From L.A.".

Elsewhere, however, despite the contribution of guest stars like Blondie drummer Clem Burke and former Guns N' Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke, the attempt to connect with rock fails miserably, as in the flabby versions of Roy Wood's Move song "California Man" and the Eagles' "Hotel California".

Rock is a young person's game. It's not for people who worry about things like hair and make-up. And sleep

(Nancy Sinatra al New York Times)

The heroine of indie-rock

And yet, once the Californian hangover wore off, Sinatra proved she could handle rock just fine. Contradicting herself, first and foremost. "Rock - she'd said in an interview with the New York Times - is a young person's game. It's not for people who worry about things like hair and makeup. And sleep." But at 64, Nancy becomes an indie-rocker. Against her will or not, in the end, who cares? Because Sanctuary Records releases an album that sees her surrounded by an all-star team of rocker-admirers much younger than her: from pillars of the American alternative scene (Calexico, Jon Spencer, Pete Yorn) to gurus of British pop past and present (Morrissey, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp), from noise experimenters like Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth to international rock legends like U2 and Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band.

And the surprise is that the eleven songs on Nancy Sinatra (2004) bring the former girl with the boots back into the global spotlight. Urged on by her two daughters to join the project, the New Jersey singer finds fresh inspiration in the original compositions written specifically for her by her unpredictable partners in crime. Revealing an unexpected rapport with songs often far removed from her usual standards.

So here's a fearless Nancy navigating a blazing desert-rock brushed by Joey Burns (Calexico) on "Burning Down The Spark", amid twangy guitars and mariachi horns; diving passionately into the sultry blues-funk curves of "Ain't No Easy Way", with Jon Spencer murmuring seductively, a new Hazlewood; or even, egged on by Little Steven, launching into a '60s rock'n'roll with a swagger worthy of Ronnie Spector on "Baby Please Don't Go", or venturing into a sort of spoken word amid Thurston Moore's crooked noise guitars on "Momma's Boy".

But if the boldest experiments work, the tracks that seem tailor-made for her are no less effective. Take, for instance, the formidable Jarvis Cocker double bill: the Spectorian "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time", which pairs a razor-sharp lyric with (brit)pop orchestral harmony, and "Baby's Coming Back To Me", which glides over an evocative country-western weave of acoustic guitars, pedal steel and strings, cradling Nancy's melancholy crooning. And while Morrissey traps our heroine within typically Smiths-esque guitar phrasing and melodic hooks ("Let Me Kiss You"), Bono and The Edge instead catapult her into a smoky late-night cabaret for a Sinatra-style piano ballad in the fullest (and most familial) sense of the term ("Two Shots Of Happy, One Shot Of Sad").

Rounding things off are a bland, over-produced "About A Fire" (courtesy of her bandmates Tom Lilly and Lanny Cordola), the irreverent "Don't Mean Nothing" by Pete Yorn, and "Bossman", written by Phil Burns and Andy Holt of electronic act Reno together with the album's co-producers, A.J. and Matt Azzarto, which plays like a kind of modern update (slightly altered vocals included) of a classic Lee Hazlewood epic.

Taking a pop icon and surrounding her with a squad of contemporary admirers to try and revive the legend is nothing new - see, for example, the almost simultaneous operation carried out by Jack White for Loretta Lynn's "Van Lear Rose". But Nancy Sinatra manages to pull it off with freshness, refreshing the star's expressive range with new shades - she sounds more engaged here than in many of her earlier records - without ever distorting her artistic identity.

Fueling the comeback further is the renewed fame earned by her "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)", thanks to its inclusion in the soundtrack of "Kill Bill: Volume 1", directed by Quentin Tarantino and performed by Uma Thurman. A popularity that would spark new covers of the song just a year later, such as those by AudioBullys and Young Buck, as well as one by r'n'b artist Melanie Durrant.

The partnership with Morrissey, her fellow Los Angeles resident, is cemented instead with the recording of a new version of "Let Me Kiss You": the single will reach number 46 on the UK chart, launching Nancy Sinatra once again with a genuine hit after a full thirty years (a fate that will not befall the far less fortunate follow-up single, "Burnin' Down The Spark").

Nancy's magical 2004 is rounded off with another twist: a reunion alongside Lee Hazlewood for an unexpected third chapter, Nancy & Lee 3. Fourteen songs that show a Sinatra in fine form and a Hazlewood somewhat faded and hoarse in his classic role as gruff counterpart.

While some performances seem to coast wearily on sheer professionalism (the bluesy "Goin' Down Rockin'" and "Don't Let Go", the bloated easy listening of "After The Lovin'" and "Loving You, Loving Me", the saccharine country of "Texas Blue Moon"), other tracks occasionally reignite the spark, such as the tex-mex restyling of the Drifters hit "Save The Last Dance For Me", the poignant cover of Duane Eddy's "She Won't", cradled on languid guitar drones, and the odd interracial folk-pop novelty of "Gypsies And Indians", dug up by Lee from his 1993 record with Anna Hanski, which equates the two ethnicities ("God cut us from the same tree") and hints at improbable sexual innuendo (“I felt the fire in his red skin/ As we lay down in the sand/ And we made love by the blood moon”).

If the record's rock peak is unquestionably the cover of the vibrant "Barricades & Brickwalls" (the title track of Australian country queen Kasey Chambers' 2001 album), and its peak of sheer fun lies in the devilish western-folk of "Pack Saddle Saloon", the Sinatra family's crooner DNA pours entirely into the reinterpretation of Neil Sedaka's most melancholy ballad, "The Hungry Years", where Nancy takes center stage and leaves Lee grumbling in the background.

What might have seemed - beyond a charming reunion - the first chapter of a new, "mature" collaboration between the two sadly turns out instead to be the swan song of this cult duo of American pop: Lee Hazlewood in fact dies three years later, in 2007, from kidney cancer. Bringing his greatness back into the light, besides his evergreen hits, will be a new indie-rock generation that adopts him as its dark hero. His muse remembers him thus in an interview with the Boston Globe: "I always thought Lee was a fairy-tale writer. He wrote children's stories, then when he set them to music they took on a certain connotation... And between us it became a matter of chemistry: the sweet little fables turned into sexual fantasies. And the thing was, Lee and I didn't have a sexual relationship. I think our special chemistry was precisely due to the fact that we never slept together. It was all implied and inferred, but it never happened. It was a very interesting phenomenon and I'm glad to have been part of it." And in a later interview with Rolling Stone, Sinatra would add: "He pretended to be a hick, an ignoramus, but in reality he'd studied a lot. He was an army veteran. A worldly person who knew exactly what he was doing. On my records he brought out what he called the dumb sound. Dumb meant simple, not complicated. It consisted of the rhythm section, bass and drums, and three guitars. And everything changed for me."

Lana is a sweetheart. I've never met her, but what she said was a lovely gift, it brought my music back into the spotlight

(Nancy Sinatra)

On Lana's thread

After the 2004 rekindling, Nancy takes another long break from recording, interrupted nine years later by Shifting Gears (2013), a collection of previously unreleased recordings dug up from her archives, featuring interpretations of classics ranging from Broadway standards to pop hits of the Sixties and Seventies, such as “Killing Me Softly With His Song”, “Something” (Beatles) and Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” from “Jesus Christ Superstar”. All of it rearranged in orchestral style by her trusty collaborator Strange.

From here on, it's mostly reissues and compilations that pile up – not to be missed is the anthology Start Walkin' 1965-1976 (2021), which mostly contains tracks originally released as singles, drawn largely from the golden three-year run of 1966-68 – while the best promotional vehicle for Nancy Sinatra – who was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (2006) and an appearance in the final episode of the cult series “The Sopranos” – will turn out to be the new generations of indie artists who elevate her to icon status. Take, for instance, the unlikely Wilco, with whom she'll even take the stage in 2013 – for “Bang Bang” and “These Boots Are Made For Walkin'” – during a tour supporting Bob Dylan.

But above all it will be Lana Del Rey, the sad princess of Hollywood sadcore, who forcefully brings Sinatra's moods and aesthetic back into the spotlight, proclaiming herself “the gangster version” of her, and even trying her hand at a successful cover of “Summer Wine”. And Nancy will express her gratitude: “Lana is a darling. I've never met her, but what she said was a lovely gift, it brought my music back into the spotlight”.

And so, having crossed the threshold of eighty, the former girl with the boots enjoys the affection, the successes and the tributes (among the many, the “fembots” from the “Austin Powers” film), while also voicing progressive views – from invectives against Donald Trump to support for the Black Lives Matter movement – not exactly predictable, given her family background (Frank was a die-hard Republican) and her past as a darling of the Green Berets.

But Nancy Sinatra has been and continues to be a free woman, who dodges boundaries with the nonchalance of her pop refrains. “I don't think feminism and sexuality are mutually exclusive, in fact they reinforce each other”, she reminds us, for instance, in the booklet of her 2021 anthology. Are you ready, boots?

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