THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT... LEE HAZLEWOOD

Some velvet mornin' when I'm straight
I'm gonna open up your gate
And maybe tell you 'bout Phaedra
And how she gave me life
And how she made it end
Some velvet mornin' when I'm straight

So begins one of the strangest pop songs of all time, Some Velvet Morning by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, one of the most amazing and completely surreal pop duos ever. Frank Sinatra's sweet-voiced little girl and a big ugly country singer with a DEEP voice and a quirky sense of humour made for a potent and unique combination and while Nancy was a big part of that success, it was mostly down to Lee, who sadly died at the weekend.

Hazlewood wrote Nancy's biggest hit - and girl power anthem - These Boots Are Made For Walkin' as well as writing, producing and singing with her on classic tracks like Summerwine, Sand and Ladybird. He also discovered and gave Duane Eddy and Gram Parsons their first big breaks, but what made him so special was his quirkiness and darker edges.

Famously, he instructed Sinatra to sing These Boots 'like a 14 year old who fucks truck drivers', while the sweet and innocent-sounding Sugartown was actually an ode to LSD. Fittingly, when he discovered that he was dying of cancer, Hazlewood was spurred into action and recorded one last album called Cake And Death after an Eddie Izzard joke. Idiosyncratic to the last, he even did a new version of Some Velvet Morning sung by his young granddaughter Phaedra.

It's a hit and miss collection, as are almost all of his albums, simply because Hazlewood has always been an artist who works to his own beat and makes music for himself. With Cake And Death he started into the abyss and still found something to laugh at and something to make you smile. There was no-one else like him in the music industry and there probably never will be again and that's why he will be sorely missed even if he was always too offbeat for the mainstream.

But ask Jarvis Cocker, Richard Hawley or Nick Cave who inspired them to get into music and they'll all say Lee Hazlewood...