Description

Riding the crest of successive hit-making for Duane Eddy, Sanford Clark, Dean Martin and Nancy Sinatra, the ever industrious Lee Hazlewood still found time to release his excellent third solo album in 1965. His second solo recording for the Reprise label, Fridays Child indulges his signature country-pop flare and pioneering use of vocal reverb.

With electric guitar leads, harp and female backup vocals, the album finds Hazlewood embellishing his arrangements, though some of its strongest moments draw their impact only from his rich timbre. Some artists develop their voice for years; Hazlewoods third album proves it was an innate and irrevocable gift.

Weepy guitar leads kick off the title track and Hazlewood takes up the story of twinkling sorrow and bad luck. He often speckles pain with humor, but Fridays Child is one of his most purely somber ballads. Elsewhere, with finger snaps, sparse backup vocals and Hazlewoods emotive intonation, the intro of Houston alone could carry on entirely a cappella and still endure as a classic. The composition made a hit for Dean Martin, but the Fridays Child version shows Hazlewoods inimitable skill as a vocal stylist.

Mostly lacking the dada-esque humor of his first two albums, Fridays Child places Hazlewood in league with the eras greatest traditional songwriters, though one for whom pop conventions were to be bucked and cast aside.

First-ever vinyl reissue of his third solo album, originally released in 1965