When Nancy Sinatra was facing being dropped by her father's record label, Reprise, Lee Hazlewood stepped in to help her out. And he secured her a pretty good deal.
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In 1965, Reprise, owned by Frank Sinatra, was considering dropping Nancy Sinatra due to suffering performance in the U.S. Thankfully, however, Lee Hazlewood managed to get her a good deal.
When he sat down with Spencer Leigh for a feature with Now Dig This in 2005, Lee Hazlewood explained the situation.
Leigh asked Hazlewood whether it was true that Reprise was considering dropping her, which is when he lay out the story.
"Okay, he's a dad like everybody else but he's also a businessman and business is business, so to answer your question, I don't really know," Hazlewood said. "In those days if they were going to drop your contract, that is, not pick up on the option, then they had to notify you 30 days before it expired."
"They don't make mistakes now, but there weren't computers then. They forgot and no one noticed that Nancy's contract had expired."
Unfortunately, it seemed that when they did notice, they weren't so keen to pick Nancy back up.
How Lee Hazlewood Got Nancy Sinatra Back On Her Feet
"When 'Boots' was number one in half the countries in the world, Nancy came over to my house and she was crying," he said.
Apparently, she said that they didn't want her back and said she owed them $12,000.
He answered, "You're kidding, we've got the biggest record in the world."
"I rang my lawyer in New York and I rang Nancy the next day and said, 'How would you like $1m? I've got three labels that are offering that for you right now, and I can get something pretty good for myself as well.'"
After she spoke to her dad, he said she could write her own contract with Reprise. "After all, she was selling more records than him at the time."
He advised that she demanded she "never pay any musicians," "never pay for studio time," and she gets her masters after three years."
She liked the sound of it, and that's what she got. "Just don't tell them it was me as I've got to work with the other artists here."
