Cowboy in Sweden [Original recording reissued]

Lee Hazlewood | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 27, 1999)
• Original Release Date: 1970
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: Smells Like Records
• ASIN: B00000IJGY
• Also Available in: Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,830 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Pray Them Bars Away

2. Leather & Lace

3. Forget Marie

4. Cold Hard Times

5. The Night Before

6. Hey Cowboy

7. No Train To Stokholm

8. For A Day Like Today

9. Easy Nad Me

10. What's More I Don't Need Her

11. Vem Kan Segla

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another slab of magnificence from Lee Hazlewood., April 22, 2000

By 

Monkey Knuckle Asteroid - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cowboy in Sweden (Audio CD)

Lee Hazlewood's genius knows no measureable bounds. He is a producer, writer, arranger, singer and performer. He can and does do it all. Thankfully, his long-obscure albums are being re-released by SLR (Thanks!) and you are afforded this wonderful opportunity to listen to one of the finest musical apparitions of our times...\

"Cowboy in Sweden" follows Lee's trend of employing female vocalists to counteract his coal mine of a voice and create something positively eerie. It works to maximum effect here, as his voice rumbles alongside the happy-go-lucky lilt of Nina Lizzel and Suzi Jane Hokum's accented voices.

Hazlewood is best compared to Tom Waits in his imagery and content. He talks of prisons and trains and lost loves and leaving town. And through it all, you hear the faint tone of subversion, of against all odds, because, frankly, someone like Lee Hazlewood shouldn't have been allowed to make albums...they didn't fit anywhere and would never appeal to more than a few thousand people around the world.

It is time for you to join the army of Lee Hazlewood.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Country-Pop Smorgasbord, April 28, 2003

By 

Kurt Harding "bon vivant" (Boerne TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cowboy in Sweden (Audio CD)

As I develop a belated appreciation for the talents of Lee Hazlewood, I have been picking up CDs of his earlier work one at a time. Cowboy In Sweden is one such recent acquisition. It offers the listener a smorgasbord of country-pop songs written for a Swedish TV show of the same name as this CD. Several of them should have attained the status of classics.
The whole CD is listenable and enjoyable despite the cutesy lyrics of Hey Cowboy and the sort of out of place anti-war sentiments (in a cowboy show?) of No Train To Stockholm. And it might be seen as merely pleasant but ordinary except for the presence of three great songs, two of which were penned by Hazlewood.
One of the best is a very humorous and very country prison song, Pray Them Bars Away. Hazlewood's wry sense of humor really comes through again and again. The closing song, Vem Kan Segla, is a haunting love song featuring Nina Lizell's Swedish vocals swirling around Hazlewood's baritone spoken translation in English. The best song is The Night Before, a stunning and mournful tale of sad emptiness after a one-night stand, with Hazlewood's regret-filled vocals interspersed with background organ and a short, yet powerful brass interlude.
Cowboy In Sweden is one of the best Hazlewood CDs I've heard thus far. If you are already a confirmed fan or are merely Hazlewood-curious, you can't go wrong with this.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Hazlewood's signature albums...., February 2, 2007

By 

Grigory's Girl "Grigory's Girl" (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cowboy in Sweden (Audio CD)

This is another great album from the Hazlewood cannon. It was the soundtrack to a TV special that he did roughly around 1969 or so. I would love to see a remastered DVD of Cowboy in Sweden. Nowadays, it seems everything is coming out on DVD (including some of the worst stuff known to man), so it would be sweet if Cowboy was released. The album is very good, despite the remastering job. Like someone else had written, there are a lot of pops and hisses here, which means vinyl was used instead of the original master tapes. Still, the album is very good, with some of Hazlewood's most moving compositions ever (and with him, that's saying something). The song For a Day Like Today is so beautiful and heartbreaking. It's probably my favorite Hazlewood song. Every Lee album I've gotten has been magnificent, and this one is no exception.