HAZLEWOOD was obsessive about achieving new sounds, and this pursuit led to the installation of a gigantic grain tank onto the side of the building which housed the studio. The tank was outfitted with a mike and speaker setup, and became a truly monstrous echo chamber, heard to great effect on those early Eddy sides. Another of LEE's many innovations in this period was the "stacking" of bass players; Fender bass for crispness on top of an upright bass for depth of tone underneath.
What most people don't know is that observing these sessions, and no doubt absorbing most of LEE's techniques, was a young wannabe producer newly recruited by Sill, by the name of Phil Spector. And it's also no coincidence that many of LEE's hand-picked session players, including Al Casey, Steve Douglas, Jim Horn and Larry Knechtel, went on to become part of the legendary "Wrecking Crew", Hollywood's most in-demand group of session musicians, and the interpreters of countless milestones of American music from the 60s and 70s.
The early 60s saw HAZLEWOOD establish a new label, LHI (LEE HAZLEWOOD Industries), and branch out into new territory both as writer/producer and as a performer, with his first solo albums, 1963's Trouble Is A Lonesome Town and The N.S.V.I.P.s, the following year. In 1967 LHI released the first album by Gram Parsons' short-lived group, the International Submarine Band.
By the mid-sixties, LEE had achieved some significance with mega-hits and artistic milestones, and had garnered the respect of his peers (not to mention a swimming pool and a nice little stockpile of Chivas Regal). So with the advent of the British Invasion (which was itself profoundly fueled by those pioneering Duane Eddy records), and the sea-change brought upon the Industry by more self-contained artistic projects like the Beatles et al, he had become quite taken with the idea of "retirement" from the music business. That is, until he met Nancy.
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