N@ncy S!natr@ - 1968 - L!ghtn!ng's G!rl

Lightning's Girl/Happy/Good Time Girl/100 Years



Nancy Sandra Sinatra (born June 8, 1940) is an American singer and actress. She is the daughter of Frank Sinatra and is widely known for her 1966 signature hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'".

Other defining recordings include "Sugar Town", the 1967 number one "Somethin' Stupid" (a duet with her father), the title song from the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, several collaborations with Lee Hazlewood such as "Jackson", and her cover of Cher's "Bang Bang". Nancy Sinatra began her career as a singer and actress in November 1957 with an appearance on her father's ABC-TV variety series, but initially achieved success only in Europe and Japan. In early 1966 she had a transatlantic number-one hit with "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'". She appeared on TV in high boots, and with colorfully dressed go-go dancers, creating a popular and enduring image of the Swinging Sixties. The song was written by Lee Hazlewood, who wrote and produced most of her hits and sang with her on several duets, including the critical and cult favorite "Some Velvet Morning". In 1966 and 1967, Sinatra charted with 13 titles, all of which featured Billy Strange as arranger and conductor. 

 Sinatra also had a brief acting career in the mid-1960s including a co-starring role with Elvis Presley in the movie Speedway, and with Peter Fonda in The Wild Angels. In Marriage on the Rocks, Frank and Nancy Sinatra played a fictional father and daughter.

Sinatra was signed to her father's label, Reprise Records, in 1961. Her first single, "Cuff Links and a Tie Clip", went largely unnoticed. However, subsequent singles charted in Europe and Japan. Without a hit in the US by 1965, she was on the verge of being dropped. Her singing career received a boost with the help of songwriter/producer/arranger Lee Hazlewood, who had been making records for ten years, notably with Duane Eddy. Hazlewood became Sinatra's inspiration.[citation needed] He had her sing in a lower key and crafted songs for her. Bolstered by an image overhaul — including bleached-blonde hair, frosted lips, heavy eye make-up and Carnaby Street fashions — Sinatra made her mark on the American (and British) music scene in early 1966 with "These Boots Are Made for Walkin''", its title inspired by a line in Robert Aldrich's 1963 western comedy 4 for Texas starring her father and Dean Martin. One of her many hits written by Hazlewood, it received three Grammy Award nominations, including two for Sinatra and one for arranger Billy Strange. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. She appeared on TV in high boots, and with colorfully dressed go-go dancers, a craze during the late Sixties, and created a popular and enduring image of the Swinging Sixties.

 A run of chart singles followed, including the two 1966 Top 10 hits "How Does That Grab You, Darlin'?" (U.S. No.7) and "Sugar Town" (U.S. No.5). "Sugar Town" became her second million seller. The ballad "Somethin' Stupid" — a duet with her father — hit No.1 in the U.S. and the U.K. in April 1967 and spent nine weeks at the top of Billboard's easy listening chart. It earned a Grammy Award nomination for Record of the Year and remains the only father-daughter duet to hit No.1 in the U.S.; it became Sinatra's third million-selling disc. Other 45s showing her forthright delivery include "Friday’s Child" (U.S. No.36, 1966), and the 1967 hits "Love Eyes" (U.S. No.15) and "Lightning’s Girl" (U.S. No.24). She rounded out 1967 with the raunchy but low-charting "Tony Rome" (U.S. No.83) — the title track from the detective film Tony Rome starring her father — while her first solo single in 1968 was the more wistful "100 Years" (U.S. No.69). In 1968 she recorded the Kenny Young song "The Highway Song" with Mickey Most producing for the U.K. and European markets. The song reached Top 20 in the U.K. and other European countries.

Sinatra enjoyed a parallel recording career cutting duets with the husky-voiced, country-and-western-inspired Hazlewood, starting with "Summer Wine" (originally the B-side of "Sugar Town"). Their biggest hit was a cover of the country song, "Jackson". The single peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1967, when Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash also made the song their own. In December they released the "MOR"-psychedelic single "Some Velvet Morning", regarded as one of the more unusual singles in pop, and the peak of Sinatra and Hazlewood’s vocal collaborations. It reached No.26 in the US. The promo clip is, like the song, sui generis. The British broadsheet The Daily Telegraph placed "Some Velvet Morning" in pole position in its 2003 list of the Top 50 Best Duets Ever. ("Somethin' Stupid" ranked number 27).

In 1967, she recorded the theme song for the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. In the liner notes of the CD reissue of her 1966 album, Nancy In London, Sinatra states that she was "scared to death" of recording the song, and asked the songwriters: "Are you sure you don't want Shirley Bassey?" There are two versions of the Bond theme. The first is the lushly orchestrated track featured during the opening and closing credits of the film. The second – and more guitar-heavy — version appeared on the double A-sided single with "Jackson", though the Bond theme stalled at No.44 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. "Jackson"/"You Only Live Twice" was more successful in the U.K., reaching No.11 on the singles chart during a nineteen-week chart run (in the Top 50) that saw the single become the 70th best-selling single of 1967 in the U.K.

In 1966 and 1967 Sinatra traveled to Vietnam to perform for the US troops. Many US soldiers adopted her song "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" as their anthem, as shown in Pierre Schoendoerffer's Academy Award winning documentary The Anderson Platoon (1967) and reprised in a scene in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987). Sinatra recorded several anti-war songs, including "My Buddy", featured on her album Sugar, "Home", co-written by Mac Davis, and "It's Such A Lonely Time of Year", which appeared on the 1968 LP The Sinatra Family Wish You a Merry Christmas. In 1988 Sinatra recreated her Vietnam concert appearances on an episode of the television show China Beach. Today, Sinatra still performs for charitable causes supporting US veterans who served in Vietnam, including Rolling Thunder Inc.