* Nancy Sinatra - hits & rarities *

Up for grabs, here's a mixed bag of Nancy Sinatra-goodies. The daughter of The Voice, best known for her '66-hit 'These Boots Are Made For Walkin', gave us many more memorable songs. 'Bang Bang (She Shot Me Down)' ofcourse, her cover of the Sonny Bono-penned Cher-hit, that found a new audience through the soundtrack of Tarantino's Kill Bill part 1. Then there's 'How Does That Grab You, Darlin'?' (her next hit after 'Boots'), the James Bond-ish 'The Last Of The Secret Agents' (Nancy co-starred in the film of the same name, released one year before she sang the theme song of the 007-movie 'You Only Live Twice'), and then 'Sugar Town' - all from 1966.

You also ought to know the songs Nancy recorded with Lee Hazlewood for their '68-album 'Nancy & Lee', especially 'Some Velvet Morning', 'Sand' and 'Jackson' (great video!).

The other day I came across some Nancy-songs I hadn't heard before but are well-worth sharing. 'Machine Gun Kelly' for instance, a 1972-recording of a tune that James Taylor had included on his 'Mud Slide Slim'-album the previous year. 

Another nice surprise is her '73-remake of 'Ain't No Sunshine', originally recorded by its author Bill Withers in 1971. Both Nancy-covers can be found on 'Cherry Smiles', a digital-only album released in 2009 (available from the iTunes-store).

In 1999 Varese-Sarabande released the Nancy Sinatra-compilation 'You Go-Go Girl', which somehow managed to escape my attention until recently. One of the greatest finds on this CD is a so-far unreleased demo that Nancy and Lee recorded in 1969 of 'Love Is Strange', the song made famous in 1956 by Mickey & Sylvia, but actually written by Bo Diddley and for legal reasons credited to his wife Ethel Smith. The same CD also includes a weird unknown Nancy-song from 1969 called 'Zodiac Blues', credited to a man we've championed here before: Lincoln Chase (see Secret Museum-post December 4, 2014)

And do you know the Cola-commercials featuring Nancy Sinatra? They're even on Youtube, those she did for Royal Crown Cola and at least two she sang for Coca Cola. You can find them here and here. Enjoy!