Cowboy in Sweden

Directed by Swedish filmmaker Torbjorn Axelman, this 52-minute program was essentially a video complement to Hazlewood's 1970 album Cowboy in Sweden. Much in the manner of his old cohort Nancy Sinatra's late-'60s TV special Movin' With Nancy (in which Hazlewood appeared), it's a string of early music videos in which Hazlewood mimes many of the songs from the LP. There's Hazlewood riding a horse through the Swedish countryside; Hazlewood singing to close-up shots of ambling polar bears; Hazlewood wearing snowshoes, to emphasize that yes, it can get really cold up there in Sweden; Hazlewood in vignette-scenarios where he breaks up with women; and so on. Occasionally, Hazlewood sticks in some cornball, folksy on-screen spoken narration about Swedish life. While there's a hokey, dated quality, it's fun viewing, partially for that very reason, but more because the songs are actually pretty good combinations of low-rent Johnny Cash folk-country, pop, and a bit of rock. In fact, Hazlewood runs through every song from Cowboy in Sweden over the course of the special, including standouts like "What's More I Don't Need Her," "The Night Before," "No Train to Stockholm," "Forget Marie," "Vem Kan Segla," and "Leather & Lace" (the last two of those duets with Swedish pop singer Nina Lizell). As a blast from the then-recent past, there's also a rendition of the Native American narrative "The Nights," which he'd put on a 1967 album. To break up the Hazlewood content, there are also song-apiece guest turns by his occasional duet partner Suzi Jane Hokom and three obscure soul-pop-rock groups of the period: the George Baker Selection (who do their hit "Little Green Bag"), Steve Rowland and the Family Dogg, and Rumplestiltskin.