Lee Hazlewood was a 36-year-old writer and producer who had worked with Duane Eddy, and written the hit song 'Houston' for Dean Martin. He had also written an album of his own, and at the ripe old age of 36 was thinking of retiring from the music industry.

Meanwhile, Nancy Sinatra had been written off as a tuneless teenybopper. But Lee found that Nancy's voice had a toughness and energy that could be nurtured and that's what he did. He got her to sing a few keys lower and told her to do so like "a 16-year-old who screws truck drivers". This spurious approach came into its own on the second single he produced with her, 'These Boots are Made for Walking'.

Initially written for a man, Nancy said she should sing it. "The black girls had been doing it for years, " she said later, "using a more masculine side, having the testosterone kick in, but the white girls hadn't caught on before me."

It was a huge hit. When Nancy's record company, Reprise, suggested she do duets, she insisted Lee be her partner. What they created was really, really special. Classic Hazlewood compositions like 'Summer Wine', 'Sand' and 'Some Velvet Morning' entered the charts, each typically featuring Nancy's crystal clear alto on the naive child-like parts and a deep gravelly baritone from Lee providing a wry, experienced and jaded commentary.

Instantly recognisable and drowned in distinctive Hazlewood reverb and countrified, psychedelic orchestration, there was also something dangerous in the mix. Lee's songs were filled with drug culture references and sexual innuendo, as well as large measures of darkness and humour. There was a much cherished rumour that poor innocent little Nancy didn't know what the songs were about.

They were a distinctive looking pair . . . the sexkitten blonde go-go girl Sinatra and the older, smaller, moustachioed and hang-dogged Hazlewood.

"He called us beauty and the beast, " Sinatra said.

They benefited from the fact that Heatmagazine wasn't dogging their every step . . . innuendo about drug use and sex being much more alluring than photos of the same thing. Nancy Sinatra says it was their sexual tension that kept the music so vibrant, but they never acted on it and in an interview last year Lee said "and now we're old enough to tell you if we did".

In 1970 Lee went to live in Sweden so his son could avoid the draft, and there he produced a string of fantastic solo albums, but it was the end of Lee and Nancy. Both of them had rich and varied careers, but it's their work with each other that does it for me.

Their duets have been murdered by everyone from Bono and Andrea Corr, to Primal Scream and Kate Moss, to me and my girlfriend. In 1995 they reunited to produce an album called Lee and Nancy 3 and there was always the possibility they might do so again, but last year it was revealed that Lee had renal cancer. He dealt with it stoically, releasing his swansong album Cake or Death and noting how "dying really drives your price up". Last week his price went through the roof. He died on 4 August and the best singing partnership ever definitively came to an end.