Let's get one thing straight: "I wear sneakers all the time," says Nancy Sinatra. "Sometimes people yell, 'Where are the boots?' But mostly they understand."

She's referring to the white go-go boots with which she has been linked in the public mind since 1966, when her defiant #1 hit "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'" elevated her to superstar status--and no longer merely the subject of her father Frank's paean "Nancy (With the Laughing Face)."

Misconceptions about Nancy Sinatra abound. That she only became famous because of her surname. That she was a one-hit wonder. And that little of substance lurks beneath her blond coif.

But as a laughter-filled interview reveals, Sinatra is a surprisingly complex character. She epitomizes the words she used in 1995 to describe the art of her longtime creative foil, Lee Hazlewood: "Tough and gentle, nasty and sweet, experienced and innocent."

Her new album drives that home. Nancy Sinatra (out September 28 on Sanctuary Records) features 11 cuts penned and performed by and with Morrissey, Steven Van Zandt, Pete Yorn, and members of Pulp, Sonic Youth, and U2. Calexico contribute the mariachi-brass-laden "Burnin' Down the Spark," while Blues Explosion's Jon Spencer joins Nancy on the raunchy duet "Ain't No Easy Way."

Sinatra, 64, confesses that the impressions a few collaborators brought to the project caught her off guard. "Some people see me as a mother figure, and some as a teller of fairy tales," she says. The prominent placement of her chilling rendition of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 was even more startling. "I was pretty shocked by what was going on underneath it," confesses the singer about the morbid opening sequence, though she praises the director.

Her current patron saint is Morrissey. The mother of two avid Smiths fans, Nancy immediately recognized him the night he knocked on her London hotel room door in 1995, seeking her autograph. "We've been friends ever since. I'm crazy about him."

Not only did the Mozzer feature Nancy prominently at this year's Meltdown music-and-arts festival in London, he released her new album via his own Attack imprint, and penned the lead single, "Let Me Kiss You." If that ditty sounds familiar, that's because it also appears on his recent hit, You Are the Quarry.

Burns, Morrissey, and Thurston Moore are just the latest in a line of well-chosen collaborators Nancy's tapped throughout her career. Contrary to allegations that she owes her celebrity to name alone, Nancy's early recordings--chirpy singles like "Think of Me"--were ignored in America. It wasn't until she hooked up with Hazlewood and arranger Billy Strange, and began singing in a lower register, that she started scoring hits.

To this day, Nancy admits that, as groovy as she seemed, she didn't always understand where her early creative team was coming from. Take "Some Velvet Morning," the eerie Hazlewood duet subsequently covered by twosomes from Lydia Lunch and Rowland S. Howard to Primal Scream and Kate Moss. "I still have no idea what that song is about," she chuckles.

That befuddlement isn't singled out to imply Sinatra is a bubblehead. Au contraire, she has carefully maintained control over the masters to her own recordings. "Dad gave me two pieces of advice: 'Own your own masters, and stay away from what I do, and you'll be alright.' I followed both, and I'm grateful."

Retiring from show business in the mid-'70s to concentrate on her family, Nancy returned to the public eye in 1995, with the country album One More Time and a controversial Playboy pictorial ("Hefner had said I should do one for decades"). Unfortunately, the ensuing publicity didn't boost album sales much.

"The world is a sexist place, so lots of female singers suffer having to live up to that image, and are discarded once that image fades," notes Pulp sideman and solo artist Richard Hawley. "Nancy is far more intelligent, and deserves credit for being a great artist."

Judging from the New York Times, which described her August 14 appearance at Little Steven's Underground Garage Festival as "the day's most deliciously weird set," Nancy can still captivate crowds, missed notes or not. "I don't hide anything," she concludes. "What you see is what you get." And what-you-get can kick your fantasy Nancy's ass. Even in sneakers.