HEART AND SOLE

Decades before Madonna's bare bosoms and hard-boiled blasphemy made her the vixen of the MTV era, Nancy Sinatra forged a feisty fatale persona from a simple pair of boots. In out-to-there eyeliner and a frosted, pre-Farrah flip, she exuded kitschy, sex-kitten style and don't-mess-with-me attitude on ''These Boots Are Made for Walkin','' the '66 song that put her on the musical map. Prior to retiring to raise two daughters, Ol' Blue Eyes' oldest had sold millions of records, becoming the plucky princess of pop with such hits as ''Sugar Town,'' ''Somethin' Stupid'' (with Dad), and ''Jackson,'' sung with gritty-voiced Lee Hazlewood. Suddenly, still babe-a-licious at 54, she is once more hotter than a pepper sprout: ''Boots'' was recently revived by Sam Phillips on the Ready to Wear soundtrack, she has a swampy, Bobbie Gentry-meets-Bonnie Raitt new album- appropriately titled One More Time-and she wears little more than those ubiquitous boots in a May Playboy pictorial. ''It's taken on an energy that can't be stopped,'' marvels Sinatra, claiming her comeback is more coincidence than contrivance. ''I don't know how I'm going to do it at all,'' she sighs, naming as additional projects the rerelease of her LP catalog on CD and a TV documentary she's producing about her father. Less than thrilled with Ready to Wear's ''Boots'' (''It's OK, but you can't top the original-I was disappointed they didn't ask me to do it''), Sinatra insists she'll never tire of her trademark song. ''It's meant too much in my life.'' As for the current rock scene, favorites include Courtney Love (''brilliant''), Green Day, and Des'ree. Pearl Jam is another story: ''I've yet to catch them when they sounded in tune.'' A widow (second husband Hugh Lambert died 10 years ago), Sinatra dates ''a handful of friends in their 30s to 60s with whom I feel safe and secure.'' But she admits to pulling out those trusty boots to walk all over an uppity amour. ''Definitely,'' she laughs. ''I don't know any woman who hasn't.''