‘Trouble Is A Lonesome Town’, the 1963 debut album by Lee Hazlewood, came and went with not a lot of notice.
Hazlewood had already made a name for himself as a songwriter and producer for Duane Eddy. He produced Eddy’s hits ‘Rebel Rouser’ and ‘Peter Gunn’. In the mid 60s he wrote and produced ‘Summer Wine’ and ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ for Nancy Sinatra. But when he released Hazlewood released his first album, no-one cared … until now.
‘Thriftstore Masterpiece presents Lee Hazlewood’s Trouble Is A Lonesome Town’ is a tribute album to an album. The songs from that first Hazlewood album are covered Frank Black, Courtney Tayor-Taylor and Pete Yorn as well as Larry Norman, Kristin Blix, Isaac Brock, Eddie Argos and Larry Norman.
‘Trouble Is A Lonesome Town’ was made as a concept album four years before The Beatles made ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’.
Producer Charles Norman reimagined the album and recruited Black, Brock, Taylor-Taylor and friends create a 2013 version of the record 50 years after the original album came out.
“I first came across the record around the turn of the millennium while living in Oslo, Norway,” Normal said in a statement. “I found it in a secondhand junk shop and it struck a nostalgic note somewhere within me. It made me homesick for the panoply of Americana I had experienced while slumming it in the Southwestern border towns and California desert whistle stops I drifted through when I first started playing music on the road. The record didn’t leave my turntable for months. Years later I started to envision the record as a more orchestrated statement and began recording the basic tracks in my studio”.
THE CAST
1. “Long Black Train” – Frank Black
2. “Ugly Brown” – Larry Norman
3. “Son Of A Gun” – Julian Clark, Frank Black
4. “We All Make The Flowers Grow” – Kristin Blix
5. “Run Boy Run” – Frank Black
6. “Six Feet Of Chain” – Pete Yorn
7. “The Railroad” – Isaac Brock
8. “Look At That Woman” – Courtney Taylor-Taylor
9. “Peculiar Guy” – Eddie Argos
10. “Trouble Is A Lonesome Town” – Larry Norman
Shock Records will release Thriftstore Masterpiece Presents Lee Hazlewood’s Trouble Is A Lonesome Town’ tomorrow July 12 but you can hear the full stream of the album exclusively at Noise11 today.
