Original Release Date: January 01, 1963

Light In The Attic’s Lee Hazlewood Archive Series continues with an expanded reissue of Lee Hazlewood’s debut album. Re-mastered from the original tapes, this is the first time Trouble Is a Lonesome Town has been available in its original mono mix since the 1960s. Presented as a double LP with 15 bonus tracks and an eight page booklet, this is an essential purchase for Hazlewood fans or anyone curious about about the man before the mustache.

Originally released in 1963, Trouble… finds the bohemian cowboy sketching out a vivid picture of a backwater place named Trouble, where trouble with a small ‘t’ is never far away. “Trouble is little and it’s lonesome,” he says, on the title track, “you won’t find it on any map, but you can take three steps in any direction and you’re there.” Lee says plenty on the album. The first voice you hear is Hazlewood’s spoken-word narration. It’s a format the singer-songwriter would revisit frequently, introducing his stirring songs with a touch fireside storytelling in the rich, Texan drawl he’d tried hard to lose during years he was struggling to make it as an aspiring radio DJ.

Each mini, pre-song poem seems to impart unexpected wisdom. Indeed, if the record sounds remarkably wise and mature for a debut album, Hazlewood was, of course, no spring chicken on making this debut. 34 years old at the time of the album’s release, he was already a seasoned producer, writer and publisher with dozens of hits under his belt and a few singles under his own name and more under the pseudonym ‘Mark Robinson’ – all of which are included here in this reissue.

A pet producer of Duane Eddy’s, Hazlewood could turn his hand to any musical style (bonus ‘Mark Robinson’ track ‘Pretty Jane’ is unreconstructed rock ̵.......
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Bartek Chaciński (polifonia.blog.polityka.pl):
"(...) „Trouble Is A Lonesome Town” to niesamowity debiut – jeśli chodzi o muzyczną dojrzałość porównywalny z pierwszym albumem Leonarda Cohena (z którym sporo Hazlewooda łączyło, trochę też ze sobą konkurowali), ale o parę lat wyprzedzający Cohena. (...) Miasteczko Trouble tworzy scenerię niczym na płytach Cave’a – widać, że poza Dylanem i Cohenem Australijczyk miał jeszcze jednego cichego bohatera, zresztą głosowo też pozostał dość blisko. Jeśli wspomnimy jego duet z Kylie Minogue, to praprzodkiem były oczywiście duety Hazlewooda z Nancy Sinatrą (...)."



Original Release Date: January 01, 1963

Light In The Attic’s Lee Hazlewood Archive Series continues with an expanded reissue of Lee Hazlewood’s debut album. Re-mastered from the original tapes, this is the first time Trouble Is a Lonesome Town has been available in its original mono mix since the 1960s. Presented as a double LP with 15 bonus tracks and an eight page booklet, this is an essential purchase for Hazlewood fans or anyone curious about about the man before the mustache.

Originally released in 1963, Trouble… finds the bohemian cowboy sketching out a vivid picture of a backwater place named Trouble, where trouble with a small ‘t’ is never far away. “Trouble is little and it’s lonesome,” he says, on the title track, “you won’t find it on any map, but you can take three steps in any direction and you’re there.” Lee says plenty on the album. The first voice you hear is Hazlewood’s spoken-word narration. It’s a format the singer-songwriter would revisit frequently, introducing his stirring songs with a touch fireside storytelling in the rich, Texan drawl he’d tried hard to lo.......
more