In 1963 Lee Hazlewood released his debut album Trouble is a Lonesome Town to little fanfare. It was a collection of solo acoustic songs stitched together with a narrative that described life in a fictional small town inhabited by outlaws, thieves, and down-and-out laborers. The album was hokey, but hip. Corny, but cool. It evoked a bygone era of pastoral American towns and their sometimes seedy underbellies, somewhat like a darker version of the Andy Griffith Show or a more sinister Prairie Home Companion. More importantly, it was a fully realized concept album that predated the Beatles' so-called "first" concept album Sgt. Pepper's by 4 years. Hazlewood also intended for the songs to serve as demos for his publisher in hopes that other artists might someday record them.

A half century later Thriftstore Masterpiece has done exactly that.   

Producer / Bandleader Charles Normal has reimagined the album as a fully orchestrated affair and enlisted a few of his friends to help out on vocal duties. Frank Black (Pixies), Isaac Brock (Modest Mouse), Courtney Taylor-Taylor (Dandy Warhols), Kristin Blix (Guards of Metropolis), Larry Norman, Eddie Argos (Art Brut), and Pete Yorn perform on this heavily stylized interpretation of a little known classic record. 

The album runs the gamut of Americana: Alt-Country butts heads with Mariachi-Surf, trashy Hard Bop, Lounge sounds, and Gershwinesque Rock and Roll throughout its ten tracks.

Charles Normal explains:

"I first came across the record around the turn of the millennium while living in Oslo, Norway. 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. 

I had just finished a tour playing guitar with Frank Black and asked him if he would sing a couple of the songs. While we were recording his vocals in his living room, he asked if his 8 year old son Julian could sing the first verse on "Son of a Gun". It turned out to be my favorite moment on the album. 

My brother, singer Larry Norman, also lent his voice to a couple of the tracks, but when he passed away from a heart attack in 2008 I fell into a deep funk and put the project on the back burner. I couldn't bring myself to harmonize with his vocals ... it was just too emotional to deal with. It wasn't until much later, prompted in part by Isaac Brock, that I fired up my recording gear, dusted off the tapes and hard drives, and began to finish it yet again. I went through my address book and started calling friends who happened to be in possession of great voices to see if they were interested in joining in.

As it turns out, Portland and Salem are far from being lonesome towns, and I feel privileged to have so many talented drinking and thinking buddies living in my Pacific Northwest neighborhood who were willing to take part in the recordings. When the songs were done I still needed a narrator to re-enact Hazlewood's original saga, but I couldn't think of a single person with the right voice. Then, one afternoon while sitting on my threadbare couch watching an Adam 12 rerun on some channel with triple digits, there was a knock on my door. It was my mailman Jerry, who intoned in his lilting drawl, "Howdy, I got a package here for ya."

"Dude!" I said, "You wanna be on a record?!?"

It took quite a while to put together but here at long last it is. An album six years in the making. My own personal Chinese Democracy. My interpretation and production of Trouble is a Lonesome Town." 

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


For a full list of album credits, who played on what, and other info, CLICK HERE.