Label: DOL

Reissued 12/5/2025, Originally released 1963

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. 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’. The cover sees Lee by the railroad tracks in Avondale, west of Phoenix. Smoking a cigarette and holding a guitar case, Hazlewood’s myth was laid out here. The newly minted performer’s long journey had taken him from Texas to Los Angeles via service in the armed forces and radio stations in small-town America. By 1963 he’d made it as far as the Hollywood Hills, but in many ways, his story was only just beginning. His 1963 liner notes still true nearly 50 years later. “I happen to think that Trouble is as significant a chunk of Americana as has been written in many years,” he wrote. “But don’t let that get in your way. It was written to be enjoyed and to entertain. It will surely do that.”

Track listing:

1. Long Black Train  
2. Ugly Brown  
3. Son Of A Gun
4. We All Make The Flowers Grow    
5. Run Boy Run  
6. It's An Actuality
7. I Guess It's Love
8. Fort Worth
9. Six Feet Of Chain
10. The Railroad    
11. Look At That Woman  
12. Peculiar Guy  
13. Trouble Is A Lonesome Town
14. Mark Robinson–    Can't Let Her See Me Cry
15. Mark Robinson–    I've Made Enough Mistakes Today