Thriftstore Masterpiece - Trouble Is A Lonesome Town (Pete Yorn, Frank Black, Isaac Brock, The Dandy Warhols, Art Brut)

2013 debut release from revolving music collective devoted to paying homage to the underdog records of years past. This album revisits Lee Hazelwood's 1963 lost classic Trouble Is a Lonesome Town and features Pete Yorn, Frank Black, Isaac Brock, Courtney Taylor-Taylor (The Dandy Warhol's), Eddie Argos (Art Brut), the late Larry Norman and more.

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 trend that is so common in today' s music world. Hazelwood had originally intended the songs as demos for his publisher, in hopes that other artists might someday record them. A half century later, the music collective known as Thriftstore Masterpiece has done exactly that.