Track Listing

1. Drunken Poet's Dream
2. It's A Shame
3. Girl Downtown
4. Bad Liver And A Broken Heart
5. Beaumont
6. I Got A Gig
7. Faulkner Street
8. Wild As A Turkey
9. Don't Let Me Fall
10. A Lover Like You
11. I Don't Wanna Grow Up
12. Knockin' Over Whiskeys
13. Willing To Love Again
14. She Left Me For Jesus

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2080 in Music
• Brand: Hayes
• Released on: 2008-04-08
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Album Description
On his new album, Trouble In Mind, the 32 year-old Carll navigates his way through both stormy weather and calm, sun-drenched waters with ease, emerging with songs that melt even the hardest heart in town. Their impact is heightened by the fact that they're songs born of both immersion in the works of his songwriting heroes and plenty of real world experience.

Those elements certainly permeate Trouble In Mind, but there's a much sharper focus to the material, thanks in part, to more time in the studio and some great players sure to be familiar to roots-rock aficionados, including, Dan Baird, Darrell Scott, Will Kimbrough and former Flying Burrito Brother Al Perkins.

Carll's personality, emotional but never too sentimental, mischievous, funny, world-weary and sardonic, imbues every track of Trouble in Mind.

From the Artist
"When I started, I moved down to this place called Crystal Beach, Texas where you need to take a ferry from Galveston across the bay to get to this little peninsula on the Gulf of Mexico," recalls Carll. "It's this isolated coastal community with a wild assortment of people either hiding out, hanging on or getting lost-- a lot of drugs and drinking, a fair amount of violence, but at the same time a lot of really interesting people with great stories to tell. Folks in the bars there weren't necessarily interested in what I had to say as a songwriter-- they wanted to hear David Allan Coe and Merle Haggard, and other stuff they knew. So that's what I did six nights a week for four years. I haven't run into tougher crowds since. It was an initiation into becoming a performer."

"My first record I did in five days, and my second one we did in twelve," Carll explains. "This time around I had a solid month, so it was really a luxury. It was amazing to get all these talented people in the room and have them listen to me describe my vision and then go out and try to realize that and capture it on tape. My strength isn't that I have the world's most amazing voice or that I'm this incredible player -- hopefully it's that there's some aspect of my personality and my lyrics that people can relate to."

About the Artist
If you haven't already heard of Hayes Carll, you soon will. In the three years since his self-released second album, Little Rock became available, Carll has toured relentlessly in North America and abroad (performing over two hundred shows a year), founded a successful singer-songwriter music festival on the Gulf Coast of Texas, secured a record deal with Lost Highway Records, and has even seen Little Rock become the first self-released album to reach #1 on the Americana Music Chart. He's only getting started.

Carll has developed that over a long stretch that began when he was still in his teens, a stretch he spent writing poems, short stories and songs by the notebook-full. He eventually discovered that the last of those three flowed from him most easily, and while he dutifully headed off to college, he spent more time strumming and singing. To hear him tell it, "I sort of sabotaged my career options to the point where, by the time I was out of school, I was pretty much unemployable and had no choice but to be a musician."

After moving to the Gulf Coast, Carll honed his craft in the area bars and beer-joints as well as more serious folk clubs like the venerable Old Quarter in Galveston, where he opened for a wide array of respected songwriters such as Ray Wylie Hubbard, Willis Alan Ramsay and many others. By 2002, he was ready to unleash his recorded indie debut, Flowers and Liquor, which, while not widely distributed, garnered plenty of critical praise, including American Songwriter's claim that the disc "suggest[s] the young Texan might be the next great songwriter from a state full of maestros."

He lived up to that praise on his next outing, Little Rock, an offering on which Carll showed off his stylistic breadth by steering his band from searing rock to jazz-tinged balladry -- a scope that earned praise both at home and across the pond, where the Irish Times raved "This is the first mighty country record of the year, a bruised, bedraggled affair full of jagged memories and wry observations."

Carll's live performances continue to win over fans everywhere. His clever, irreverent lyrics and sharp observations combined with his warm Texas drawl make his stories and anecdotes as compelling and entertaining as his songs. There's that sweet taste of honey followed with the sharp sting of a wisecrack.

Customer Reviews

Witty, fun, true Texas country
I'd never heard of Hayes Carll. I mean, here in Illinois, we don't get a whole lot of info about Texas musicians, unless they sell out and go national (Pat Green, Jack Ingram, etc), or have a long-standing history of being songwriting legends (Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, etc). So when I read a review of this album in a magazine, I basically skimmed it over--until I read that Carll covered a Tom Waits tune. That stopped me. Texas country singers are known for their, um, guts...but covering a Tom Waits tune? That can make or break ya. I just had to check it out.

Well, I'm glad I did. The Waits tune is "I Don't Wanna Grow Up," and Carll certainly does a good job covering it. But, let's face it--there's a hell of a lot more. Carll's own songwriting is downright admirable: from the fun-loving (yet dark-undertoned) "Drunken Poet's Dream" to the heart-wrenching "Willing to Love Again," Carll proves that he can hold his own amongst his legendary songwriting neighbors. "She Left Me For Jesus" is of course the attention-grabbing tune here, bound to offend anyone with weak sensibilities who can't detect irony; but there's more to the album than that, too. "I Got a Gig" perfectly captures the troubled arrogant stance of a six-night-a-week musician (as Carll growls "Good Lord I hope I get paid tonight/I got a gig, baby!"); "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart" pretty much sums up the songwriter's ambition ("Doesn't anybody care about the truth anymore/I guess that's what songs are for"); and "A Lover Like You" takes playful honky-tonk jabs at the opposite sex ("I could never be friends with a lover like you").

Hayes Carll is a force to be reckoned with. He's bound for glory; maybe not commercial fame, but that's never been a good judge of talent, anyways. Carll is the real deal; he's a honky-tonk poet, and radio just isn't ready for that yet. One day, maybe. But until then, we can all sit back, listen to TROUBLE IN MIND, and realize that here, right here, is one of the new great songwriters on the country music circuit.

"She left me for Jesus" sucked me in (4.5 stars)
I heard the song and laughed so hard, I looked up the album. The first song is Ray Wylie Hubbard's "Drunken Poet's Dream." The last is a hilarious cover of "I don't want to grow up." I was sold and the tracks in the middle weren't just empty filler. "Trouble" just kept on delivering.

"Trouble in Mind" is a pretty good title for this bluesy sardonic collection of thoughtful and cynical humored country. This is Texas singer Carll's first release on a major label, Lost Highway.

My only complaint with this CD is the sound quality which is worth half a star. It's marginal in iTunes format and acceptable on my stereo. But, for the quality of the musicianship and the thought in the lyrics--I'll be looking up the rest of Carll's music very shortly.

Rebecca Kyle, May 2008

Great. His best yet and that's saying a lot
I loved both of Hayes' other albums. Each was unique in it's own way and in it's own way trumped the other. "Trouble In Mind" is a breath of fresh air. One of the best albums I have listened to in a couple of years now. We need more artists like Hayes. Do yourself a favor, buy this unbelievable album, you will not be disappointed if you are an Americana fan. I bought the album this morning and have listened to it three times all the way through.