I'm selling my personal record collection in preparation for moving. I do not ship internationally or to Alaska, Hawaii, US Protectorates or APO/FPO addresses.
This album may never have been played. I was a staff writer for 3 music-oriented publications back in the '70s and early '80s and record companies would send me promo copies of their new releases for possible review. Since this was not an album I was reviewing, it would have gone straight onto my record shelves.
Troubadour is a 1976 album by , his fourth studio album since his debut in 1971.  covered the song "" on his 1977 album , turning it into one of his biggest hits.

Troubadour was produced by Audie Ashworth, who produced Cale's first three studio albums. It sees Cale introducing new instruments to his sound, such as synthesizer on "Ride Me High", with William Ruhlmann of  noting, "Producer Audie Ashworth introduced some different instruments, notably vibes and what sound like horns (although none are credited), for a slightly altered sound on Troubadour. But J.J. Cale's albums are so steeped in his introspective style that they become interchangeable. If you like one of them, chances are you'll want to have them all." Several noted musicians play on the album, including , , and .

In the 2004 documentary To Tulsa and Back, Cale recalled, "I wrote 'Cocaine', and I'm a big fan of ...So I had written the song in a Mose Allison bag, kind of cocktail jazz kind of swing...And Audie said, 'That's really a good song, John, but you oughta make that a little more rock and roll, a little more commercial.' I said, 'Great, man.' So I went back and recut it again as the thing you heard." The song's meaning is ambiguous, although Eric Clapton describes it as an anti-drug song. He has called the song "quite cleverly anti-cocaine", noting:

It's no good to write a deliberate anti-drug song and hope that it will catch. Because the general thing is that people will be upset by that. It would disturb them to have someone else shoving something down their throat. So the best thing to do is offer something that seems ambiguous—that on study or on reflection actually can be seen to be "anti"—which the song "Cocaine" is actually an anti-cocaine song. If you study it or look at it with a little bit of thought ... from a distance ... or as it goes by ... it just sounds like a song about cocaine. But actually, it is quite cleverly anti-cocaine.

Although "Cocaine" would be a major hit for Clapton in 1977, the first single released by Cale from Troubadour in 1976 was the restless "Travelin' Light" with "Hey Baby" as the B-side. Critics from the music website Alltime Records reviewed the recording: "'Travelin' Light', with its funky –style guitar that  tried to copy on "", along with great  to fill out the sound – it moves and cooks and rolls and rocks and has just an absolutely earthy quality". The song was released as a part of various , including 20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection: The Best of J.J. Cale in 2002, The Ultimate Collection in 2004 and Classic Album Selection in 2013. Clapton later covered "Travelin' Light" for his 2001 studio album . "" was also recorded by  for their album  in 1988.

Cale's own version of "Travelin' Light" was played to awaken the crews of the Atlantis Space Shuttle and International Space Station preceding their spacewalk early on Friday May 21, 2010.

Track listing

All songs written by , except "I'm a Gypsy Man", by .

"Hey Baby" – 3:11 "" – 2:50 "You Got Something" – 4:00 "Ride Me High" – 3:34 "Hold On" – 1:58 "" – 2:48 "I'm a Gypsy Man" – 2:42 "The Woman That Got Away" – 2:52 "Super Blue" – 2:40 "Let Me Do It to You" – 2:58 "Cherry" – 3:21 "You Got Me On So Bad" – 3:17 Personnel J. J. Cale – , ,  ( tr. 3 ), organ ( tr. 3 ), bass ( tr. 4, 6 ), slide guitar ( tr. 8 ), Electric Guitar, Soloist [First Solo] Charles Dungey –  on tracks 1, 9  – bass guitar on tracks 2, 5, 8, 10-12  – bass guitar on 3 Bill Raffensperger – bass guitar on track 7 Karl Himmel –  on tracks 1, 2, 4, 9  – drums on tracks 3, 6, 8, 10  – drums on tracks 5, 12 Jimmy Karstein – drums on track 7  – drums on track 11 Gordon Payne – guitar [Twin Guitars] on track 8 Chuck Browning – guitar [Twin Guitars] on track 8  –  on tracks 1, 9, el. guitar solo ( tr.6 ), Ac. guitar solo ( tr.9 )  – rhythm guitar on track 2, Electric Guitar, Soloist [Second Solo] ( tr.12 ) Bill Boatman – rhythm guitar on track 7 Doug Bartenfeld – guitar  –  on tracks 1 and 9  – steel guitar on track 5 Farrell Morris – , Vibraphone on tracks 2, 9, 11 Audie Ashworth – percussion on track 3  – percussion on track 7 Don Tweedy – Electronic Wind Instrument  ( tr. 3 ) Bobby Woods – piano on track 8 Bill Purcell – piano on track 12 George Tidwell –  on track 10 Dennis Goode –  on track 10 Billy Puett –  on track 10 Troubadour by  ReleasedSeptember 1976Recorded1976Length36:11Audie Ashworth