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ROBBIE FULKS
HARD COUNTRY
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Nashville singer-songwriter Robbie Fulks has been branded with the alt-country label, but he plays hard country — that strain of ass-stomping music that was developed by the style’s third generation in the late ’50s and early ’60s. It’s a sound that young George Jones, Buck Owens, and Merle Haggard perfected in gritty workmen’s roadhouses. What makes Fulks alt-country: the prefix is overused, he plays in rock clubs, and he slips in the occasional bad-boy-ism. And when he began "Each Night I Try" at T.T. the Bear’s Place a week ago Thursday with the line "It’s bad enough the way I feel when I’m not stoned," he was just a toke away from Haggard’s 1966 classic "Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down," which opens, "Each night I leave the barroom when it’s over/Not feeling any pain at closing time/But tonight your memory found me much too sober/Couldn’t drink enough to keep you off my mind." Granted, there were a few enjoyable curveballs, like the proggy mountain breakdown Fulks and his four-piece band blasted into and the Celtic fiddle that colored "Let’s Live Together." But Fulks usually stayed so close to the masters that at times he employed the same arching and dive-bombing vocal phrasing as Jones, and it was obvious from the intent harmonies and the musical ability of his band that he values the old-fashioned notion of virtuosity. He’s also come a long way since "Fuck This Town," the Nashville-establishment bashing song that goosed his career in 1997. Back then, he was the early Elvis Costello of country, an angry young man who attacked the stage — and the biz’s ruling class — with the frantic energy of a just-liberated tiger. His new Georgia Hard (Yep Roc) finds him burrowing deeper into the traditional with acoustic instruments and a ballad-heavy mix of songs. Which isn’t a bad place for him to be. Whether he’s madly raving at rock tempo or sadly craving better days, he exudes a sense of total investment. So did songwriter Rob Picott, who played alone with his acoustic guitar after a set of smartly tempered rockabilly from local scene veteran Charlie Chesterman’s winning band Chaz & the Motorbikes. For Picott, a Maine-born singer-songwriter relocated to Nashville, it’s all about feelings and the details in his songs about small towns and modest dreams. His voice is his most expressive instrument. But for the crowd, it was mostly about talking loudly while waiting for Fulks. Picott deserves a hearing in a more listening-oriented room.
BY TED DROZDOWSKI
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