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ROBBIE FULKS
GEORGIA HARD
BY FRANKLIN SOULTS
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Fulks’s first collection of original country songs in more than six years is the best pure country album I’ve heard in at least as long. It includes all the dowdy-to-rowdy old styles beloved by the countrier-than-thou fans who helped launch Chicago’s Bloodshot Records in the mid ’90s, and with it this former folkie’s solo career. There’s Bakersfield bop, countrypolitan croon, and swaggering honky-tonk novelties that live up to titles like "Goodbye, Cruel Girl," "I’m Gonna Take You Home (And Make You Like Me)," and, yes, "Countrier Than Thou." But thank Hank that Fulks knows half a history doesn’t make "pure country," just petrified corn, so he offsets the retro with the nuevo, brightening both in the process. "Where There’s a Road" is Alison Krauss injected with John Hiatt, "You Don’t Want What I Have" would do Alan Jackson proud, and "Doin’ Right (For All the Wrong Reasons)" is as complex as any four-minute fiction you can name. Even "Countrier Than Thou" doesn’t end with its insider’s send-up of Boston bluegrass snobs but looks over yonder at a Texas poseur who parleyed his hick shtick into a gig in the West Wing. Robbie Fulks | Rhythm & Roots Festival, Charlestown, Rhode Island | Sept 4 | 888.855.6940
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