Robbie Fulks has the soul of a country singer and the mind of a vaudevillian. Still, for Robbie, it’s about the songs. “There are many good living songwriters,” says the Chicago Reader, “But then you hear a new Robbie Fulks record, and you can’t remember who they are.” He’s written country songs about how compromised most country music is, and while he’s fond of folk and bluegrass, he’s been known to please audiences with covers of hits by Cher, sung in a voice that Paste Magazine praised as being, “a turpentiney tenor, as splintered as unvarnished wood left outside.”

Robbie returns to the Freight with a new album, Upland Stories, written through the lens of fatherhood, marriage, middle age, and the literary voices he is drawn to and draws from: Flannery O’Connor, Anton Chekhov, Mary Lavin, Frank O’Connor, Javier Marias, and James Agee. Coming of age in the 1960s and 1970s in Virginia and North Carolina, at the edge of the broad “upland” region referenced in the record’s title, also provided depth and detail for Robbie’s songs about the mysteries of memory, the vanishing of cherished things, and the struggles of everyday life. Robbie tries to make songs that offer more than verse-chorus-hook: songs that have space, calmness, unresolved tensions, and the hallmarks of lived experience.

You never know exactly what you’ll get with Robbie. It maybe be something along the lines of swing or rockabilly, or it may be a full album of Michael Jackson covers. If you’re confused already, that is right where Robbie wants you; intrigued, guessing, and on your toes about what’s coming next, but his long-time fans know that whatever it is, it is going to be good. For a great night of acoustic country, catch Robbie Fulks at the Freight.

Listen to a track from Robbie Fulks:

visit the Robbie Fulks website