Robbie Fulks
Georgia Hard
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Robbie Fulks
Georgia Hard
Yep Roc, 2005
RiYL: Wilco, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash |
Sure, there are country songs on Couples In Trouble, just like there are country songs on Wilco’s Being There. And like the Wilco album, Fulks on Couples takes chances -- many chances -- and, on most occasions, is successful. From the stop-start stomp of “Dancing On The Ashes,” the piano-tinged haunting “My Tormentor,” to the riveting epic “Banks Of The Marianne,” Fulks twists and turns his craft and jams it into so many tight spots that it should not fit.
But it does, and it was clear that the album -- self-produced and released -- was clearly a labor of love, effort, and, well, damn hard work.
So it is no surprise that it took him nearly four years to return.
Despite the critical success of Couples, Fulks clearly needed a return to his country roots, and on his first album on Raleigh, N.C.-based indie Yep Roc, he succeeds again. Georgia Hard is not as daring, daunting or diverse as his previous outing, but it is his most consistently approachable and -- while hard to believe from a man who once wrote a children’s song about a shady elementary school magician -- mature album to date.
From start to finish, Georgia Hard is a trip through the country, with Fulks, as a southerner-by-way-of-Nashville-and-Chicago, leading the way. He makes no bones or apologies -- his roots are in the country and on Georgia Hard, they do not stray.
There is straight-up country rock a la Merle Haggard and Steve Earle, quiet lamenters like those Porter Waggoner made famous, and even some folk tunes Shel Silverstein might have written. The listener should be warned that Georgia Hard is as the name implies -- hard, old school country music.
Listener beware: sometimes it gets ugly, in a good way.
The album opens with the straightforward Earle-esque “Where There’s A Road,” a traditional toss-your-troubles-to-the-wind rocker. “To me that farm was just a jail / the day I hit 16 I bailed / took off in the Georgia dust / and I was gone,” Fulks sings, before hitting the apex, “there’s always a way out / where there’s a road.”
The song is a lighter version of “Let’s Kill Saturday Night,” the rave-up from his 1998 album of the same title.
Georgia Hard gets a bit more country with the next two tracks, “Its Always Raining Somewhere” and Bill Anderson-influenced “Leave It To A Loser,” before checking in with the somewhat autobiographical title track. “Georgia Hard” is a paean to his adopted hometown of Chicago, but also a tribute to his southern roots. “There’s no Carolina moon over Chicago / No bluegrass / growing out in my backyard / No fields of sugarcane / No soft Virginia rain / But damn if this livin’ / ain’t Georgia hard,” he laments.
From there, the album takes a comical turn with the bar-room duet with his wife, “I’m Gonna Take You Home (and Make You Like Me).” It would not be a Robbie Fulks album without a heavy slice of sharp wit and sarcasm, and Georgia Hard does not disappoint. Set in a dingy watering hole, “I’m Gonna Take You Home” is a character study of a drunkard trying to pick up a “hot little chickie” who, in the end, turns out to be the poor lout’s wife.
“You fast-talkin’, slow-thinkin’, gin-guzzlin’ hound dog/ You are so drunk you’ve forgotten we’ze married,” the woman blurts. To which Fulks’ lush responds, “Really? Well.., I guess, uh, I better take you home and make you like me.”
Then there is “Countrier Than Thou,” a quick shot against those carpetbaggers -- not unlike George W. Bush--who claim to love the country-music lifestyle more than those who wrote and lived it. “He’s got a ranch / with a Stetson / …/ He even talks / Like Buddy Epson / Yet he’s sittin’ in the West Wing / Frankenstein / I’m more aware of / Yet can somebody please explain / How you get / a county sheriff / with a frat boy’s brain.”
And like any good country album, Georgia Hard has its share of down-and-out downers. “If They Could Only See Me Now” tracks the life of a man who married into money against his parents’ wishes, only to end up murdering his wife. Lyrically the song is a stroke of genius, as the coda of “If they could only see me now” starts out hoping to drive envy among his family and those who doubted him, only to end up with the narrator behind bars. “She lies in a silk-lined casket / I stand in chains / To look upon those kids once more / That’s one thing the warden / Will not allow / Aheemmhhmmmmmhhmm / If they could only see me now.”
Musically, Georgia Hard is as professional as Fulks has ever sounded, as the instrumentation and production is stellar. It’s clear that the hard labor that went into the life and death of Couples In Trouble was well served, as listening to Georgia Hard is like talking to an old, familiar friend. Where Couples was purposefully exhausting, Georgia Hard is purposefully approachable and friendly.
And that, my friends, makes for one hell of an album. Georgia Hard is a tour through the country on one album that few have been able to put together in an entire career.
RODEO ROB | An expert on all things "alt," Rob spends his days covering the energy industry and his nights covering the DC-area bars. Raise yer glass especially high to this man, for he has contributed to this site constantly since its creation four years ago.