Robbie Fulks   -  Biography

Robbie Fulks was one of the more heralded talents in the alternative country movement, displaying an offbeat, sometimes dark sense of humor in many of his best moments. As time passed, he moved away from the country twang of his early work and into a crunchier roots-rock hybrid.

Born in York, Pa., on March 25, 1963, Fulks divided his childhood between Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina and received his schooling at Columbia University. With failing grades and a child on the way, he moved to Chicago in 1983 and first served as vocalist and guitarist in bluegrass band the Special Consensus, appearing on their Grammy-nominated 1989 album A Hole in My Heart. He later performed in the musical revue Woody Guthrie's American Song and formed his own rock band, the Trailer Trash Revue.

Fulks got his first significant exposure via Bloodshot Records' 1994 compilation Insurgent Country, Vol. 1: For a Life of Sin, which included his track "Cigarette State." The 1995 follow-up, Insurgent Country, Vol. 2: Hell Bent, featured Fulks' "She Took a Lot of Pills (And Died)." Both cuts were produced by Steve Albini, who also helmed Fulks' Bloodshot debut, Country Love Songs, in 1996. The album received highly positive reviews and featured musical backing from roots-rockers the Skeletons, as well as former Buck Owens steel guitarist Tom Brumley. The follow-up, 1997's South Mouth, took a similarly retro-minded approach, drawing from classic honky-tonk and Bakersfield country. The project contains "F--- This Town," written in frustration after a fruitless publishing deal in Nashville.

With a growing cult reputation, Fulks earned a major label shot with Geffen, but many critics felt that his 1998 label debut, Let's Kill Saturday Night, undermined the organic strengths of his previous work with overly slick roots rock production. A merger between Universal and PolyGram shortly after the album's release led to a gutting of the Geffen artist roster, and Fulks found himself without a label. He opted to start his own label, Boondoggle Records, distributed by Bloodshot, and launched it with The Best of Robbie Fulks, a facetiously titled collection of demos and unreleased recordings.

In 2001, Fulks followed with 13 Hillbilly Giants, in which he covered a baker's dozen songs of the '50s and '60s. Later that year, he issued his most ambitious set to date, Couples in Trouble, a bleak but compelling collection of original songs about a variety of failing relationships. He produced Touch My Heart: A Tribute to Johnny Paycheck in 2004. (He also recorded a tribute to Michael Jackson but did not release it.) He dug back into his country roots in 2005 with Georgia Hard, his first album for Yep Roc Records.