Country's Finest Novelist

Category:  Album Review 

Upland Stories, the spectacular new album by Robbie Fulks, isn't likely to become southern Chamber of Commerce fodder.  It is a collection of beautifully detailed novels songs set mostly in the South, painting brutally real pictures of social and personal life.  The album contains some of Fulks' best songwriting ever, and that is saying something about this man who stands alone as country music's finest novelist-posing-as-a-songwriter.

Robbie Fulks' brilliant new collection of musical novels,
Upland Stories.  Courtesy of Bloodshot Records.

"Alabama At Night," based on James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, an honest look at the toll the Depression took on people in the South, opens the album.  Sadly, it's hard to tell if this is just a musical summary of Agee's 1941 book or observations from last month.  When the Louvin Brothers paid homage to their home state in the song "Alabama" they sang of "your beautiful highways are carved through the mountains where loved ones do wait...and the 'welcome home' sign hanging over the gate."  The picture Fulks paints is far from the postcard that Ira and Charlie depicted.  "Poor's no sacred song," Fulks sings with quiet anger, "poor is a disease."

The first "story" in the album moves from the general feel of the south to the familial one.  "Baby Rocked Her Dolly," a Merle Kilgore composition that was a top 15 hit for Frankie Miller in 1960, is a perfect set-up for the following song on the album.  (In fact, the tracking on Upland Stories seems to deliberately situate the songs in an order where they feed on one another, turning songs into scenes in a minutely-detailed mini-movie.)  An old man in a nursing home remembers the good times of home ("My sister did the dance and brother beat the drum and baby rocked her dolly") and his late wife ("that wife of mine, God rest her soul, she's gone on before me, I bet she's told the Lord about all the times our house was filled with folly").

Similar memories of home is probably what drove the cancer-stricken protagonist of "Never Come Home" to return home ("not that the old place was the answer, just one last thing that I could try"), only to quickly realize it was a terrible mistake ("I was welcomed like a guilty prisoner, old grievances fouled the air").  The narrator has to deal with family members who, like the strangers of "Alabama At Night," are staring instead of showing any interest.  As he dies the last things he hears are not the comforting words of his family but the drunken backbiting ("black vultures gathering at my tomb") who "will bury me with all speed" without any emotion.

Unquestionably the highlight of the album is Needed."  The tune is a deeply autobiographical song where Fulks gives fatherly advice to his 18-year-old son (who left for college last year).  This song is breathtaking.  It is rare for a songwriter to boldly lay his soul naked to the world as Fulks does in this song, detailing the nonchalance of a young man more interested in his own carefree life than a girlfriend's pregnancy, then later realizing the joys of "commitment" to marriage and parenting and the accompanying maturity it brings ("when you were born is when I became a man").  "Needed" will hit you between the eyes, knock you off your feet, and not let you back up until you've shed a tear or 20.  After you've recovered from the emotional wringer this song puts you through you'll go back for more.

"America is a Hard Religion" harkens back to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which looked long and hard at tenant farming in the South during the Great Depression ("you plant a seed in rocky soil and perhaps to die").  This is the only song on the album where Fulks lets loose vocally, sounding almost like a preacher extolling the societal sins of the nation.  He's quieter on the third song about Agee, "Miracle," which even references the Brothers of the Holy Cross, a Catholic order that ran one of the boarding schools Agee attended as a child.

Another microcosm of the same theme, "South Bend Soldiers On," is the only song not explicitly set in the South, but rather in "this Midwest that I love" (although the chorus of "keep your burdens from your neighbor and leave a good name when you're gone" is stereotypical southern philosophy).  It's also another song about the departure of a grown son from the nest.

The close of the novel album is "Fare Thee Well, Carolina Gals."  The song, Fulks has said in concert before performing it, was inspired partly by attending his high school reunion ("bad mistake," he quipped once).  The song is primarily about teenage years spent in North Carolina, where the protagonist was "a medium to poor boyfriend and pretty good house painter" while in search of his first sexual experience.  Near the end he's finished his flashback and is in the present, contemplating buying a Cadillac with the money he'll make when "I cash in the farm after mama dies" and "just ride till the Pacific meets the bumper."  He concludes this trip through his past -- and through the entire trip through the "upper South" -- admitting he's not bitter.  "Chapel Hill hasn't done me wrong.  It was fine until it wasn't."

Near the end of the fun romp "Katy Kay" Fulks makes an interesting guitar run that causes him laugh as he delivers the lyrics.  Instead of going back into the studio to "correct" it, he left it on the album.  That's a great indication that everything on this album is real:  the gritty, frequently depressing truths in life depicted in the lyrics; and, most significantly, the talent.

Still Woman Enough

Category:  Album Review

In the Adam Ant song "Goody Two Shoes" he sang, "Look out or they'll tell you you're a superstar, two weeks and you're an all-time legend, I think the games have gone much too far."  (Yes, I did just quote Adam Ant in a review of a country music album.)  Superlatives are thrown around carelessly anymore, such as in the case of "legend."

There are some, however, completely deserving of the accolades, such as Loretta Lynn.  People who don't even like country music know who she is.  Her autobiography, Coal Miner's Daughter, became an Academy Award-winning film in 1980.

In 2004 Lynn released Van Lear Rose, a fresh and original album that featured a fan:  then-28-year-old Jack White, the leader of the rock band the White Stripes.  It took home the "Best Country Album" Grammy for 2004, and deservedly so.  Lynn, who was 72 at the time, chalked one up for the "old farts" (as Blake Shelton would infamously later call the classic country acts).

Poor ol' Blake and all those people who stuck their feet in their mouths last year (Gary Overton and his "if you're not on country radio you don't exist" and Keith Hill, who said that men were the driving force of country music sales and women were just "tomatoes") must be on suicide watch now.  Loretta Lynn's new album, Full Circle, is an amazing collection that shows she still has everything -- songwriting and singing -- and that people still want to hear it (it debuted on the Billboard country album charts this week at #4).  

The cover of Loretta Lynn's brilliant
new album Full Circle.  Courtesy
Legacy Recordings.

I'll begin by admitting that Loretta is a favorite of mine.  I saw her in 2014, and tears ran down my cheek from the moment she walked on stage until she left.  Just being in the same venue as this truly amazing performer was enough, never mind that 90-minute romp through her classics.  

I'll admit when even my favorite singers do wrong.  Ask me about my least favorite Jim Reeves songs while you're inquiring about my favorites.  I wasn't too overly fond of things like "Rated 'X'" or "The Pill" in Loretta's collection of hit singles.

But I have no gripes this time around.  There's nothing wrong with this album.  It is classic Loretta.  "Everything It Takes" is the song that grabbed me the moment I heard it...then I discovered that subtle, quiet background singer is Elvis Costello!  Co-written with Todd Snider (one of five songs that she wrote or co-wrote on the album), it's everything that has made Loretta Lynn a household name.

Her cover of "Secret Love" is also superb.  One of my all-time favorite pop songs, Lynn delivers it like a country ballad.  Speaking of covers, she took a bold move in covering "Always On My Mind," a song that is almost inseparably associated with Willie Nelson (despite the fact that Elvis, Brenda Lee, and Gwen MacRae recorded it ten years before Willie).  She turns the song into her own, delivering the song with such conviction that you can almost see her looking at a picture of her late, beloved husband Dooley as she sings it.

"Fist City" is remade here with the same ferocity as the 1968 original.  Loretta may be pushing 84, but this version sounds like she can still "grab you by the hair of the head and lift you off the ground." 

The song that'll probably generate the most attention is the T. Graham Brown song "Wine Into Water."  Loretta sings this amazing tune about an alcoholic begging for spiritual ("Now I'm on my knees and I'm begging to you, Father, will you help me turn the wine back into water?") and personal forgiveness.  Given that her late husband was an alcoholic (which she wrote about in no uncertain terms in her songs ["Don't Come Home A-Drinkin'"] and her books) this song probably is as close to Loretta's heart as any song she has ever done.  

Full Circle is an album that shows that Loretta Lynn is nowhere near "past her prime."  Her voice is as strong and wonderful as ever, and this is an album that will not only solidify her in the hearts of her decades-long fans but will make her thousands of new fans in the process.  This album will unquestionably be on every year-end "best-of" list.

As the title of her follow-up to the Coal Miner's Daughter book said, she's STILL woman enough, and she shows it on all 14 tracks.  Don't miss this album.

The "E" Word

Category:  Album Review

Even though You're Dreaming, the "official" debut album by the Minneapolis brother duo the Cactus Blossoms, has only been out since January 22, brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum are probably already sick of the "E" word.

The "E" word is "Everly."  And it's an inevitable comparison with these two outstanding singers.  It's not their fault that they sound like the Everly Brothers, though: much like the Whitstein Brothers, the Louisiana-based bluegrass duo who always had to endure comparisons to the Louvin Brothers, the Cactus Blossoms really can't help that they sound like Phil and Don.  

If the curiosity of a throwback to rock's (and one of country's) greatest brother duets entices you to give You're Dreaming a listen, then whatever it takes.  This is the first terrific album of 2016, and one that shouldn't be missed.

Jack Torrey (L) and Page Bunkum performing an opening set in 2014.
c. 2016 K.F. Raizor

I first heard the Cactus Blossoms when they opened a couple of dates for Dale Watson in 2014.  Two notes out of their mouths and I was hooked.  I bought their two self-released CDs, 2011's The Cactus Blossoms and 2013's Live at the Turf Club (both of which are still being sold at their concert merchandise tables) and couldn't stop listening.  Now they have an "official" label, just finished an "album release" tour (concluding at Chicago's Hideout backed by the Modern Sounds, who played on You're Dreaming), and are getting ready to do some more dates headlining and opening.  The album is getting positive reviews and plenty of airplay on Americana, Ameripolitan, and traditional country outlets.

These accolades aren't even enough.  These guys are amazing.  The new album features ten originals, nine of which were written by Torrey (Burkum wrote the other original), and a cover of Alton & Jimmy's "No More Crying the Blues."  Four of the songs are splendid new versions of songs from their self-released recordings, including the heavily plugged (do we call things "singles" anymore?) "Stoplight Kisses."

J.D. McPherson did a superb job of producing the album, basically letting the brothers do what they do best:  harmonize.  Chicago's Modern Sounds, who have their own material as well as backing several artists (an absolute highlight is Joel Paterson's guitar duets with Deke Dickerson on Dickerson's Live At Duff's album), are the perfect augmentation.  The songs meander through traditional country, rockabilly, and ballads, feeling fresh while still echoing the Everl....er... the "E" word.

You're Dreaming is a superb album, and it'll hopefully catapult the Cactus Blossoms into stardom.  Make sure you give this album a listen, and see them live.  These two fine young men will take your breath away.