Robbie Fulks Releases Lead Single "One Glass Of Whiskey" Today // 'Bluegrass Vacation' Due April 7
ROBBIE FULKS
— ALT-COUNTRY PIONEER —
RELEASES LEAD SINGLE
“ONE GLASS OF WHISKEY”
FORTHCOMING FULL-LENGTH LP
BLUEGRASS VACATION
DUE APRIL 7 VIA COMPASS RECORDS
TICKETS ON SALE NOW FOR FULKS’ SPRING TOUR
Above: ‘Bluegrass Vacation’ Album Artwork
NASHVILLE, TN (February 17, 2023) — Today, founding father of alt-country and overall icon in roots music, Robbie Fulks, releases “One Glass Of Whiskey,” the lead single from his new album Bluegrass Vacation slated for release on Friday, April 7 via Compass Records.
Stream/Download “One Glass of Whiskey” here.
Pre-Save Bluegrass Vacation here.
Having gained immediate recognition from Bluegrass Today and in No Depression’s “What We’re Listening to,” the upbeat “One Glass Of Whiskey” — driven by Wes Corbett’s banjo, powered by Ronnie McCoury’s mandolin and Chris Eldridge’s guitar — is worthy of becoming a standard in the bluegrass genre. Written shortly after his move to Los Angeles in 2019, the song is a “contradiction of the stereotypical view of LA,” says Fulks, ditching the common pre-conceived notion of palm trees, beaches, and traffic for Fulks’s more serene reality of porch side mornings, mountain vistas, and running horses.
While bluegrass music has always been a part of Fulks’s musical vision, Bluegrass Vacation marks his first full-length bluegrass endeavor. The album combines Fulks’ brilliance with some of bluegrass’ greatest names including Sam Bush, Sierra Hull, Ronnie McCoury, Tim O’Brien, Alison Brown, John Cowan, and Jerry Douglas resulting in one of the most remarkable bluegrass albums of the century. The 12-track album proves that this is much more than a musical detour for Fulks.
The album pulls no stops, with each track superseding the last. “Molly and the Old Man,” featuring Brennen Leigh’s harmony vocals and Alison Brown’s banjo, is a poignant homage to the power of traditional music to sustain us through tragedy and help us find common ground across generations. “Angels Carry Me” features Sierra Hull on mandolin and shines as an incredible display of Fulks’s songwriting capabilities, balancing three themes: rural loneliness, rock-star worship, and father-son tension. The autobiographical “Longhair Bluegrass” connects Fulks to the hippie bluegrass festival scene of the early 1970s that helped shape him as an artist and features newgrass pioneers Sam Bush (mandolin/harmony vocals) and John Cowan (vocals). “Let The Old Dog In” is a bluegrass barnburner featuring some top-flight picking from Russ Carson (banjo), Jerry Douglas (Dobro), Shad Cobb (fiddle) and Ronnie McCoury (mandolin).
In the end, Fulks plants his flag firmly in the bluegrass tradition, a genre that built the stepping stones Fulks walks on today. He muses, “Electric guitars might give way to computers, as seems to be happening now, but the mountains will still be right there.” It’s abundantly clear that Bluegrass Vacation is more than just a musical dalliance for Fulks. He owns the music as much as it owns him and the listener is left hoping that this bluegrass vacation will end up becoming a staycation.
Bluegrass Vacation Tracklisting:
“One Glass Of Whiskey”
“Molly And The Old Man”
“Lonely Ain’t Hardly Alive”
“Angels Carry Me”
“Longhair Bluegrass”
“Backwater Blues”
“Sweet Li’l Cora-Mae”
“Silverlake Reel”
“Momma’s Eyes”
“Nashville Blues”
“Let The Old Dog In”
“Old Time Music Is Here To Stay”
Above: Robbie Fulks; Credit: Scott Simontacchi
Robbie Fulks’s adventurous spirit has defined a critically acclaimed 30-year career that has included 15 solo albums and two GRAMMY® nominations. He came to national attention as a defining artist of the alt-country scene in the 1990s, with releases on the Chicago-based indie Bloodshot Records, North Carolina’s Yep Roc, and Los Angeles’s Geffen Records. While Fulks’s aversion to genre constraints and conventions has sometimes made him hard to pigeonhole, American country music, in the widest sense, is his home base — whether the country of Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Merle Haggard, Bobby Charles, or Mississippi John Hurt. For the last ten years, he has focused on his writing and performing with homespun tales and acoustic instruments.
Tickets on sale now for his spring tour in the following cities: