April 6, 2016

Alt-Country’s Robbie Fulks Sings of Quiet Desperation


Robbie Fulks
Upland Stories
Bloodshot

Courtesy of Bloodshot Records

During his stellar two-decade-plus career, alt-country mainstay Robbie Fulks has played everything from a smartass provocateur who once serenaded Nashville in the snarky ditty “Fuck This Town” to a reverent curator who celebrated the old masters with the covers album 13 Hillbilly Giants. On the sobering and typically excellent Upland Stories he plays it straight, telling austere tales of quiet desperation and glimmering hope like “Never Come Home” and “America Is a Hard Religion,” which draw inspiration from such literary lights as James Agee and Flannery O’Connor. (No need to worry about Profound Artist Syndrome, however; he couldn’t strike a pretentious note if his life depended on it.) Fulks’ spare acoustic guitar, enhanced by understated fiddle, steel guitar and the like, provide the perfect backdrop for his tender twang of a voice, allowing these thoughtful songs to be experienced in all their empathetic, insightful brilliance.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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