Tag: Robbie Fulks

Bloodshot Records at 25: An Insurgent Interview with Co-Founder Rob Miller

Posted on by Editor

Bloodshot Records’ 25th anniversary party is taking place in Chicago this Saturday, and they’re gonna party like it’s… 1994.

Long before the term Americana was coined, this fledgling Chicago label was issuing records by Robbie Fulks, Old 97s, and other road-worn musicians who built their careers on a mix of country and punk that the label initially termed “insurgent country.” That description didn’t last but the label forged on, with compelling artists and songwriters like Jason Hawk Harris, Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, and Luke Winslow-King now on the roster.

Bloodshot Records co-founder Rob Miller fielded some BGS questions by email. Check out the newest release, Too Late to Pray: Defiant Chicago Roots, at the end of the interview.

BGS: Launching a record label is a pretty big risk, then and now. Was there a specific moment that convinced you, “OK, the time is right to do this”?

RM: Au contraire! Risk never, ever crossed my mind. When you don’t have a business plan, an expectation of success — let alone longevity — or any idea what you are getting yourself into, ignorance and naiveté are powerfully liberating. The whole idea was, at the very least, a release from the drudgery of drywalling shitty condos in Wrigleyville and Old Town.

The three original partners ponied up a couple of grand from our day jobs, put together our first release, For a Life of Sin, and the day the CDs came back from the manufacturer, POOF!, we were a “label.”

I can’t imagine doing something as ridiculous as that now.

What do you remember about those first few conversations with your friends and your peers when you shared your plans to launch Bloodshot?

Practically nothing. It was a very blurry time. It was at a time in all our lives when all was action and creating and the moment without much thought to consequences. We were just so excited at the prospect of shining a light on this weird little scene in Chicago that I doubt anyone could have talked me out of doing it. The real world had not yet muscled itself to the table and I’ve managed, in many ways, to keep it at bay all these years. Oh, and then there was the tequila. As I said, very blurry.

Why did the phrase “insurgent country” fit the Bloodshot Records vibe, do you think?

It’s something Eric Babcock (one of the original founders) and I came up with one day drinking beer in my backyard — never let two English majors get drunk when there’s a thesaurus within reach, by the way.

We were looking for a catchy way to describe what we were doing, something that spoke to the outsider aspect and added an edge to the frequently off-putting “C” word. At the time, there wasn’t much critical language or reference points surrounding the melding of roots and punk. So, before someone else hung a dreadful tag on us like cowpunk or y’alternative, we thought it would be wise to TELL them what to call us.

Print media was so prevalent as this label was getting off the ground. What role did music journalists play in making Bloodshot a success?

Wait, we’re a success? Who knew? Where’s my pony, dammit!

Having spent my formative years reading fanzines and indie publications, persuading glossy mags or acclaimed daily newspapers to pay any sort of attention to us never crossed my mind. We did then, as we do now, focus on the grassroots. We work from the bottom up, rather than wait around for some “tastemaker” to tell the world it’s OK to like us or our artists. It was in those locally-based outlets where people could write about us with passion and without concern for circulation or broad appeal.

However, there are times when our tastes and popular culture intersected (Neko Case, Justin Townes Earle, Ryan Adams, Old 97s, Lydia Loveless, among others) and the wider world and folks higher up the media food chain paid attention to us. Usually that would take the form of a “trend” piece along the lines of “the new sound of country” or “Whiskey-soaked barn-burning punks” or some such shit. They’d be reactive and reductive, but tried to sound bold and cutting-edge by calling out some hot, fresh underground movement.

And that’s all great, but it doesn’t influence what we like or how we go about what we do.

Don’t get me wrong, or think me the King of Cynics (I am merely a prince), there were some insightful and humbling pieces in places like Rolling Stone, GQ, Village Voice, New York Times and the like. In NYC 1996, we had an afternoon barbeque on the Lower East Side with the Old 97s, Waco Brothers, and others. It was during CMJ and since they wouldn’t let our bands into the festival, we put on our own party (a precursor to our longstanding shindig at the Yard Dog Gallery during SXSW). I went outside to check on the line that snaked down the block and saw a couple writers from Rolling Stone and the legendary Greil Marcus trying to get in. Yikes. Things like that helped lend an air of legitimacy to our strange little crusade.

Who were some of the earliest champions for the label?

Fans, largely. Weirdos like ourselves who quickly responded to what we were trying to do. People who were fed up with the co-opting of the underground, of Lollapalooza, of Martha Stewart “grunge-themed” parties; people who were looking to classic country for the freshness, excitement, and freedom that they used to find in punk; people who were discovering that Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, and Hank Williams were 1000 times more interesting and relevant than the Stone Temple Pilots or the Red Hot Chili Peppers would ever be; people who were starting up, or involved in already, their own scenes in their cities who saw us as willing collaborators.

Fortunately, many of these collaborators also worked in the biz, as writers, DJs, promoters, record store owners, distributors, and club owners. We were able, in pretty short order, to stitch together an ecosystem of people who genuinely dug what we were trying to do and could help spread the word to the benefit of all. It was very much a community spread out across the country.

How has the Chicago music scene factored into the Bloodshot Records story?

There isn’t so much a Chicago music “scene,” as there is a Chicago “hustle.”

When I moved to Chicago, I was floored by the vast array of music available to me on any given night. So many clubs, so many bands, so many neighborhoods, so many options. Given our position in the middle of the country, most touring bands stopped here. Rent was cheap. Labels arose in a non-competitive environment which fostered a vibrant, organic and sustained creative burst. Since Chicago is a working town, rather than a company town like NYC, LA, or Nashville, there was an incredible amount of freedom to create and perform without fear of upsetting the “industry” or making a jackass of yourself and failing during your “shot” in front of A&R goons from a major label.

Do what you do. Try new things. We didn’t break rules so much as we never knew what the rules were in first place. Club owners took chances on our bands early on and became fans and advocates, the media cared and wrote about what was happening at the street level, and there were plenty of record stores and left of the dial radio lending encouragement. Coming from a place that lacked such a supportive infrastructure, I never, ever take it for granted.

I firmly believe that Bloodshot would not have thrived anywhere else.

At the time the label launched, vinyl pressings of new releases were very rare. How did the label respond when you all realized that vinyl was making a comeback?

Very true. Early on, other than a series of 7” singles, we didn’t do any vinyl. Occasionally, a European company would license a title and press up 500 LPs or so, but otherwise, it was a dead format. That pained the record nerd buried deep in my DNA.

So, we were quite happy to help with the resurgence of LPs. At first, we’d tentatively press up 500 or 1000 of only the releases we expected to do quite well; LPs are expensive, time-consuming and temperamental to manufacture, and unsold LPs take up a lot of space in our tiny warehouse. AND no one was sure if this was a quick blip or a passing fancy, so all the extant pressing plants were log-jammed for months at a time. But now, with new pressing plants finally opening up, virtually every release has a vinyl component to it and we’ve re-released music never before available in that format as well.

I think people who, by and large, grew up with downloads and streaming respond to vinyl because of its tactile and totemic connection to the music and the artist. As the saying goes, you can’t put your arms around an MP3. It makes the LP a very durable and loveable format.

What do you remember about Bloodshot’s first website?

Funny, I was just talking to an IT person about this the other day. When we moved into our current office 20 years ago, we had one modem for the entire office. If someone needed to get online, they would run through the office telling people to get off the phones so they could log on. We wrote letters and used faxes. We even called people on the corded telephones and talked to them — how very quaint.

If we wanted to edit our site, we’d have to compile a list of changes, and fax them over to our “programmer.” We did that usually every two weeks or so. From where we sit now, it feels so distantly and hilariously primitive, like I was the chimp smashing bones with a femur when the obelisk appears in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Every once in a while, someone will say something like “I googled that DSP” or “the Wi-Fi crashed and I can’t download the WAV files” and think, good Lord, what would such utterances have sounded like back then? They would have locked you up or tossed you off the bus for being a loony.

In this era, having a record label isn’t essential to release music. However, from your perspective, what are some of the benefits of having label support?

Several years back, the conversation did turn rather aggressively towards “why even bother having a label?” True, the monolithic aspect of THE LABEL has been wholly and, in many cases, rightfully demolished by the internet.

However, artists are artists. They should create and perform. They should not be burdened with the time-sucking (yet necessary) banalities of promotion and business.

That’s where a “team” like us comes in — perhaps that’s a more relevant term than “label.” We can take all those nagging organizational bits off their plate and build the brand. We keep the trains running on time (I refer, of course, to European and Japanese trains, not Amtrak). And, let’s face it, many possessing the — how shall we say? — artistic temperament do not also possess the logistical grace to tackle all the infuriating minutiae that make the whole machine run. No one asks me to write a catchy melody or craft meaningful lyrics delving into the human condition. No one should ask the artist to make sure the digital service providers are given the proper metadata or set up an in-store performance in Fort Collins Colorado.

What excites you the most about the next 25 years?

Ivanka 2040?

The death of the Death of Irony?

Jet packs?

(Hopefully) outliving Henry Kissinger.

Florida and Mar-A-Lago sinking into the sea once and for all?

Making sure the soundboard at the old folks home is powerful enough for Jon Langford’s shouting to be heard over the Matlock re-runs?

The Show On The Road – Robbie Fulks

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week Zach talks to Chicago-based troubadour Robbie Fulks. They talk about how he’s made his own brand of sharp-tongued country music for over three decades, and how he considers Hank Williams the Shakespeare of American Music. They also discuss how he’s become more fearless and less embarrassed to confront heartbreak and the darkness always lurking in America as he’s grown older.

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • STITCHER • MP3

Song: Alabama At Night

Wild Things: Robbie Fulks and Linda Gail Lewis

Posted on by Editor

Linda Gail Lewis was never destined to be the most renowned member of her family — or second, third or fourth-most famous, for that matter. There’s not a lot of oxygen left in the shotgun shacks of Ferriday, Louisiana or the public mindset when you have original rock wild man Jerry Lee Lewis for a brother and your cousins are Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Swaggart. But unlike her early-starter kin, Linda Gail has come more into her own later in life. The 71-year-old little sis has emerged as a heroine to the rockabilly crowd not just because she trades off the trademark style of the Killer but because she has slayer instincts, too.

Still, she’s traditionally benefitted more from being a duet partner than a solo act. She recorded and toured with Jerry Lee in the ‘60s and ‘70s — the sibling duo had a Top 10 country hit in 1969 with “Don’t Let Me Cross Over” — and then she reentered the consciousness of the music intelligentsia in 2000 when no less a fan than Van Morrison asked her to make a joint album and tour together. Now, she’s on to her third partner in musical crime: the alt-country great Robbie Fulks, who joined her for Wild! Wild! Wild!, an album he produced all of, wrote most of, and participated on as an equal vocal partner only with some urging.

So how does Fulks stack up against his two famous predecessors in the duet partner’s seat?

“I was the best of them all, I would say,” Fulks says. “Oh, sorry, go ahead.”

“Absolutely!” Lewis agrees, although when it comes down to it, she may not quite be ready to declare new Bloodshot Records partnerships thicker than blood. “Singing with my brother and Robbie, I love one as much as I do the other, which is saying quite a lot. And I don’t mean to say anything bad about Van. I appreciated doing the album [You Win Again] with him, and it was good for my career, and… I wouldn’t say it was actually fufn in the studio, but I did get through it, and I lived to tell the tale,’” she says, laughing. “It was impossible to really match up with him on the recording, because his phrasing is so different from my brother’s. But Robbie’s is similar enough that it was easy for me. You’re every bit as great as those other two, Robbie. And don’t tell my brother I said that.”

“I’m not telling anybody you said that,” Fulks says. “Maybe my wife.”

Wild! Wild! Wild! includes five true duets, two Fulks solo vocals, and six that feature Lewis alone as frontwoman. If that math leads you to suspect that the project might’ve started life as a Linda Gail Lewis solo album Fulks was producing before it became co-billed, your guess would be right.

Says Fulks, “The idea was a little bit imposed on us because the label said, ‘Well, we’d rather have a duet record,’ and that wasn’t what I originally had in mind. Duet singing with her, nobody would say no to that. And I think male-female duet singing is just about my favorite kind of country music. So to be able to write to that and then to perform with her was just a whole other level of fun over, you know, sitting in a chair and listening to people play.” Lewis, too, was happy it became a duo project, and cites “I Just Lived a Country Song” as her favorite track on the album, even though that’s one of the two tracks that Fulks sings without her.

To the extent that it’s partly a Robbie Fulks record, it’s an old-school Robbie Fulks album, which should tickle a lot of long-time fans who’ve charted his changes. It harks back to early- to mid-period records like 1996’s Country Love Songs, 2005’s Georgia Hard and 2007’s Revenge! when Fulks was the master of classic country pastiche, writing severely clever tunes with tellingly witty titles like “Goodbye, Cruel Girl,” “All You Can Cheat” and “The Buck Stops Here” (as in Buck Owens, of course).

There is certainly some pure country on the album to go with the more snare-smashing stuff, like their duet on “That’s Why They Call It Temptation,” which he wrote rather overtly in the George-and-Tammy mode. (Sample lyrics — Robbie: “I tried to keep my hands from where they longed to go.” Linda: “And I did all I could to help you, short of sayin’ no.”)

Meanwhile, there’s a Tennessee-meets-New Orleans horn section on a Fulks-penned tribute to Lewis’ adopted hometown, “Memphis Never Falls From Style,” which has Linda singing the lines, “Thank you Memphis for the great insight/That music is a drag if it’s too f—in’ white.” They went back and forth over whether to keep her singing the F-word; “I grew up on the road with a bunch of musicians, and I have no problem with a little profanity,” she says. But ultimately Fulks decided that a loud bleep was called for, out of nostalgia, if not bashfulness. “I remember being 8 years old and hearing ‘Johnny Cash at San Quentin,’ and those bleeps would come on real loud, and it reminded me of being a kid and the joy of bleeped-out profanity, which you don’t get to hear anymore.” For Lewis’ part, “I was worried about being in trouble with my brother. So I was happy to have the bleep,” she laughs. “And I plan to tell him that I didn’t really say it.”

Jerry Lee Lewis was into his country period — having fallen out of favor as the British Invasion superseded America’s pioneer rockers — when he started enlisting his little sister to join him on records and at shows. (For example, a 1973 performance of “Roll Over Beethoven” on the Midnight Special program.) Their sole hit together was a cover of the Carl and Pearl Butler song “Don’t Let Me Cross Over.”

“Jerry was a big fan of theirs and they were good friends of ours, and we never felt right about covering their song,” Linda admits. “But still we did it, and it was Kenny Lovelace’s idea,” she adds, mentioning her brother’s long-time sideman — and one of her ex-husbands. “Jerry and I had trouble getting through it because we were singing a love song and we’re brother and sister. We were on the same microphone, and we would look at each other and start cracking up. We only were able to get through it once.”

“That’s a little like Nancy and Frank Sinatra singing ‘Something Stupid’ together,” says Fulks, “although that was a lot creepier, I think.”

The sibling duo act came to an end out of jealousy, she says. “My sister-in-law at that time hated me and didn’t want me to be around, so I had to go,” Linda says. “And you know, sometimes even your enemies will help you. Because had she not done that, I would never have left my brother, and I would never have had my own career, and I never would have learned to play he piano. All the things my brother had shown me through the years helped me when I started playing rock and roll and boogie-woogie piano in 1987. My brother’s fans were coming to see me, and they wanted to hear ‘Great Balls of Fire,’ so I had to make sure that I could play it, especially because the piano player that I had in my band in Memphis had no feel for it.

“And I’ve had such a wonderful career, and now of course, with, this great album that I have with Robbie, I feel so blessed. To me it’s the highlight of my career, and life. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy. And I just looooove my ex-sister-in-law that hates me, because she did this wonderful thing for me.”

Before they made the album, Fulks once blogged that hearing Linda Gail play piano put him in mind “of a cotton field with a candelabra in it.” He sounds embarrassed to be reminded of the phrase now. “Oh my God,” he says. “I didn’t realize I said that. It’s alliteration, anyway. It sounds like literature. ‘Cotton fields…’ I better stop blogging.” Lewis offers him a sharp retort. “Don’t you dare! I loved that. I actually saved that in my iPhone so I can just go back and read it over and over.”

In a separate conversation, Fulks talks about how his appreciation for Lewis developed. “You just say Jerry Lee Lewis’s sister and then go on to say yes, she plays like him and she’s a great singer, and she’s been doing it for 50 years or whatever, and that gets people interested. … With Linda, her voice and her career are so tied into his, it would be hard to separate it out too much, and a good deal of her act is a tribute to and an expression of love for him. But to me she’s interesting partly for the fact that she’s a woman in that family, and just as I’m interested in what it was like for people like Jean Shepard to get along on the road with Ferlin Husky and those guys in the ‘50s, I’m interested in what it was like for her to be part of that clan in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and to be holding her head above water.”

And he’s fascinated by the nature-versus-nurture aspects of the playing she picked up later in life. “She’s a great piano player, and it doesn’t really doesn’t boil down to the notes that she’s playing,” Fulks says. “It’s kind of a family style and a genetic style, and there’s something that’s unlearnable about that style. Anybody could read this off of a sheet and make the moves, but nobody could sound like that. I looked at her the other night when we played together, lifting her hands a foot and a half above the keyboard and banging down on two notes repeatedly, and you just think, well, that’s ridiculous! It’s a real mystery, and it’s thrilling to hear.”

Photo credit: Andy Goodwin

Seven Acts We Wanna Catch at Folk Alliance

Posted on by Editor

Festival season doesn’t truly kick off until Spring, but every year, we’re treated to a musical oasis smack in the middle of our Winter festival drought: Folk Alliance International. From February 15-19, some of the world’s best and brightest folk and roots musicians will descend upon Kansas City, Missouri, for panels, showcases, and (fingers crossed) some serious jamming. The theme of this year’s festival is “Forbidden Folk: Celebrating Activism in Art” which, given our current predicament with President Agent Orange (thanks, A Tribe Called Quest!), is about as timely a theme as one could hope for. 

With so much amazing talent on display throughout the course of the festival, it’s no easy task to decide just who to check out. If you’re still putting your schedule together, though, allow us to do some of the heavy lifting for you. Check out some of the official showcase artists we’re most excited to see at Folk Alliance:

Cory Branan

Mississippi-born songwriter Cory Branan counts Jason Isbell as a fan and, well, that should be enough for you to stop reading and start listening. If you need a little more convincing, though, Branan seamlessly blends Americana inspiration with DIY punk ethos for a raw, singular sound you’d be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. Look for him to play new tunes from his forthcoming album, Adios.

Gaby Moreno

Guatemalan songwriter and musician Gaby Moreno writes smoky soul tunes reminiscent of Amy Winehouse. The Grammy-winning artist has toured with Ani DiFranco and the Milk Carton Kids, and just released a new album, Illusion.

Korby Lenker

Nashville songwriter, musician, and author Korby Lenker approaches lyric-writing like a novelist (he does, after all, have a song called “Book Nerd”). He has a book of short stories called Medium Hero out now and tours the country playing house shows and festivals, alike.

Marquise Knox

St. Louis’s Marquise Knox is one of the most exciting young blues artists to come up in recent years. The 25-year-old guitarist/singer got a good deal of his musical chops from his family, particularly his grandmother. He’s shared the stage with legends like B.B. King and Pinetop Perkins.

Ramy Essam

Ramy Essam gained worldwide notoreity in 2011 when he released “Irhal,” a song that became an anthem for protestors against Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Despite being captured and tortured for speaking out against Mubarak’s regime, Essam has continued to speak out and release music. He currently has a temporary residence permit that allows him asylum in Sweden, where he studies and writes songs.

Robbie Fulks

Robbie Fulks‘ Upland Stories was one of 2016’s best — and most underrated — albums. On the album, Fulks turns a compassionate eye to underdogs and underbellies, telling the kinds of decidedly American stories that otherwise wouldn’t get told. It earned Fulks two Grammy nominations at this year’s ceremony.

Tift Merritt

Tift Merritt has long been a favorite of ours at the BGS, and her new album, Stitch of the World, challenged the notion that we couldn’t love her any more than we already did. It’s her most vulnerable work to date and, also, despite some serious subject matter, her most fun. 

Photo credit: Alexandra Valenti

MIXTAPE: Bloodshot Records’ Chicago Sounds

Posted on by Editor

Bloodshot Records has been operating in Chicago for the entirety of its 20+ years as a record label. As the story goes, the label was birthed — written on a bar napkin at local watering hole Delilah’s — to compile the sounds and ideas of a burgeoning country/punk scene in and around the city in the mid-’90s. On our site, it says, “We’ve always been drawn to the good stuff nestled in the dark, nebulous cracks where punk, country, soul, pop, bluegrass, blues, and rock ‘n’ roll mix and mingle and mutate.”

And while Mike Smith and I haven’t been there since Bloodshot’s inception, we grew up on the catalog (Heartbreaker, anyone?), along with other sounds of similar ilk and of similar community. If you spend enough time in Chicago going to and playing shows, drinking at the Hideout or Schuba’s or Empty Bottle, or just meeting people who are vaguely into music, there are names that consistently arise — ones that have the respect of other musicians, live music show-goers, and casual standers-by.

Here, we’ve compiled our own mixtape of Chicago’s current roots/alt-country artists. Maybe none of them implicitly fall under those umbrella (and sometimes unwanted) terms, but they all possess some sort of grit, twang, or attitude that slots in with the roots aesthetic. — Josh Zanger

Wilco — “Casino Queen”

The band took shape after the split of alt-country originals Uncle Tupelo and, as Wilco progressively leaned more toward pop/indie rock, Chicago has happily claimed them as a musical staple. Early in the band’s career, you could still hear the alt- influences, especially on their debut album, A.M., songs like “Casino Queen” and “Box Full of Letters” remind me of Jeff Tweedy’s creative work with Jay Farrar (now of Son Volt) and Brian Henneman (of Bottle Rockets).

Robbie Fulks — “Aunt Peg’s New Old Man”

Robbie is a Bloodshot original — his first album is catalog number BS011 — and, in my opinion, what keeps the Chicago alt-/roots scene relevant and vibrant. If you think I’m partial, take a trip to the city and go see his residency at the Hideout on a Monday night while he’s in town. Every show is different, with different themes and different guests, but ALL of them feature Robbie’s excellent musicianship and high-wire wit.

Hoyle Brothers — “How Many More Nights”

Since I moved into the city many years ago (and for many years before that), the Hoyle Brothers have been a local honky tonk treasure. They’ve been doing weekly happy hour residencies at the Hideout and Empty Bottle since early 2000s, and it feels like a rite of passage to have attended and gotten drunk at one of their performances.

Lawrence Peters — “Another Year”

If you’ve been to the Hideout, you’ve seen Lawrence behind the bar slingin’ PBRs and cheap whiskey shots. There’s also the chance that you’ve seen him playing honky tonk and country music as the Lawrence Peters Outfit, in one of many renowned local bands, or DJing country tunes at various bars and clubs.

Waco Brothers/Jon Langford — “Receiver”

Jon Langford is a man about town — making art, playing shows, making music, making his political voice heard, kissing babies — and I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t love him. Also, every time he comes to the Bloodshot offices, he makes it a brighter place and then leaves with, “Thank you, good people of Bloodshot, and keep up your great work!” On his own or in various projects, he’s beyond prolific. With the Wacos, content comes a little more slowly, but always carries an added punch in the band’s potent rock ‘n’ roll/punk/country form. In full disclosure: A Waco Brothers 7” is the label’s third release.

State Champion — “There Is a Highlight Reel”

I haven’t seen the band play in a while, so I’m not sure if they even call Chicago home — their Facebook page lists “Chicago/Louisville.” They have a grungey, garage, twangy sort of sound that brings to mind an alternate genre Uncle Tupelo. Freakwater’s Catherine Irwin lends guest vocals to this song, giving it an extra bit of eerie grit.

— Josh Zanger, publicist at Bloodshot Records

Al Scorch — “Everybody Out”

In Chicago over the last five years or so, Al Scorch has been at the forefront of the roots music scene. His combination of bluegrass, folk, country, and punk-rock is uniquely Chicagoan — it’s a direct cross between tradition and rebellion. In the city, you can see Scorch telling urban stories over his lightning-fast banjo pickin’ everywhere from punk clubs to square dances, DIY spaces to theaters. He is a true everyman. I grew up on punk music, and I moved to Chicago from the beautiful Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, a hotbed for roots music and traditional bluegrass, in particular. When I first saw Al Scorch at the famed punk club the Empty Bottle on a Saturday afternoon, it was the first time Chicago truly felt like home to me.

Ryley Walker — “On the Banks of the Old Kishwaukee”

Ryley Walker has been playing multiple styles of guitar (classical, jazz, psychedelic, bluegrass … you name it) in punk bars and jazz clubs around Chicago for years, both solo and with some of the Chicago underground’s most iconic musicians. In local music circles, everyone knows his name for different reasons. In 2014, Walker signed to Dead Oceans, a Bloomington, Indiana, label that specializes in indie rock with splashes of roots music, and released three terrific albums in two years. Just like Walker’s guitar-playing, the albums span a wide genre map, much of which draws from folk, bluegrass, and classic country. Throw in a few jazz and psych numbers, and it’s a unique blend of guitar-led American music.

Devil in a Woodpile/Rick Sherry — “Shake It and Break It”

Devil in a Woodpile is a roots music fixture in Chicago, and Rick Sherry is the carnival barker-like vocalist fronting the unplugged string band. His baritone bellow is earth-shaking while his harmonica playing is to be reckoned with. Devil is also uniquely Chicagoan, as they mix Appalachian-era bluegrass, country (the stuff that floated up the river and landed in the old juke joints and square dances of mid-century Chicago), and folk with the brand of blues that was born in Chicago. Folks will gather in the small Hideout barroom (there’s a reason we keep mentioning the Hideout — it is truly THE roots music haven in Chicago) to watch Devil in a Woodpile play unmic’d in the middle of the room, right on the checker-tiled floor. It’s an event every time. Sherry can also be seen playing in the swingin’ Sanctified Grumblers and the acoustic pickin’ Hatstretchers.

Whitney — “No Matter Where We Go”

Though they aren’t your typical “alt-country” or punk-infused roots that often defines the Americana underbelly of Chicago, Whitney is a band not to be overlooked in the conversation. Born out of the ashes of the short-lived indie rock band Smith Westerns, Whitney combines soul, AM radio pop, late-Wilco-leaning guitar wizardry, and ‘70s-era country music that would make Gram Parsons tap his foot. It’s a unique sound amongst the psychedelia and garage vibes that currently permeate the Chicago indie rock scene. You’ll often see them playing with a brass section and a pedal steel guitar, simultaneously, as evident in their hometown hero set at the 2016 Pitchfork Music Festival.

Henhouse Prowlers — “Leaving You for the Interstate”

As made clear in this piece, a multitude of Chicago bands incorporate bluegrass into their music, mish-mashing it with punk, blues, and country. But the Henhouse Prowlers (previously known as Sexfist — yes, you read that correctly) are one of the few that play traditional bluegrass in the Windy City. Crowded around a mic, pickin’ away on banjo, guitar, dobro, upright bass, and fiddle at Martyrs on almost any given weekend, the Prowlers sound more like the Cumberland Gap in the 1950s than Chicago in the 21st century. Their lyrical allusions are what bring it back around to modern times. They have a song called “Spoiler Alert.”

Jim Elkington — “Slow Train”

If you’ve seen live music in Chicago, you’ve seen Jim Elkington play guitar. The virtuoso has played with everyone from Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy to Eleventh Dream Day (with Freakwater’s Janet Bean) to various Mekons-related projects. (I once saw him play a David Bowie tribute set with Jon Langford and Sally Timms at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art that felt like a bad acid trip — but you’d never know it through Jim’s deadpan while he shredded away.) I can’t tell you how many shows I’ve been to in which I didn’t even know he was playing until he emerged from the shadows on stage. He’s ubiquitous. Elkington has also released several albums of superb guitar instrumentals steeped in country, bluegrass, and other roots stylings on the Paradise of Bachelors label.

— Mike Smith, new media publicist at Bloodshot Records

Photo on Foter.com

WATCH: Robbie Fulks, ‘Sarah Jane’

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Artist: Robbie Fulks
Hometown: Chicago, IL
Song: “Sarah Jane” (Live at BSHQ)
Album: Upland Stories
Label: Bloodshot Records

In Their Words: "I wrote 'Sarah Jane' in kind of a hurry — it being the last slot to fill in the set of songs I recorded as Upland Stories. I thought the record could use one tune that was short, tender, simple, and from-the-heart. It’s about long-ago moments of young romance that flicker in your mind decades on … and when you’re traveling and far from home and less distracted by family business, they seem to flicker with a more unsettling, nigh-unstoppable intensity.

Though it’s simple, it ultimately took a while to record. We tried 25 or 30 takes with different instruments, and the master is comped from, I think, four takes. But the one I did at Bloodshot’s office was one take. See which you think is better!" — Robbie Fulks

Photo credit: Andy Goodwin

A Hard Religion: An Interview with Robbie Fulks

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Robbie Fulks is the type of songwriter capable of mining myriad material sources for his work. His life and the lives of those around him are all fair game. On his new release, Upland Stories, the lives of those long gone even come into play. Some of the tales told here date back to 1936, when writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans set out to capture sharecroppers' stories in Alabama, eventually collecting them in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. On other cuts, Fulks reaches into his own history to sketch out in stark relief the often hard-scrabble lives he remembers from growing up in Virginia and North Carolina.

I'm always curious about geography as an artistic factor. You've lived in a few different places in your life — Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, New York. Tell me why Chicago makes sense as a home base for a roots musician.

I came here because I knocked my girlfriend up and her family had a nice place in the suburbs here. Before long, I had knocked another Chicago girl up and just couldn’t leave … old story. Anyway, I quickly found that there was no shortage of clubs and other outlets for musicians in Chicago. I got a job at Old Town School [of Folk Music] teaching, and started playing in little clubs like Holstein's and meeting pickers, and eventually I drifted into Greg Cahill’s band, Special Consensus. Because it’s such a big place with a decent and diverse economy, musicians like me can make it work out in Chicago, even with its disadvantage of not being a music business place. I try to counter the disadvantage by keeping in touch with people who move on to become famous on the coasts, and traveling all over doing shows.

Similarly, you've been a bit of a musical nomad, as well. Will you always come back to your folk-country home base, sooner or later, as you've done on Upland?

Donna and I talk pretty constantly about moving southward, where I fit in better musically and, in some ways, temperamentally, but I doubt it’s really in the cards — at this point, I have a fucking grandson here. Oh, but I think your question means am I, at heart, a folk-country musician? I just call myself country. It’s a big country.

Pretty clever of you to step into James Agee's shoes for some of these stories, particularly considering what's going on in the country currently. How'd that all come together for you?

Brian Yorkey, the playwright, and I were talking about a show to collaborate on and, in going over the themes that crop up over and over in my stuff — like memory and family and hardship and Southernness and so on — [Let Us Now Praise] Famous Men came to mind. I hadn’t read it for a long time and never read it in more than excerpts. I was shocked to find how much it turned me off — the writing was so calculated to annoy the reader, and the boring detail and purple language were too reminiscent of … I don’t know, the covenant-building section of “Exodus.” But the original piece he wrote, rejected by Fortune and decades later republished as “Cotton Tenants,” is sharp and beautiful; and I still admire his talent and accomplishments across a wide swath of genres … and, of course, his dangerous sexy-suicidal charisma, as well.

I wrote seven or eight songs in starting the project, and the three I included on my record felt to fit my voice well, and were just favorites of mine, for whatever reason.

Tying then to now, America is still a very hard religion, wouldn't you say? The more things change and all …

Of course any comparison between the 1930s and now is inexact and, on its face, it may seem ludicrous to suggest that the lives of cotton sharecroppers — which were hardly better than feudal serfs — have any analogue in today’s America. That’s the tough position that song stakes out, if you know, going in, that it’s related to Famous Men.

If you don’t, it simply articulates the harsh life and mindset of a resourceless person whose body hurts from work, who sacrifices children to war, who can’t hope to change his or her prospects, who takes pleasure in a fantasy of being happier after death, and whose stoic complaints are a sort of art form.

What's it take to write a funny song well? And to have them fit into an overall mix with non-funny songs?

I’m not sure a modern music listener accepts the transition on an “album” between funny and solemn. I grew up in an era that did, so it feels natural to me — light and dark, sharp mood swings, relate strongly to lived experience, in my view — but I’ve sometimes gotten the impression that a comic persona spoils the audience for anything else. “Look, that’s Cinderfella who we used to laugh at. Now he’s doing death camp tragedy and helping kids, Jesus Christ.”

My funny song influences are widespread. Stan Freberg, Michael Flanders, Tony Hendra, Bill Carlisle, Sheldon Harnick, Don Bowman, Loudon Wainwright, Cole Porter, Randy Newman, on and on. That list shows the fluidity and breadth of what I think of as funny or as a funny song. Basically, I think the same skills to write that way are the same as to write any song; but the instinct for the laugh-getting … who knows? As Steve Martin says, “If you put a slice of baloney in each of your shoes, you feel funny.”

Having done a few cover tunes along the way, what do you look for in a song? Something you don't think you could come close to writing? Some phrase that slays you?

I did Merle Kilgore’s great and moving song “Baby Rocked Her Dolly” on Upland Stories. iI strikes me as something I could have written myself, almost, but has a little something that’s beyond me or, perhaps, outside of me. The songs written by others that infect me, so to speak, to the point where I want to make a record of them and then sing them 200 times afterward in performance, a lot of them probably have that quality — they fit my voice, but there’s some feature that’s outside my bailiwick enough as to compel my admiration or envy. But, ultimately, songs infect a writer for the same reason as they do a non-writer: A good song makes you want to own it.

You did some time on Music Row. If creativity is alive and, mythologically speaking, associated with a muse or goddess, is there a way for formula writing to be something more than empty and soul-less?

I don’t think anyone alive would call himself a formula writer, but those writers that focus on a market and learn what it takes to satisfy it and bang the bell again and again, those people have their place. In the olden times, the industry seemed to offer more rewards to the popular music writers who were both commercially and artistically motivated, such as Chuck Berry, the Bryants, Lennon and McCartney, Carole King, Willie Dixon, Harlan Howard … people these days that are that talented are either in littler niches or get their gravy from film, TV, theater … something other than product geared for radio-driven sales. All my impression. I really don’t know much about it.

In my Music Row years, there were publishers who were very sensitive and smart sounding boards and constructive editors (not mine, alas, but still). But I'd guess that, as the commercial musical sphere has gotten stodgier and simpler and shoddier, these people have grown even rarer.

With all that you've done and seen throughout your career, is there any moment you'd like to go back to and relive or re-do?

Every single one of them!

Photo credit: Andy Goodwin

Hard Holiday: Robbie Fulks and Most of the Mekons on the Island of Jura

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Aside from swimming and light aircraft — one of which is certain doom and the other certainly expensive — there are only two ways to reach the island of Jura, one of several off the western coast of Scotland. You can take a car ferry from Islay, which lies to the south, but it requires a roundabout trip that, while scenic, will take you hours out of your way. More direct passage involves steeling yourself with a shot of the local whiskey and boarding one of the wooden dinghies — called a rigid inflatable — that take the trip across the choppy waters several times a day. Captained by locals long inured to the queasy bounce of the waves, these tiny boats accommodate a modest party and rock vertiginously on the water. Most passengers disembark on the island green-faced and rubber-kneed.

That’s how Robbie Fulks and most of the Mekons made the shaky passage to Jura, where they spent four days recording an album of acoustic ballads and gritty shanties, all full of seafarers weary, wracked, groggy, and often simply lost amid the waves. The Mekons are all British — Scots and Welshmen, specifically, although several now reside in the landlocked American Midwest — and as such are accustomed to some extent to such rough travel. Fulks, however, is an American, which gave him a very different perspective. “The trip was plotted a little sadistically, I thought,” he writes in the liner notes to the album, simply titled Jura. “Many in our number were, or looked, ill.”

Humans have been making that passage for centuries. Trod upon by Vikings long before the arrival of Christianity, Jura was home to Scottish farmers, mostly poor and stubborn against the rocky soil, but they were eventually forced off the land in what is called the Clearances. Landowners evicted their tenants to make room for sheep, whose wool was used to make uniforms for soldiers in Napoleon’s armies. The sheep remain, outnumbering the island’s human population. “A lot of people went from Jura to South Carolina, I think,” says Susie Honeyman, the Mekons’ violinist and expert on Scottish islands. “It’s really difficult to live there anyway, because the soil isn’t very good and people were starving.”

Since then, the island has claimed a small populace, among the famous of whom is George Orwell. In the 1940s, while writing 1984, he moved to a remote cabin a rough seven-mile hike through the woods from the main settlement. The island may have inspired that notoriously dystopian novel, but it was not kind to Orwell. The weather irritated his tuberculosis, nearly killing him. And, says Honeyman, “He nearly died in the Corryvrecken Whirlpool when he attempted to row across it with his son!”

Fulks and the Mekons arrived there in the middle of a long and arduous tour of the Scottish Highlands, including stops in remotes villages on islands that rarely see popular entertainment. “The Mekons being who they are — which is a bunch of highly disorganized individuals with multiple interests — it turned out that two of them weren’t sure they could go,” explains Mekons co-vocalist/co-songwriter Sally Timms. “Jon suggested asking Robbie Fulks to come along, and he — being either game or deranged at the time — said yes.”

Conditions on the island, Fulks soon discovered, weren’t exactly comfortable. The wind blows sharply, finding seams and holes in even the heaviest coats. The constant drizzle of rain renders everything damp, gray, muddy. The island is roughly the size of Chicago, with fewer than 200 people inhabiting a small settlement that includes one shop, one pub, one distillery. The one inn at full capacity, several of the Mekons took to cabins far from town, like lepers banished from civilization. “We stayed in these remote little cabins, but they weren’t even buildings really, at least not by American standards,” says Jon Langford, one of the band’s numerous vocalists, songwriters, and guitar players. “I think Robbie was shocked by the absence of soft toilet paper, towels, washing machines — things you might think of as bare essentials in the rest of the world. But they don’t need them on Jura.”

“It’s cold and it’s wet and it’s stunningly, dramatically beautiful,” says Honeyman. “It’s not a soft holiday.”

Fulks and the Mekons recorded at Sound of Jura, formerly a schoolhouse owned and operated by Giles Perring who, in the 1980s, played in a band called Echo City with Honeyman. Prior to their arrival, the band had spent weeks planning songs, penning lyrics, testing melodies, and dreaming up arrangements, so that when they got there they could have something resembling songs to rip up. Even at the earliest stages, they knew the album would have a nautical theme. “We’re going to an island, so we’re going to write songs about islands and sailors and fishermen,” recalls Timms. “We always like to have some kind of theme. It helps to hang things on. But we had only a notion of what it might be like on Jura.”

The music reflects the place: These are songs about hard lives on or, at least, near the sea — lives defined by depravation and tribulation. Sung by Langford, “Incident at St. Kitt’s” is a dark, choppy chantey that traces news of a gruesome tragedy from one port to the next, from one ocean to the next, until it’s subsumed into seagoing lore. “Stiff drink! Stiff upper lip!” they shout in unison. That news might have reached the alcoholic and self-justifying narrator of Fulks’ “Refill” or even the pitiful rake in his new version of the Mekons’ classic “Beaten & Broken.”

Says Langford, “We tried to leave ourselves open to where we were, so we knew there were going to be boats involved. As soon as we got there, a lot of the lyrics got kicked out. Place names were brought in, along with snippets of overheard conversations. That’s how we work as songwriters. We’ll just tear the whole thing up at the last minute. Don’t sing those lyrics we’ve been working on. Sing this thing that basically a transcript of a conversation we heard in a pub the night before.”

Jura got into their bones, even as they tried to keep it out. So the resulting album that bears the island’s name sounds evocative of the place itself, with a queasy acoustic drone saturating every song. The drone of the harmonium evokes flat, rocky land — beautiful but hard, boggy, and rocky — inviting you to explore its raised beaches and low mountains, but trapping you in mud once you get there. “We didn’t know we were going to play harmonium on the album,” says Timms, “because we didn’t know there would be a harmonium until we got there. Giles just happened to have one. It’s such an archaic sound. It’s perfect to go with the other acoustic instruments.”

Honeyman’s violin takes to the sea, lending quiet, slow laments like “Sail on Silver Seas” and “I Am Come Home” — both sung by Timms — their gently rocking motion. A susceptible listener might get seasick listening to them, but it’s not an altogether unpleasant sensation. “I’m not quite sure why it’s got that particular character,” says Honeyman. “Certainly, we were aware of our surroundings. The song is quite slow, and everything in Jura is quite slow. When you’re going on boats, you can’t go fast. It’s not like going planes. You just go the speed you can go.”

Jura jolted these musicians into a different gear and made them adjust their speed. That may be the island’s greatest charm, and it means the album shows no signs of hasty assembly. Rather, much like the island that inspired it, these songs make acoustic austerity sound lush and generous and rich. “I think something quite coherent happened quite accidentally,” says Langford. “It’s like this is the only way it could have sounded. We didn’t hit upon something. It was just the sound of us at that time and in that place.”

Mekons photo by Derrick Santini