Bluegrass Vacation

Robbie Fulks first break in his career as a musician came when he joined the veteran bluegrass group the Special Consensus in 1983, and even though it turned out to be just one of many creative paths he would follow, a look at his catalog confirms hes never lost his love for acoustic country music and the home truths of bluegrass storytelling. 2013s Gone Away Backward and 2016s Upland Stories were mostly acoustic efforts that were among the best-reviewed work of his career (the latter also earned him a Grammy nomination), and 2023s Bluegrass Vacation is at once a companion piece to those records and his first proper bluegrass album since leaving the Special Consensus. Bluegrass Vacation was recorded in Nashville with a crew of first-class bluegrass pickers, including Jerry Douglas on Dobro, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, San Bush and Ronnie McCoury on mandolin, and Alison Brown on banjo. Fulks guitar playing is more than strong enough for him to stand alongside the high-priced help, if more stylishly idiosyncratic (he favors occasional bursts of atonality more than his accompanists), and the best songs here are further evidence hes a remarkably gifted tunesmith. "Angels Carry Me" is a powerful tale of one mans love-hate relationship with his father, and "Mommas Eyes" is an equally moving and no less complicated story of a womans grim final years. "One More Glass of Whiskey" and "Sweet Lil Cora-Mae" are more cheerful variations on classic themes, and "Longhair Bluegrass" is a funny and loving first-person account of his discovery of the birth of newgrass (as well as meeting fellow acoustic pickers who smoked reefer). This being a Robbie Fulks album, he cant quite hold back the snarky undercurrent that mostly stayed quiet on Gone Away Backward and Upland Stories, and theres a smirk in "Let the Old Dog In" and "Backwater Blues" that feels a bit too smart for the room. But the closing track, "Old Time Music Is Here to Stay," is a stunner, a reminder that the enduring themes of bluegrass and classic country never lose their relevance, sometimes in ways that hurt as much as they heal. Bluegrass Vacation could be said to be Fulks meditation on the notion that you can go home again, though its also a place he never entirely left behind; it certainly testifies to his love of bluegrass and how it continues to inform and jibe with his songwriting decades into his musical career. ~ Mark Deming