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ROBBIE FULKS& LINDA GAIL LEWISRELEASE DATE: AUG 10, 2018

Wild! Wild! Wild!, the new collaboration between Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Robbie Fulks and rock-and-roll royalty Linda Gail Lewis, gleefully lives up to its title. It’s Americana music that’s as butt-shakin’ as Beale Street, deep-rooted as the Grand Ole Opry, and hip as a trip to The Strip. Subversive as it is reverential, the album jumps the genre tracks of nitty-gritty rock-and-roll, country-and-western, rockabilly, jump swing, and gospel, landing in a strange slice of spacetime—call it 1954—when all these were One (and Linda was 7).

Robbie Fulks, the record’s producer, is “one of the most observant and wry songwriters of the past two decades” (Rolling Stone). Ground-zero Louisiana-born rocker Linda Gail Lewis is the younger sister and frequent performing partner of Jerry Lee Lewis, whose piano innovations she carries forward. Her present-at-the-creation cred buoys the record while Robbie—who sings, plays, leads the band, writes most of the songs, and arranges the others—provides an anchoring sensibility, one that savors old sounds but sidesteps nostalgia. Their two talents have fashioned a record that’s urgent, honest, and fun. Remember fun?

“Round Too Long,” “Boogie-Woogie Country Girl,” and the title track all crackle with the unmistakable Lewis pumping piano; here is a fresh blast of the rowdy religious fire that devastated polite America 60 years ago, delivered with genetic precision and power. “It Came From the South”—co-written by NRBQ’s classic-era guitarist Al Anderson and played by its current one, Scott Ligon—recounts the origin story of rock-and-roll with pithy phrases and a neat beat. “Memphis Never Falls From Style” grooves with three of Chicago’s finest jazz elders, notably Eric Schneider, who cut his teeth in the road bands of Count Basie and Earl Hines, and whose sensational clarinet solo is one of the album’s highlights. “On The Jericho Road,” a gospel not-quite-standard that Linda and Jerry Lee sang together as

children, is a Sunday song that skips along with Saturday-night joie de vivre. “Hardluck, Louisiana” recounts Linda’s childhood and is the most elegiac and reflectively intense performance—both vocal and piano—of her career.

Robbie sings lead on “Foolmaker,” which is saturated with Stax soul. It benefits mightily from two Chicago singers, Joan Collaso and Yvonne Gage, whom he learned of not through their decades of high-visibility work with people like Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and Madonna, but by sitting home idly watching Empire. Two more Robbie originals, “That’s Why They Call It Temptation” and “I Just Lived A Country Song,” are the kind of weapons-grade country now found only in the shadows of Music Row. The classic “Your Red Wagon” is presented as a B3-fueled dash through a Naugahyde supper club. “Who Cares,” the Don Gibson hit, poses the question, “What can’t the great Merle Haggard sideman and Telecaster master Redd Volkaert do on a 1959 Gibson L5?” The answer: Stop playing. (The fadeout was strictly necessary.)

The crisp, unmanipulated sound of Wild! Wild! Wild! owes a lot to Alex Hall, who engineered (for instance, setting up mics and moving baffles as the group worked through arrangement issues) as well as drummed (...then hitting “record,” running across two rooms, and counting off). Alex is known for his similarly sharpening influence on records by J.D. McPherson, The Flat Five, Pokey LaFarge, and The Cactus Blossoms.

Linda Gail Lewis’s recording career spans almost 50 years, loosely bookended by the present record and 1969’s Together, her duet album with Jerry Lee—with her acclaimed summit with Van Morrison, 2000’s You Win Again, in the middle. Robbie has made 13 solo records since 1996. His last one, 2016’s Upland Stories, demonstrated expanding ambitions and strengths, and was honored with two Grammy nominations, one for Folk Album and another for American Roots Song (“Alabama At Night”).

For press needs, contact: Josh Zanger at josh@bloodshotrecords.com

WILD! WILD! WILD!

“Fulks and Lewis, who if anything have become more prolific as they’ve gotten older, make for a rowdy one-two punch on a record with a deep bench of talent... Mixing together Lewis’ Memphis roots with a modern Chicago twist” —ROLLING STONE

INTO THE WILD!with ROBBIE FULKS & LINDA GAIL LEWIS

A Q&A about their new album Wild! Wild! Wild!

How did you meet?

Robbie Fulks: We met while working for the same promoter in Sweden about ten years ago. I was too nervous to bug her, but after she invited me to sing and play on a record she was making, I became like a permanent insect on her windshield. I sat in on her stage show once, appeared on another of her records, and all the while we were talking about doing something more involved and complete. This album is it.

Linda Gail Lewis: Linda Gail Lewis: I had been a fan of Robbie’s ever since a musician friend of mine introduced me to his albums. When I found out that my Swedish agent was book-ing a tour for Robbie, I was hoping I could catch one of his gigs. Luckily I did and, boy, was I blown away. I was honored and a bit intimidated when he was game enough to join me onstage. We clicked onstage as well as off, and became fast friends.

How did Wild! Wild! Wild! officially get going?

LGL: While playing on an album that my daughter Annie and I were recording, Robbie said he’d like to bring me to Chicago. He wanted to give me the opportunity to record in a good studio with great musicians and an excellent acoustic piano.

When Robbie sent me the first songs, my husband and I listened to them, and we loved what we heard. I was so happy I cried; I’ve never had songs like these. It was a joy to learn and record these great songs.

The record took a year-and-a-half to complete. Was the initial high easy to sustain? What kept the flame going?

LGL: I love singing with Robbie. It reminds of singing with my brother, Jerry Lee. The duets we did were so much fun.

And the songs Robbie wrote are out of this world. My husband was a promotion man for Stax and Chess, and he felt like he was back at Stax when he heard “FoolAnd the songs Robbie wrote are out of this world. My husband was a promotion man for Stax and Chess, and he felt like he was back at Stax when he heard “Fool-maker.” Robbie is a soul singer. That was a surprise.

RF: It’s a great opportunity to get to write for other people, especially people I admire, people with interesting life stories. Linda’s story is beyond interesting. As the first line of “Round Too Long” goes: “I’m the sister of a hellraiser, the daughter of an old tomcat/I was playin’ the piano in a honky-tonk before you bragged about that.” I could never sing that song myself, obviously. Hanging out socially with Elvis and the first-generation white rock-and-rollers, married and divorced three times as a teenager, working with Jerry’s insane entourage, performing such physically demanding music for so many decades — what a survivor she is. And what a joyful outlook she survived with.

I’ve loved LindaI’ve loved Linda’s artistry since I was young. Her singing on “When You Wore A Tulip (And I Wore A Big Red Rose),” from back in 1970, still thrills me every time. The first time I sang with her, I was amazed at her intuitiveness. It was as though we were singing something we’d sung a thousand times. On Wild! Wild! Wild! we had three or four passes at everything, but nothing was previously rehearsed and each take blazed off into uncharted waters. I think people can hear that we come from a similar musical place in taste and culture, and that we love working together.

What experiences are likely to stay with you from making the record?

LGL: LGL: I’ll never forget rockin’ with Alex [Hall], Scott [Ligon], and Casey [McDonough] on “Round Too Long.” Robbie made me admit how wild I was at a young age, when I sing the truthful lyrics he wrote about me. Or sitting at the Sun Records-style upright piano at Alex’s studio, singing and playing “Memphis Never Falls from Style”—Robbie on the banjo, and those kick-ass Dixieland horns all playing live on the floor. When we let Al Bell [legendary record producer and co-founder of Stax Records] hear it, he fell in love with the song.

[Editors' note: Alex, Scott, and Casey are all members of Chicago weirdo roots/jazz pop vocal supergroup The Flat Five, whose debut album we released last yea[Editors' note: Alex, Scott, and Casey are all members of Chicago weirdo roots/jazz pop vocal supergroup The Flat Five, whose debut album we released last year. Scott and Casey are also members of NRBQ. Alex is in nearly every coveted band in Chicago.]

RF:RF: Like a number of musicians I work with, Linda has given me lessons beyond music—how to live more happily and think more sharply. But just in terms of music, a few moments on this record remind me that the note-to-feeling ratio is often very lopsided. As much as I dig her hardcore boogie-woogie chops and her splashy glissandi, it’s her simple playing on the intro of “Foolmaker” and the entirety of “Hardluck, Louisiana” that stopped my breath when they happened. In just a few notes you can hear straight into her soul—who she is, where she’s from, what mood she’s in. And more: the American South at midcentury, Christian faith, tri-umph over adversity...and many, many years of piano playing!

Wild! Wild! Wild! will be released on digital, CD, and vinyl LP on August 10th, 2018. Robbie & Linda will hit the road playing shows together in support of the album this summer and fall.