Robert William "Robbie" Fulks (born March 25, 1963) is an American alternative country singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and long-time resident of Chicago, Illinois.

He grew up in small towns in southeastern Pennsylvania, the Blue Ridge Mountains area of Virginia, and the Piedmont region of North Carolina.

Many of his early tracks were engineered by Steve Albini, and the Chicago punk-country label Bloodshot Records began releasing them in 1993.

[6][12][13] While living in Chicago, Fulks worked for four years as a country songwriter, mainly for Music Row publisher API.

[2] His solo debut album, Country Love Songs, engineered by Steve Albini,[11] was released on Bloodshot Records in 1996 and received positive reviews.

The Skeletons, members of whom later formed the band The Morells, played on most of the tracks[13] and Tom Brumley and Buck Owens also featured.

Fans had grown used to his rough and sparse sound, but his third album, 1998's Let's Kill Saturday Night, on Geffen Records,[14][15] was different.

Fulks recorded it during the spring of 1998 in Nashville with producer Rick Will, and the album included performances by Lucinda Williams, Sam Bush, Bill Lloyd, and Al Anderson, as well as guitarist Rob Gjersoe (Jimmie Dale Gilmore), bassist Lorne Rall, and drummer Dan Massey.

In 2001 he released Couples in Trouble, a dark, brooding, and decidedly non-country album, and 13 Hillbilly Giants, a collection of covers of classic country numbers, both obscure and well known.

Georgia Hard on Yep Roc Records was a return to his county roots, and was notable for its use of long-time Nashville talent such as Lloyd Green, Hank Singer, Dennis Crouch, and Dallas Wayne.

Standing opens with the tongue-in-cheek studio track "We're on the Road", which describes life on tour and simulates a telephone call to Fulks from Yep Roc Records President Glenn Dicker, demanding a new record and denigrating the sales performance of the "path-breaking, not chart-breaking" album Georgia Hard.

[7] The stylistic choice was a good fit with the other musicians who appeared on the recording, Robbie Gjersoe, Jenny Scheinman, and Mike Bub.

[26] In 2014, Fulks joined members of The Mekons, dubbed "mini-Mekons", on a trip to write and record on the island of Jura in Scotland.

[35] Jim Fusilli of the Wall Street Journal suggested that "a world in which Fulks isn't a household name is somehow upside down.

"[36] Fulks often plays at The Hideout, a bar and club in Chicago, and has worked long-term residencies there,[12][37][38] performing anything from current popular hits to jazz to obscure country masterpieces.