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Mark Wills, Robbie Fulks Pace New Country Releases

Dallas Wayne follow-up, reissue of The Gambler also out.

Mark Wills' fourth album and Robbie Fulks' first disc on his own record label are among the new country releases hitting stores Tuesday, along with a reissue of Kenny Rogers' breakthrough album and Dallas Wayne's second LP.

Wills' newest is Loving Every Minute on Mercury Nashville. The first single, the title song, has already entered the top 30 on Billboard's Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. The disc also features Wills singing a duet with labelmate Jamie O'Neal on "I'm Not Gonna Do Anything Without You."

Always colorful alt-country singer/songwriter Fulks — who had been recording for Chicago's Bloodshot Records — formed his own label to release what he considers a personal album. Couples in Trouble, on his Boondoggle Records, is very much about people in trouble, from the "little hotpants" Brenda in the song "Brenda's New Stepfather" to the "downtown whores" in "Mad at a Girl." As ever, Fulks remains very much an acquired taste who — in his own words — continues to oppose "the musically balkanized status quo."

After last year's impressive HighTone debut album, Big Thinkin' (produced by Fulks), rough-hewn singer/songwriter Wayne returns with Here I Am in Dallas, also on HighTone. Wayne is now on the TwangBangers Tour, along with Merle Haggard's guitarist Redd Volkaert, former Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen guitarist Bill Kirchen and flamboyant steel guitarist Joe Goldmark.

Rogers' The Gambler has been reissued in an enhanced version. Originally released on November 15, 1978, The Gambler earned the CMA's Album of the Year award and gained a CMA Male Vocalist of the Year award for Rogers. The song "The Gambler," a #1 hit on Billboard's country and pop singles charts, yielded a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance and spawned five made-for-television movies starring Rogers.

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