Bobby Bare - Sings Lullabys, Legends & Lies

Bare necessities, plain and simple

This lovingly produced 2-CD set celebrates the prolific musical partnership of country legend Bobby Bare and folk singer-songwriter and provocative Playboy cartoonist Shel Silverstein. Bare’s classic 1973 concept album is here reissued along with a second disc of 16 alternately witty and insightful Silverstein songs from subsequent Bare albums on Columbia, Mercury and RCA. Accompanied by an A-team of Nashville’s best session players and pickers (including Chip Young, Lloyd Green and Danny Eps), and performing before a lively group of fans and friends, Bare lends his world-weary baritone to an affecting assortment of tall tales, exaggerations, historical snapshots and fantasy (including the charting Marie Laveau and Daddy, What If) on the album that proved the best-selling of Bare’s long career. Disc Two is the real treat, however, with hits such as Sylvia’s Mother, the hot-blooded Tequila Sheila, Alimony, Singin’ In The Kitchen, The Jogger and the wry confessional Back Home In Huntsville Again scattered among Bare favorites such as the hilarious singalong Quaaludes Again, an epic tribute to Jimmie Rodgers, Food Blues, the tale of Brian Hennessey and the bluesy Too Many Nights Alone.

RCA Nashville/Legacy | 82876775012

Reviewed by Gary von Tersch
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