Bobby Bare
This Is Bare Country
Album · Country · 1970
The laconic, gravel-voiced Bobby Bare made his artistic reputation cutting a series of albums for RCA that skillfully split the difference between country and folk. He could put a rueful country twist on folk standards like “500 Miles Away from Home” or lend an air of blue-collar indignation to country weepers like “The Streets of Baltimore.” The great Chet Atkins had graced many of Bare’s RCA releases with his sophisticated countrypolitan production, but Bare’s first Mercury release, This Is… Bare Country, showed that his matter-of-fact vocals fared better in a sparser musical setting. This barebones production approach makes This Is… Bare Country something of a precursor to the outlaw aesthetic that Bare’s close friends Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson would pioneer at the dawn of the ‘70s. The album also boasts an incredible roster of songwriters. Master wordsmith Tom T. Hall contributes no less than four compositions, including the sorrowful travelogue “How I Got to Memphis.” Elsewhere, Bare turns in solid interpretations of tunes by Billy Joe Shaver, Lee Hazlewood, and Harlan Howard.
This Is Bare Country
Bobby Bare
The laconic, gravel-voiced Bobby Bare made his artistic reputation cutting a series of albums for RCA that skillfully split the difference between country and folk. He could put a rueful country twist on folk standards like “500 Miles Away from Home” or lend an air of blue-collar indignation to country weepers like “The Streets of Baltimore.” The great Chet Atkins had graced many of Bare’s RCA releases with his sophisticated countrypolitan production, but Bare’s first Mercury release, This Is… Bare Country, showed that his matter-of-fact vocals fared better in a sparser musical setting. This barebones production approach makes This Is… Bare Country something of a precursor to the outlaw aesthetic that Bare’s close friends Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson would pioneer at the dawn of the ‘70s. The album also boasts an incredible roster of songwriters. Master wordsmith Tom T. Hall contributes no less than four compositions, including the sorrowful travelogue “How I Got to Memphis.” Elsewhere, Bare turns in solid interpretations of tunes by Billy Joe Shaver, Lee Hazlewood, and Harlan Howard.
