Bobby Bare Sings Lullabys, Legends & Lies - Bobby Bare

County singer, Bobby Bare has released a surprising sometimes stunning new record, "The Moon Was Blue," co-produced by his son Bobby Bare Jr, twenty years after his last album. This was the gist of a recent newspaper article that caught my eye. Why?

Well because way back in the 1970s, as a young babysitter, I was introduced to the music of Bobby Bare in particular his album, "Lullabys, Legends and Lies". On one ...
...and lies".

Bobby Bare was quite innovative for his day. He always promoted his belief that the songwriters were more important than singers. He was the first country singer to produce his own records and the first to make what was termed a concept album..

That album was this, "Lullabys, Legends and Lies." A concept album in which there is a common theme to each of the tracks on the album. The theme is ... more

County singer, Bobby Bare has released a surprising sometimes stunning new record, "The Moon Was Blue," co-produced by his son Bobby Bare Jr, twenty years after his last album. This was the gist of a recent newspaper article that caught my eye. Why?

Well because way back in the 1970s, as a young babysitter, I was introduced to the music of Bobby Bare in particular his album, "Lullabys, Legends and Lies". On one of the tracks, a shy 5 year old Bobby Bare Jr duetted with his father to sing in a quivering voice "Daddy What If". The song was touching and thought-provoking. I loved it.

So after reading the article, I dusted off the CD, and listened once more to the slow laid-back baritone as he sang to me "some tales about murder and blueberry pies, and heroes and hells and bottomless wells, and lullabies, legends and lies".

Bobby Bare was quite innovative for his day. He always promoted his belief that the songwriters were more important than singers. He was the first country singer to produce his own records and the first to make what was termed a concept album..

That album was this, "Lullabys, Legends and Lies." A concept album in which there is a common theme to each of the tracks on the album. The theme is somewhat obvious from the title. Each of the tracks tells a story; some about great American legends such as Paul Bunyan, some cleaning tell a whole bunch of lies and I guess the lullaby is the aforementioned duet with Bobby Bare Jr. And yes it was produced by Bare himself.

Each of the songs, fourteen in total, was penned by the wonderfully talented songwriter Shel Silverstein. Silverstein's songwriting is notoriously tongue-in-cheek; sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes cleverly ironic, sometimes suggestive, sometimes sentimental. You will probably best know him for Johnny Cash's classic "A boy named Sue" and Dr. Hook's "Sylvia's Mother".

There is lot more to Country music than you may think. First of all there are the styles. There is Bluegrass, Honky Tonk, The Golden Age of Country, Folk Country, Nashville sound and modern country. Bobby Bare's style falls into the Nashville sound. Loosely speaking, Nashville Sound is a combination of country and pop music.

"Lullabys, Legends and Lies" was the most successful album of Bobby Bare's long career with a number one hit in the pop charts with "Marie Laveau" and a number two single in "Daddy What If." It also spent 30 weeks on the country charts reaching number 5.

Bare introduces each of the tracks in his friendly southern-drawl explaining the story behind the song. Bare emits a good-natured charm that compliments Silverstein's writing wonderfully. He has the deep lazy sort of speaking voice perfect for storytelling. He succeeds in capturing your attention even before he starts to sing and once he does - you are hooked!!

The opening title track explians the concept of the album in a ballad format with four lined-rhyming stanzas with a catchy chourus that soon has you singing along.

There then follows songs about some "good ol' American Legends" starting with Paul Bunyan - a latter-day Hercules: a fun song with short stanzas that each ends with a long drawn out "Paul". "You talk about tough, well he once had a fight/ With a thunderstorm on a cold dark night / I ain't sayin' who won but it don't storm at all - round here - anymore - thanks to Pau….L".

Then comes the frighteningly funny "Marie Laveau" - a voodoo queen and man-eater. "She got a black cat tooth and a mojo bone / And anyone who wouldn't leave her alone / She go (high pitched screech) / Another man done gone".

There are a few tracks about the newer nameless legends about general character types. The Winner is one of my personal favourite full of wry humour. It tells about the ageless contenders for glory from the old western gunfighters to bare-knuckle fighters and so on (I got arthuritic elbows, boy, I got dislocated knees/ From pickin' fights with thunderstorms and chargin' into trees/ And my nose been broke so often, I might lose it if I sneeze/ And son, you say you still wanna be a winner?)

Then there is "Rest awhile" about the motorbike drifter rider type brought to fame by the Easy-Rider film. And the really funny and just a little lewd "The Mermaid" about the beautiful and enticing mythical half women / half fish, "Then one day she swam away and I sang to the clams and whales / How I missed her eyes and her seaweed hair and the silvery shine of her scales / Just then her sister, she swam by and set my heart a-whirl / 'Cause her upper part was an ugly fish, but the bottom part was a girl!"

We are told about the myths of Soup stones, Bottomless wells, Mechanical girls and lucky pens all crooned with Bare's inimitable style.

Mr favourites - "Rosalie's Good Eats Café", a people-watching tale about the various characters that frequent the all night cafes "at two in the morning" (You will probably recognise one or two) and "In the Hills of Shiloh" - the only serious song on the album - a haunting beautiful melody with unashamedly sentimental lyrics.

Bare is accompanied by the traditional country instrumentation of steel guitars, banjos, fiddles and harmonica as well as piano and guitar.

I would like to say this album is widely available however I can't. I had to search for the album when I wanted to replace my LP collection some years ago. I finally managed to get it from Amazon. A quick look tells me that it is still available there for £8.19.

I do recommend the album. I love it - but then I do enjoy a good story both in lyrics and melody. It is cheerful light hearted music that cannot fail to raise your spirits. Johnny Cash said that Bobby Bare was his favourite country singer - what better accolade could there be!!
 

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