BIOGRAPHY: BOBBY BARE

OUTLAW TRAILBLAZER

For nearly seven decades, Bobby Bare has blazed a trail in country music that has crossed over many musical styles. During the Outlaw era, he gave his voice to many of its songwriters and acted as a role model for Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and others seeking artistic freedom.

Robert Joseph Bare was born on April 7, 1935, in Lawrence County, Ohio, the second of three children in a farm family. His mother died when he was five, and Bare coped with his hardships by learning to play the guitar and dreaming of being a country singer. By his teens, he had dropped out of school and was performing on local radio shows.

In 1953, he hitched a ride to Los Angeles and soon attracted recording and publishing contracts. But just as his career got off the ground, he was 1973, featured songs written by Nashville’s new drafted into the U.S. Army. After two years of wave of poet-songwriters, including Tom T. Hall, military service, he found modest success as a pop Mickey Newbury, Billy Joe Shaver, and singer for a small Ohio record label. In 1962, he Shel Silverstein. signed a major recording deal with RCA Nashville, and he put together a string of hits, on both Bare continued to lead the way with his next country and pop charts, with his special blend of release, a double album entitled Bobby Bare country, folk, and pop music. Sings Lullabys, Legends, and Lies that he organized by themes. Written mostly by In this period, he also discovered Waylon Jennings Silverstein, it featured two hits, including during a visit to Phoenix, Arizona, and he helped Bare’s only #1 song, “Marie Laveau.” get the future leader of the Outlaw movement signed to RCA. In the mid-1980s, Bare stepped back from an active career, but his partnership with Silverstein Bare jumped to another label in 1970, but two remained strong. In 1998, Bare, Jennings, Jerry years later, he returned when RCA agreed he Reed, and Mel Tillis — all future members of the could produce his own records, as well as choose Country Music Hall of Fame — recorded Old Dogs, his own songs and studio musicians. It was a bold an album of Silverstein comedy songs. request, but Bare pointed out it would save money for RCA. His victory helped other Outlaw-era Bare continues to perform and record artists gain the same freedom. His next album, I occasionally. His latest album, Things Change, Hate Goodbyes/Ride Me Down Easy, released in was released in 2017.

SOURCES LISTEN BobbyBare.com, Country Music Changed My Life: “Daddy What If” (written by Shel Silverstein) Tales of Tough Times and Triumph from Country’s “The Wonderful Soup Stone” (written by Legends by Ken Burke, Encyclopedia of Country Shel Silverstein) Music, The Houston Chronicle

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