Bobby Bare
| Bobby Bare, Sr. | |
|---|---|
Bare in 1973.
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Robert Joseph Bare, Sr. |
| Born | April 7, 1935 |
| Origin | Ironton, Ohio, United States |
| Genres | Country, folk |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Years active | 1958–present |
| Labels | RCA Victor, Mercury, Columbia, Plowboy |
| Associated acts | Skeeter Davis, Waylon Jennings |
| Website | |
Robert Joseph "Bobby" Bare, Sr. (born April 7, 1935) is an American country music singer and songwriter, best known for the songs "Detroit City" and "500 Miles Away from Home". He is the father of Bobby Bare Jr., also a musician.
Bare had many failed attempts to sell his songs in the 1950s. He finally signed with Capitol Records and recorded a few rock and roll songs without much chart success. Just before he was drafted into the Army, he wrote a song called "The All American Boy" and did a demo for his friend, Bill Parsons, to learn how to record. Instead of using the version Bill Parsons did later, the record company, Fraternity Records, decided to use the original demo recorded by Bobby Bare. The record reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, but they made an error: the singles' labels all credited the artist as being "Bill Parsons". The same track, with the same billing error, peaked at No. 22 in the UK Singles Chart in April 1959. In 1965, an album of older recorded material, Tender Years (JM-6026), was released on the Hilltop label. The same material, but under a different cover, was released on the Sears label under the title Bobby In Song (SPS-115) that same year. These albums are not usually included in Bare's published discographies.
Bare's big break in country music came when Chet Atkins signed him to RCA Victor. The first single he released on the label was "Shame On Me" in 1962. His second RCA Victor single, "Detroit City" reached No. 6 Country, No. 16 Hot 100, and in 1964 earned him a Grammy Award for Best Country and Western Recording. Then a surge of hits followed, including "500 Miles Away from Home" (based on a traditional folk ballad written by Hedy West as "500 Miles") and Ian Tyson's "Four Strong Winds". In 1965 he received two Grammy nominations for Best Country & Western Vocal Performance and Best Country & Western single for the song "Four Strong Winds". In 1966, he received a Grammy Nomination for Best Country & Western Male Vocal Performance for his song "Talk Me Some Sense". He also recorded two duet albums with Skeeter Davis and recorded six tracks as a trio with Norma Jean and Liz Anderson which produced a major hit with "The Game of Triangles", a wife-husband-other woman drama that hit No. 5 on the Billboard chart earned the trio a Grammy nomination. In 1968, he recorded an album with a group from England called The Hillsiders. In 1969, he had a Top 5 hit with Tom T. Hall's "(Margie's At) The Lincoln Park Inn".
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