Bobby Bare Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus (8-CD Deluxe Box Set)

Bobby Bare Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus (8-CD Deluxe Box Set)

Bobby Bare Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus - amazon review! Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus (8-CD Deluxe Box Set) So, I was thrilled when I saw that the German-based reissue label Bear Family Records – which always goes “first class” on reissuing deluxe boxsets of artists who deserve, but rarely get, attention, I knew I’d learn more about the two of them. Yes,, like most reading this review, I knew Bobby Bare from basically one other recording back in the 1960s from his hit single “Detroit City” (written by Nashville writers Danny Dill and Mel Tillis) but other than the “LLandL album”, I knew little. After spending (literally) hours with this EIGHT-CD (plus 128-page hardbound Lp-size book) box I feel I know both guys. Thanks to the capacity of a CD vs. vinyl, the original two discs fit on the first CD. Then we get the follow-up album “Hard Time Hungrys (another misspelled title!) where not all, but most, are penned by Silverstein. Tracks recorded though not on the original album are added. “Singin’ in the Kitchen” – with the whole Bare family joining in gets the same treatment. A brief break in the flow of issued releases fills the next two CDs, “Stray Bare Tracks” and “More Stray Bare Tracks” before we get to “The COMPLETE Great American Saturday Night” ,and finally two albums from the 80s: “Down and Dirty” and “Drunk & Crazy” which ends with “Desperados Waiting For A Train”, the Guy Clark song made famous by the late Jerry Jeff Walker. The book has an essay on Silverstein and a new interview with Bare plus the lyrics to all 137 songs in the set.

Presse Archive - Bobby Bare Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus - Elmore magazine No BS, when it comes to box sets, Bear Family Records seems to set the standard. Just consider the numbers on their latest LP-sized deluxe offering: 137 tracks on 8 CDs, 6 complete albums, 25 previously unreleased masters, one 128 page hardcover book, containing interviews, tributes, photos and more photos, no selfies, but beaucoup “shelfies” (portraits by Lawson Little), along with a down-to-the-last-detail discography of sessions that ran across two decades, all of it artistically packaged and remastered beautifully so it sounds like it was recorded yesterday. Like “sessions,” the often-repeated word in Bare’s first big 1959 hit “All American Boy,” playing on lots of sessions were always very important to Robert Joseph Bare Sr.. The music world first knew Bobby as “Bill Parsons” thanks to sloppy label copy on that Top 40 hit.There’s no sloppiness here with this outstanding Bear Family production of the now CMHOF legend’s prolific partial lives work. The bulk of it originates from one irrepressible songwriter, Shel Silverstein. Much of it is conceptual, a term that did not exist in the Music Row that cranked out standard issue LPs back then, with one or two hits and eight placeholders.

Presse Archive - Bobby Bare Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus - LA Times Plenty of people had hits with Shel Silverstein’s songs, but he had no better interpreter than Bobby Bare, a gentle giant of 1970s progressive country. The pair grew close as both friends and collaborators, resulting in Bare recording more than 100 Silverstein tunes between 1972 and 1983. All those recordings are in this eight-disc box, a set that highlights the duo’s knack for lullabies, legends and down-and-dirty country.

Presse Archive - Bobby Bare Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus - theseconddisc.com The 128-page hardcover book is worth the price of admission. It features an introduction by Peter Cooper, a new interview with Bobby Bare by Hank Davis, a biographical feature on Shel Silverstein by Dave Samuelson, Bear Family’s signature discography by Richard Weize and Samuelson, and most excitingly, complete lyrics for every track. While lyrics are meant to be sung and poetry is meant to be read, Silverstein was adept at both, and his words are often an enjoyable pure reading experience. The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs of both men as well as album artwork. The discs are housed in four digipaks, each holding two CDs. When placed in the box’s tray, they create one large image with their covers. An 8 x 10″ publicity-style photo of Bare and Silverstein has been placed within each box; early copies ordered directly through Bear Family found these autographed by Bare. Mixes of the unreleased material have been created by Vic Anesini and Mark Wilder at Battery Studios, and the subtle mastering is by Marcus Heumann. There are still other Bare-sings-Silverstein recordings to explore further, including the 1998 album Old Dogs on which Bobby teamed with Waylon Jennings, Mel Tillis, and Jerry Reed for another set of Shel’s songs. That Atlantic release is a coda to this collection worth seeking out, as is Twistable Turnable Man, a 2010 tribute to Silverstein produced by Bobby and his son Bobby Bare Jr. who by then had become an acclaimed artist in his own right. In Samuelson’s text on Silverstein, it’s revealed that Bobby Sr. spoke to Shel on what turned out to be his final night on earth. Their close, brotherly rapport is evident throughout these eight discs of enduring music. Bear Family’s box is a stunning tribute to their collaboration. Head down to the dive bar, crank up the jukebox, and raise a glass – or more likely, a bottle – to the great American Saturday nights of these two country renegades.

Presse Archive - Bobby Bare Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus - annecarlini.com Title - Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein Plus [8CD Box] Artist - Bobby Bare For those not in the know, no artist recorded more Shel Silverstein songs than veteran country singer Bobby Bare. Indeed, his 1972 cover of Silverstein's bittersweet 'Sylvia's Mother' launched a professional relationship that led to an enduring friendship. Lullabys, Legends And Lies (1974) remains an exercise in pure imagination, establishing Bare as a major album artist and yielded 'Marie Laveau,' Bare's first chart-topping single. Furthermore, among Silverstein's wry sagas about winners, losers, and lonely all-night cafés, you'll discover charming children's songs and touching, affectionate love ballads. A complicated man, that Silverstein. If most people associate the late Shel Silverstein with his children's literature, others remember his cartoons and graphic travelogues for Playboy. By contrast, relatively few recognize this Chicago native as a prolific songwriter, penning such hits as Johnny Cash's 'A Boy Named Sue,' Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show's 'The Cover Of Rolling Stone,' Tompall Glaser's 'Another Log On The Fire,' and Loretta Lynn's 'One's On The Waycorn.' During the late '70s, Silverstein shifted his creative focus to playwriting and children's books, but he continued crafting clever songs specifically for Bare. By the mid-'80s, Bare had recorded more than 100 Silverstein originals. Out now, Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein, Plus is the first comprehensive collection of this material, and is accompanied by a quite wondrous 128-page hardcover book. Complete with eight (8) CDs (with a total playing time of 476:39 minutes), which include 137 tracks, 25 of them previously unissued, six (6) albums appear complete, including integral songs by other writers. The long-unheard Great American Saturday Night includes three songs missing from a recent independent label release. The Box-Set contains an LP-sized, lavishly illustrated 128-page hardcover book that contains song lyrics and a discography. In a conversation with Hank Davis, Bare recalls his years working with Silverstein, and Dave Samuelson documents the songwriter's multiple creative pursuits. That all said, there is also to be found a disclaimer within the liner notes from author Dave Samuelson: “Newcomers to the Bare/Silverstein catalog should note several of these recordings contain language that may surprise if not shock more sensitive ears." "Always the iconoclast, Silverstein generally directed his ribald, often dark humor to a predominantly male audience. His world straddled both the Playboy philosophy and the bohemian Beat Generation of the 1950s."

Presse Archive - Bobby Bare Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus - The Big Takeover Bobby Bare – Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus (Bear Family) Bobby Bare Shel Silverstein 10 November 2020 by Jon M. Young A celebrated children’s book author (“Where the Sidewalk Ends”), as well as a cartoonist and playwright, the multi-dimensional Shel Silverstein probably made his biggest mark as a songwriter, with such witty hits as the Johnny Cash smash “A Boy Named Sue” and Dr. Hook’s “The Cover of Rolling Stone” to his credit. The performer most associated with his tunes, however, was the smooth country crooner Bobby Bare, who helped craft the template for the polished countrypolitan sound in the ‘60s on such smashes as “Detroit City” and “Five Hundred Miles Away from Home.” Bare shifted gears in the early ‘70s, becoming a charter member of the outlaw movement that rejected conservative Nashville formulas and made superstars of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. From 1972 to 1983, he recorded more than a hundred of Silverstein’s inventive compositions, in the process creating the classic albums Lullabys, Legends and Lies and Down & Dirty. Offering 137 tracks (most written or co-written by Silverstein) on eight CDs, including more than two dozen previously unreleased cuts, along with a large, 128-page hardcover book, this wonderful set is a feast of irreverent humor, bracing social commentary and tender vignettes. Among the six full or expanded albums featured in Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus are Hard Time Hungrys, a chronicle of economic struggle, and the family-oriented Singin’ in the Kitchen, while two discs of “Stray Bare Tracks” collect singles-only releases or otherwise-overlooked Silverstein songs from other projects. On the basis of sheer bulk alone, this massive compilation could seem daunting, which is the opposite intent of the music. A supremely genial vocalist, Bare’s easygoing style brings a warm glow to gentle ballads and boozy barroom singalongs alike. Dig almost anywhere and a gem awaits! A few highlights: the toe-tapping tale of voodoo queen “Marie Laveau,” which topped the country charts in 1974; “Yard Full of Rusty Cars,” a sly, talking blues-style account of down-home hospitality; and the aching love song “When She Cries.” Much like a great short story collection, Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus brings all manner of memorable characters to life, celebrating oddballs, losers and renegades. It’s a perfect match of brilliant composer and masterful interpreter.

Presse Archive - Bobby Bare Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein plus - ricentral.com Founded in 1975, Bear Family Records of Germany has pretty much set the golden standard for box set reissues beginning with multi-LP sets in its early days and moving to compact disc with its advent as a medium in the 1980s. The latter, by virtue of being able to contain up to 80 minutes of music on a single disc, afforded Bear Family the opportunity to amass even larger and more comprehensive retrospectives on an artist or genre spanning 10-CD sets focusing on such cats as Lefty Frizell and Fats Domino or more recently a compilation chronicling the Bakersfield, California country music scene from the 1940s to ‘70s. Consider Bear Family the vault raiders who invade the tombs of record companies and grab as much as they can on an artist and turn it into a lavish box set oft-times replete with hard-cover coffee table type book containing everything you need to know about the artist and recordings contained within. The country music singer/songwriter Bobby Bare has certainly qualified for legend status thanks to early smashes like “500 Miles from Home,” “Miller’s Cave,” “Four Strong Winds,” “Streets of Baltimore,” and “Detroit City,” as well as later hits “Marie Laveau” and “Daddy, What If.” A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and a master of the country ballad, that last mentioned hit leads us into this week’s Ear Bliss focus which is the newest box set from Bear Family Records chronicling Bare’s work with the writer Shel Silverstein. Silverstein’s name is one mostly synonymous with children’s literature thanks to books like “Where The Sidewalk Ends” and “Light in the Attic.” So how does a Bobby Bare and Shel Silverstein connect? Whereas they had met prior thanks to Bare covering the hit song “Sylvia’s Mother” by Dr. Hook & His Medicine Show which just so happened to be written by Silverstein, it wasn’t until meeting again at a music industry party that would get the collaborative ball rolling. It was also lead to a friendship that would last until 1999 when Silverstein succumbed to cancer. Over the course of that friendship, Bare by his own recollection would record over 100 Silverstein compositions, many of which made it to records beginning with the hit Bare album from 1973 entirely written by Silverstein called Lullabys, Legends and Lies. It leads off the new released 8-CD LP-sized box set titled Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein Plus from Bear Family. It features some 137 songs representing six full albums including 25 previously unreleased tracks. It gets the Ear Bliss look-see this week. Let’s get to it.