Lincoln Park Inn • For more than fifty years, singer-songwriter Bobby Bare has been one of Country Music's most respected performers and recording artists.
Bare recorded for Fraternity until Chet Atkins signed him to RCA in early 1962. Bare's moving rendition of "Detroit City" became his first Top Ten Country hit and climbed to #16 on the pop charts in 1963. It also earned him a Grammy for Best Country & Western Recording. Bare followed with a folk-based song he co-wrote, "500 Miles Away From Home," a Top Ten hit on both the Country and Pop charts in 1963-64. Other 1960s hits included "Miller's Cave," "Four Strong Winds," "The Streets of Baltimore" and the sexually frank "(Margie's at) The Lincoln Park Inn."
Bare switched to Mercury Records, where he garnered Top Ten hits including "How I Got To Memphis," "Please Don't Tell Me How The Story Ends," and "Come Sundown." In 1973, he returned to RCA, where he released the self-produced album Ride Me Down Easy that year. In so doing, he set an important precedent for other Nashville-based artists who were seeking greater creative input in producing their own albums. A double album of Shel Silverstein songs, Bobby Bare Sings Lullabys, Legends and Lies, likewise released in 1973, yielded a #2 hit duet with his five-year-old son, Bobby Bare Jr. ("Daddy, What If"), and the older Bare's first #1 song, "Marie Laveau." With his family, Bare released another collection of Silverstein songs, Singin' in the Kitchen, in 1975. Bare later recorded with Columbia, and he recorded for EMI America into the 1980s. In 1998, he joined forces with Waylon Jennings, Mel Tillis, and Jerry Reed on the Atlantic album Old Dogs."
