BOBBY BARE

Darker Than Light

bobbybaredarkerthanlight.com

When a fella’s been recording for as long as Bobby Bare has, he gets to thinking about history—not so much his own, but the centuries’ worth of strange and wondrous songs that make up the American folk and country canon. Fifty years on from his first hit, the 77-year-old Bare picks a wide range of classics, everything from Dust Bowl laments (“Going Down the Road [I Ain’t Going to Be Treated This Way]”) and campfire classics (“Shenandoah”) to songs by U2 (“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”) and alt-country hero Alejandro Escovedo, who guests on “I Was Drunk.” Bare makes the songs feel of a piece, singing in a conversational, grandfatherly tone that—even on tales of drinking, gambling, murder and war—suggests Sunday afternoon story hour. It’s a far cry from, say, Johnny Cash’s death-haunted latter-day Rick Rubin discs, but Bare’s cornball reading of “Boll Weevil” and general take-’er-easy tone emphasize the lighter side of traditional music—something that ought not be overlooked. For those craving existential contemplation, there’s the original “I Was a Young Man Once,” but even there, this icon seems fine with the passage of time.