Bobby Bare,
The Moon Was Blue



Label: Dualtone Records

(3½ out of 5)

After more than 20 years away from the recording studio, Bobby Bare emerges from self-imposed retirement with The Moon Was Blue.

It's an album characterized by wizened melancholy, from Max D. Barnes's "I Am an Island," to Charles Aznavour's "Yesterday When I Was Young" (whence the album's title phrase), and former lyrical collaborator Shel Silverstein's haunting "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan."

Produced by son Bobby Bare Jr. (best known for his Young Criminals Starvation League) and Mark Nevers (of the genre-bending Lambchop), Bare père's return may not be a resounding statement of neo-traditionalist defiance, but it is an agreeable reminder of the golden age of classically crooned country.

November 12, 2005