Down and Dirty CBS 84132

Album review by T.B.; English magazine writer July 1980   Recorded live, before a group of invited friends, associated and music executives in a Nashville studio, the album gets down to what Bobby Bare is all about - his material, his presentation and the person himself. There's a great presence here (just like a Bare concert) and a good stack of songs, the greater part being penned by long-time Bare acquaintance Shel Silverstein.   ...The presentation grows its own endearment - a concert with its own lifestyle, a mini view of the Nashville environment, with its own comments, touches of lunacy, and moments of poignancy and remorse.   And, of course there's Bare - the great teller of stories and untruths and (occasionally) stirrer of emotions. Here you'll find "the rock star, now a drunkard with no song to sell"; that "Nashville is rough on the living but she speaks well of the dead", and those middle-aged, crazy sagas, like "being down to my last come and get me" or "I don't want to rock 'n' roll but I can't help, crazy again". And straight from the charts, 'Numbers' - the ultimate women's lib playing of the '10' game.    'Down and Dirty' is brilliant - and perhaps 'boozed and stoned' is the most appropriate, underlying theme. Certainly it's a statement of many of the songs' underlying themes, with the audience hooting and hollering whenever the lyrics strike home. I would rate it the best Bobby Bare album to date, and among the best 'live' albums I've ever heard.