Bobby Bare is the Zelig of country music. He's worked with everyone and been present at many of the turning points in country music history.

Only Bare could keep a low profile while forming a band with Waylon Jennings, recording a best-selling album with Shel Silverstein, hosting his own TV show, and releasing "The Gambler" before Kenny Rogers did.

It's been a long, strange trip from Bare's hard childhood (his mother died when he was five years old, and he was thrown out of the house in his teens) to being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013.

Let's begin our journey into the work of one of country music's most underrated artists, shall we?

1. "All American Boy"

Released in 1959, "All American Boy" was a demo recording Bare made for his buddy Bill Parsons, who was credited for the song when it was issued by Columbia Records (Parsons was under contract with another record company). But it was Bare's voice on the record. He only heard the talking blues song, which tracks a young rock-'n'-roll singer's rise to fame and induction into the Army, after he himself had been drafted.

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2. "Shame on Me"

Fresh out of uniform, Bare recorded the songs "Lorena" and "Book of Love." Both were modest successes, and he later wrote songs for the Hollywood musical Teenage Millionaire; but in the end Bare decided he was more Hank Williams than Frankie Avalon. In 1962, Bare met up with country producer Chet Atkins. The pair's collaboration resulted in the hit "Shame on You." The song's mix of horns, mincing pianos, and plush vocals make it one of the vanguards of the Nashville Sound.

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3. "Detroit City"

A menacing guitar riff anchors Bare's tale of an exiled man in "Detroit City." The song, a re-do of Billy Grammar's "I Wanna Go Home," is about a Southerner who's lost in the metropolis and yearns for home. The crossover hit became Bare's trademark song. It was later recorded by Tom Jones.

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4. "Game of Triangles"

Like everyone else, Bobby Bare was swinging in the '60s -- at least musically (he married wife Jeanne Sterling in 1964). In this three-way cheating song, the singer has to choose between his girlfriend and his wife -- vocalized by Norma Jean and Liz Anderson, respectively. For more fun with infidelity, check out Bare's pair of albums with Skeeter Davis, Tunes for Two and Your Husband My Wife.

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5. "How I Got to Memphis""

Released in 1970, This Is Bare Country embraced the attitude of outlaw country. The new album included two Kris Kristofferson compositions: "Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends" and "Come Sundown." The crowning achievement of the album was the aching Tom T. Hall-penned "How I Got to Memphis."

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