500 Miles Away from Home (album)

500 Miles Away from Home is the debut studio album by American country artist Bobby Bare. It was released in December 1963 by RCA Victor and contained 12 tracks. RCA Victor had previously released a compilation album of Bare's songs.The album's title track was released as a single in 1963. The single reached the top 10 on the American country, pop, and adult contemporary music charts. The album itself reached the top 10 of the American country albums chart. It received a positive reception from AllMusic in later years.

Bobby Bare launched his career as a pop and rock singer with the 1958 top-10 American single, "The All American Boy". Bare became increasingly dissatisfied with his musical choices, and decided to relaunch himself as a country artist in the '60s. He signed with RCA Victor and had a crossover country pop single with "Detroit City" (1963). It was followed by a remake of the folk tune, "500 Miles Away from Home", which reached similar crossover commercial success.^[2] His debut studio album was also named 500 Miles Away from Home. The project was recorded at RCA Victor Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, held between August and October 1963, and produced by Chet Atkins.^[3]

The project contained a total of 12 songs.^[1] Along with the title track, a series of cover recordings were included on the album. Among them were A. P. Carter's "Homestead on the Farm" and the traditional folk song, "Worried Man Blues".^[3] Other covers included George Hamilton IV's "Abilene". Hamilton's original version topped the American country chart earlier in 1963. The album also featured a cover of Billy Grammer's 1958 top-five country single, "Gotta Travel On".^[4] Original material was also featured, including two songs composed by Bare himself: "Let Me Tell You About Mary" and "Jeannie's Last Kiss".^[3]

500 Miles Away from Home was originally released in December 1963 by RCA Victor. It was the debut studio album of Bare's career and his second with the label. RCA originally distributed the project as a vinyl LP, with six songs on each side of the record.^[3] In its original release, the album spent 9 weeks on the American Billboard Top Country Albums chart. It peaked at number 9 on the chart the week of February 28, 1964 and became his second top-10 album on the chart.^[6] It also became Bare's second album to chart the Billboard 200, peaking at number 133 on February 8, 1964.^[7]

500 Miles Away from Home was met with a positive reception in later years from AllMusic at 4.5 out of 5 possible stars. They also named the project's title track as an "album track pick".^[1] The only single included on the album was the title track, which was originally released by RCA Victor in September 1963.^[8] It became Bare's second top-10 single on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, peaking at number five.^[9] Crossing over onto the Billboard Hot 100, it became his second top-10 single on that chart, as well, peaking at number 10.^[10] On the Billboard adult contemporary chart, the song reached the number four position.^[11]