Taken as a whole, Bobby Bare Jr.'s career amounts to the most graceful, forgiving and musically satisfying resolutions to the Oedipus complex imaginable. In his pungent and playful songs, there's plenty of loathing (of self and other), but for every twist of the psycho-sexual knife, there's a weird vulnerability that belies the confidence of a good artist and a great collaborator. For such an eccentric talent, he works well with others — whether producing his father, jamming with a new band like Blue Giant or helming a much-deserved children's music tribute to the late Shel Silverstein. And even in middle age, Jr. finds time to fill albums such as last year's A Storm, A Tree, My Mother's Head with wobbly, witty, catchy pop — and the boundless excitement of a country rocker who sounds forever young.