ROCKLAND — Like most major singers, country legend Bobby Bare loves minor chords.

The Grammy award-winning Bare had the crowd of 1,200 attending his Saturday night concert at Schooner Days in the palm of his hand. But no more so than when he dipped his gravelly baritone into the minor keys to put a soulful bend on plaintive notes.

The crowd swayed in rhythm as Bare pumped out one monster hit after another and carried them away on his rollicking 30-year history with a honky-tonk attitude.

Women fans ran to the stage when he rolled into his monster hit of the 1960s, “500 Miles,” and his voice clutched on the line, “I can’t remember when I ate, it’s just thumb and walk and wait.” The women aimed cameras and shouted Bare’s name, while he obligingly bent the notes a little deeper.

Of course it didn’t hurt to have Rockland native and noted guitar-slinger Robbie Coffin as one of his sidemen. Whether picking straight out or sliding the notes in imitation of a steel guitar, Coffin’s fills and leads provided a perfect match to Bare’s chunky strums on an old Fender Telecaster.

Bare told the crowd he performed in Nashville the day before so there was no way to get his band and equipment into Rockland overnight. “The airline couldn’t even get my boots here,” said Bare, pointing to the white sneakers that didn’t quite match his black leather fringed jacket, cowboy hat and jeans. Instead, with the help of booking agent Chuck Kruger, a band of Maine musicians was recruited. Joining Coffin were John Stewart of Portland on bass, Craig Record of Augusta on drums, and Roy Clark of Gray on keyboards.

Stewart and Record laid down a steady backbeat throughout the concert while Coffin and Clark traded lead parts. The band caught Bare’s notice early on and by the time the performance was into full gear, they sounded as though they had toured together for years. “They’re better than my band,” Bare exclaimed after a “boogie-woogie” jam on “They Call Me The Breeze.”

Besides being guaranteed a litany of hits, anyone attending a Bobby Bare concert can also bank on a lot of laughs. Bare’s folksy attitude along with his somewhat risque jokes and song introductions kept the crowd loose and primed for one standard after another. From “Millers Cave” “Four Strong Winds” “Tequila Sheila,” and President Clinton’s favorite, “Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goalpost of Life” (“I still haven’t figured out if I should be flattered”) to “The Winner” and “Lincoln Park Inn,” Bare alternated from laid-back country to kick-out roadhouse.

When he tried to wind down his performance with his Grammy Award winner “Detroit City,” the crowd of knowledgeable fans who had been singing along with Bare on every song reminded him that he had missed their favorite. “Marie Laveau,” they shouted. Bare shouted back that he couldn’t sing the song about the Cajun voodoo queen unless the audience helped him with “that witch sound.” With the multicolored stage lights reverberating and the crowd shrieking on cue like witches, Bare wailed “another man done gone” into the night fog.

Bare dedicated his closing number to his friend, the late Maine great Dick Curless. “He was an old, dear friend and I miss him,” Bare told the crowd. The song was called “Time,” a wistful tune about aging and memories. At its conclusion the crowd gave Bare a standing ovation. He left the stage with a tip of his hat and waded into the throng to chat with the fans and sign autographs. As the fog on the Public Landing grew thick as those on Marie Laveau’s Louisiana bayous, the white-hatted, leather-jacketed Bare was last seen heading into the mist in search of a late-night dinner of Maine lobster.