Bob Seger, the #30 Artist of the Rock Era, Part One

"Bob rocks!"

"A true Rock legend."

"Bob Seger has done dozens of some of the best songs ever."

"THE GREATEST!!!   Totally insightful of the human spirit."

"Seger is American Rock and Roll royalty."

"He was a voice for the times."

"It doesn't get any better than Seger."

"A brilliant artist."

"One of the best songwriters that ever lived."

"His music touches my heart every time I hear it."

"Rock and Roll caviar."

"To this day, his voice melts me."

"This man IS Rock and Roll."

"There are no adjectives to describe how great he is."

This hard-working artist was born May 6, 1945 in Detroit, Michigan and moved with his family to Ann Arbor when he was five.  Bob's father, Stewart, passed on his love of music to Bob after playing several instruments.  Bob was on the track team and graduated from Ann Arbor High School (now Pioneer High School) in 1963.  

While at Ann Arbor, Seger led a band called the Decibels, who recorded a song at a studio belonging to Del Shannon in 1961.  That song, "The Lonely One" received exactly one play on a local radio station.

Seger (left, above) then joined the Town Criers, which played several shows.  Along the way, Seger met Doug Brown and soon joined his band, Doug Brown & the Omens.  They too released a single in 1965 called "TGIF".  

Seger met manager Edward "Punch" Andrews and began writing and producing for some of Punch's other acts, including the Mushrooms, led by Glenn Frey.  He formed the group Bob Seger and the Last Heard and wrote this song for a local group called the Underdogs.  They liked the song but didn't like the way the Underdogs did it, so Seger and the band recorded the gritty song "East Side Story" on Hideout Records in 1966.  Bob made his television debut on Swingin' Time, hosted by Robin Seymour (as shown in the vide).  The song was a local hit, selling 50,000 copies, and led to a contract with Cameo-Parkway Records.  

In addition to Seger, the band included drummer Pep Perrine (who had been with the Town Criers), guitarist Carl Lagassa and bassist Dan Honaker.  Seger and the Last Heard released four other singles, with "Heavy Music" selling well, reaching #82 in Canada and just missing the Billboard Hot 100.  Promotion of the single suffered when the record label folded shortly after release.

In 1968, the group signed with Capitol Records, but Capitol insisted that they change their name to the Bob Seger System.  By this time, Lagassa had left and keyboardist Bob Schultz came aboard.  Their first single "2 + 2 = ?" reached #1 in New York City, Buffalo, New York and Orlando, Florida and was another big hit in Detroit.  It also peaked at #79 in Canada.

 

The Bob Seger System released "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" from the album of the same name, featuring 19-year-old Frey on backing vocals and guitar, and the single glided to #17 in the United States.  Coincidentally, Seger and Frey happened to be dating twin sisters at the time.  

Bob was fond of the song "Gimme' Some Lovin' by the Spencer Davis Group, which featured Stevie Winwood playing a great Hammond B-3 organ solo.  Seger wanted that sound on this song, with the B-3 played by Bob Schultz.  The album charted at #62.  

Singer/songwriter Tom Neme joined the group and wrote most of the songs on the album Noah.  The album flopped and Seger was so negatively affected that he quit music and enrolled in college.  But the following year, Seger and the System released Mongrel without Neme's help.  Dan Watson replaced Schultz in the group for recording of the album.

The background for this song is that Seger's band often played in the teen nightclub Something Different in Southfield, Michigan.  In 1969, guitar great Albert King played at the same club.  In "Lucifer", Seger references King's "Crosscut Saw" as well as lyrics from the Ramblin' Gamblin' Man album.

Mongrel received some local praise, but didn't sell well, and the group broke up.  In 1971, Seger released an acoustic album called Brand New Morning.  It too failed to garner attention and Capitol dropped Seger from its roster.  

Bob recorded with Teegarden & Van Winkle, who had enjoyed a minor hit with "God, Love and Rock & Roll".  They released the album Smokin' O.P.'s.
 

After a 1972 tour with Teegarden & Van Winkle, Seger formed his own band, with many of those musicians later joining Eric Clapton.  In 1974, Bob released the album Back in '72, recorded with the famous Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.  

Seger continued to perform in live shows around the Detroit area, forming the Silver Bullet Band:  guitarist Drew Abbott, Charlie Allen Martin on drums, keyboardist Rick Manasa, Chris Campbell on bass and saxophonist Alto Reed.  From their album Seven, "Get Out Of Denver" was a minor hit.  Seger told how the song came about:

     It was more like Get Out of Aspen, really. I used 

     Denver because it was a better rhyme...we played a 

     club up in Aspen, and Aspen was such a high-priced 

     ski resort that they were charging people at the door                 something like nine dollars with a two-drink minimum,               which was another eight dollars to get in and see the 

     band, so there weren't very many people in there. 

     We played a six-night stint there, and after about the

     fourth night we just said, 'This is it,' because we were               playing for five or six people a night. We were fairly

     well-known and everybody liked us, but nobody 

     wanted to pay 17-18 dollars just to sit in a club and 

     watch us.

 

Here is another great song from the album:  "20 Years From Now".

Capitol reevaluated Seger's music in light of the success of the Seven album and signed him again in 1974.  Robyn Robbins replaced Manasa for the album Beautiful Loser.  "Katmandu" is a humorous look about taking a break and getting away from the world of constant touring and record company politics.  The song, which peaked at #45 at the time, gets quite a bit of airplay today. 

 

The title song is a poignant reflection of people who set their goals so low that they don't achieve anything meaningful.  "A lot of people think I wrote 'Beautiful Loser' about myself," Seger told Creem magazine.  "I got the idea for that song from a book of Leonard Cohen poetry by the same name.  The song was about underachievers in general."  Frey was one of the first people to hear the song.  He loved it and helped Bob with the tune.

Seger was beginning to get a relatively small but loyal following, and two shows at the Cobo Arena in Detroit were recorded and released as the album Live Bullet.  Critic Dave Marsh later said that "Live Bullet is one of the best live albums ever made."  It captures the incredible energy of Seger's live performances. 

 

The album contains a great version of "Turn The Page", a landmark song (first featured on the album Back in '72) about the rigors of life on the road, being in a band performing night after night.  It effectively shows the side the public doesn't see; that being a musician is hard work and isn't all the glamour and glory that it is cracked up to be. 

While Seger was a star in Detroit, playing before 80,00 fans at a show at the Pontiac Silverdome, his star had yet to spread.  That would soon change.

More Bob Seger in Parts Two, Three and Four!