Bob Seger And The Detroit Sound

Once upon a year Bob Seger was one of the toughest sounding rockers to ever come out of Detroit in the mid 60s.  Detroit has always been a hotbed of music with the Motown sound but they were also famous for some of the more radical rock sounds out of that area.  You couldn't get anymore radical than The Stooges and the Motor City Five who wrote the book on punk rock and just play radical.  Kick Out The Jams with a cross bred of blues, garage rock and Sun Ra turned out to be an uneasy listen at my place during the 70s.  There was Scott Morgan and the Rationals, The Amboy Dukes with Conservative radical Ted Nugent.  Terry Knight and The Pack made a couple of tough sounding Lucky Seven recordings before Knight left and the rest became Grand Funk Railroad.

But none of them had the strange aura of turning back on his past more so than Bob Seger, who like The Pack, recorded a bunch of singles for Cameo/Parkway including Heavy Music with one of the more infectious bass lines to open up a song.  In some ways Seger, had two careers, one being the Detroit rocker and second being the more 'mature' artist and going more Muscle Sholes than Detroit in his music.  It's a mystery why he has turned his back on the past, in fact most of his early albums still hold up and are even better than the latter day stuff he turned out.  When he moved to Capitol after Cameo/Parkway folded, he made the trippy, hippie dippy sound of Ramblin Gamblin Man the album, to which the drummer lays down a heavy beat and then the famed organ sounds take over. One of the best 2 minutes of rock ever committed to 45 me thinks.  But the album also included failed singles Tales Of Lucy Blue, the chaos that is Ivory and the war protesting song 2 + 2 = ?.  It also gives the world the very trippy White Wall and the dark brooding Black Eyed Girl.  Dave Honaker contributes Gone to the equation, the only contribution from other guys that made up the Bob Seger System.  And perhaps that's why Bob kinda disowned this period, that Ramblin Gamblin Man suffers a bit of growing pains and trying to figure what to do at times but one thing is for certain. Bob Seger was his best when he's a straight ahead rocker.  And White Wall is a perfect example of the chaoticness of trying to do everything all at once.

The next set of albums take chaos to more extremes that Noah, the album Seger has disowned from the start and outside of the title track, nothing else really stands out.   Junking the System, Bob made the completely acoustic Brand New Morning, just him and guitar which shows Seger was ahead of the unplugged movement.  Problem was it was kinda boring.  Mongrel was better, he was working with a band again and had a minor hit with Lucifer which got some airplay.

For a couple years Seger left Capitol to go with Palladium/Reprise for three albums of note:  One was Back in 72, a album historic for the fact that it was one of Bob's best efforts that he's never put on CD and at the rate things are going may never will.  This record I tend to think is the template that would become Night Moves. Slightly overrated by critics and fans it does have the original version of Turn The Page, which would work better on the breakout Live Bullet but I prefer the original due to it's weariness of being on the road back in 72 going through hicktowns and having the old folk make fun of the long hair freaks that invade their neck of the woods.  It also has Rosalie, a song which Thin Lizzy would cover later on.  Smokin' OPs the next album is Seger at his mad best, with a hard charging Bo Diddley, a sloppy but fun romp through Love The One You With and a desperate sounding If I Were A Carpenter, my favorite version of that song.  And through all that, even manages to find a scratchy copy of Heavy Music Part 1 to complete the album too.  And Seven may have been the best overall Seger album with a hard charging Get Out Of Denver leading things off.

The album sold okay but not enough to keep Seger on Reprise so he moved back to Capitol and started changing things by adding more southern rock to his style with Beautiful Loser although Seven was much better, Seger decided that this would be the starting point for his CD reissues.  But I think he was under the gun for something to sell so the next album turned out to be Live Bullet, which features Bob doing some of his favorite songs in front of a hometown crowd and it turned out to be the turning point.  Renaming his band the Silver Bullet Band, this lineup was his best and most rocking.  And somewhere along the way, Bob must have been listening to Bruce Springsteen and perhaps made his most loved recordings of the late 70s.

Night Moves was the perfect antidote of my high school years to which most of the songs do remind me of certain things, the love that got away in Main Street and the title track. He also had a hits with Rock And Roll Never Forgets, Sunspot Baby and a wicked version of Mary Lou which was the only track done with the Live Bullet band for at that time, Seger was working with some of the finest players out of Muscle Shoals Alabama and he would return there from time to time.   Stranger In Town (Aka Night Moves 2) continued this new found sound with more of a eye for top forty radio (Hollywood Nights, Old Time Rock And Roll) and even a play for ballads such as the mind numbling We Got Tonight a song Pop Dose mentioned at one of the all time worst.  It's really not that bad and it did top the charts in 1979 thereabouts.  But I noticed a bit of recycled tunes that the cover of Ain't Got No Money sounds lots like The Fire Down Below.  And Brave Strangers might be Bob's response to The Four Seasons Oh What A Night.

By Against The Wind, Bob became more MOR than rock and roll and having the Eagles help out on vocals didn't help either although I like this record better than Stranger In Town.  You'll Accompany  Me is a fine ballad, Long Twin Silver Line showed that Bob could rock when he wanted to and Her Strut was super cool too.  But alas for myself this was the final album that I really listened to, anything after just sounded like either Springsteen or Mellencamp imitations although The Distance had moments like Making Thunderbirds but Jimmy Iovine added too much El Lay session pump and pomp for production.   And then there's Like A  Rock to which Seger could live on the royalties of that song itself as he lend it out to Chevy on those annoying commercials of the next 20 years.

Which leaves that the next two albums The Fire Inside and It's A Mystery which the latter may have been Seger's all time worst album.  Nothing really stood out and then since the record sold so poorly he decided to retire.  To which the rehashings begain with the Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits 2 which basically was Beautiful Loser/Night Moves/Stranger In Town/Against The Wind cherry pickings.  Capitol did reissue Seger's early albums (Sans Noah, Brand New Morning and Back In 72) in the 1990s but since then Segar made Capitol take them off the market.  The only time Bob did acknowledged the past was a brief Early Years Volume 1 which Wal Mart sold and it has Get Out Of Denver and a couple hours but still refuses to do anything with Noah or Lucifer for songs.

In 2006, Seger surprised the world and myself by making Face The Promise, a album that was his best since Against The Wind.  This time, he went down to Nashville and picked some of the finer session players there and even getting Kid Rock (a big fan) to contribute Real Live Bottle.  Balancing strong rockers with good ballads this album proved at even at his advanced age that Seger can be one of the best songwriters on the planet.  After just about giving up on him on It's a Mystery, Face The Promise showed maybe there's still life left in Bob.

The Ultimate Hits, or Rock n Roll Never Forgets really sums up the classic rock years and rounds up all the good and bad of Beautiful Loser and beyond but does adds Ramblin Gamblin Man.  Biggest complaint seems to be adding the useless Little Drummer Boy and leaving out The Fire Inside.  But for an overview of the classic period you can do worse, plus it sells for 12 bucks at Wally World.

Maybe some day the world will get to hear the early years before Night Moves but as long as Bob stays alive and shrugs it off I doubt if we will.  Sad, cause at that time, Seger was one of the top 10 best hard rockers to come roaring out of Detroit.

Albums:
Ramblin' Gamblin' Man (Capitol 1968) B+
Noah (Capitol 1969)  C+
Brand New Morning (Capitol 1970) B-
Mongrel (Capitol 1970) B
Back In 72 (Reprise 1972) B+
Smokin OPs (Capitol 1972) A-
Seven (Capitol 1973) B+
Beautiful Loser (Capitol 1974) B-
Live Bullet (Capitol 1975) A-
Night Moves (Capitol 1976) A-
Stranger In Town (Capitol 1978) B
Against The Wind (Capitol 1980) B+
Nine Tonight (Capitol 1981) B
The Distance (Capitol 1983) B-
Like A Rock (Capitol 1986) B-
The Fire Inside (Capitol 1991) B-
It's A Mystery (Capitol 1995) C
Face The Promise (Capitol/Hideout 2006) B+
The Early Years Volume 1 (Hideout 2008) B+
Ultimate Hits/Rock N Roll Never Forgets (Capitol 2011) B+