It took Bob Seger about fifteen years to become an overnight
sensation.He did so with the
blue-collar attitude that infused so many of his songs.To put his long and distinguished
career into some kind of historical perspective, he began recording a year
after The Beatles sparked the British Invasion and conquered America.Bob was busy conquering his home
state of Michigan, first with The Decibels, then with The Town Cryers, and eventually with Doug Brown and the Omens,
with whom he laid down his first tracks.His recording career almost got off
to an inauspicious start when Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler threatened to sue
him and Brown for a parody of "Ballad of the Green Berets"
called "Ballad of the Yellow Beret", a not-so-thinly veiled attack
on draft dodgers.The record
was subsequently yanked from stores.Brown and Seger split in 1966 but Brown
continued to produce Seger's records.Bob re-emerged in 1966 as the front
man for The Last Heard, who had a minor local hit with "East Side
Story", selling about 50,000 records in and around Detroit.It made enough of a mark for
Cameo-Parkway Records to sign him to a contract, but they went bankrupt
shortly thereafter, just as "Heavy Music" was starting to gain
some momentum on the local level and flirting with national success.A year later, Bob landed a deal with
Capitol Records, for whom he would record for almost forty years. He changed the name of his band to
The Bob Seger System and landed his first hit
with "Ramblin'Gamblin'
Man" which went to #17.Its success inspired an album of the same name, released in 1969,
which peaked at #62 on the Billboard Top 200.Unfortunately, their follow-up album
flopped, and Bob decided attend college for a brief time.He was back in the studio by 1970,
however, laying down tracks for the System's final recording, Mongrel.A year later, he recorded his debut
solo album, Brand New Morning.He found chart success again with
1972's Smokin'O.P.'s,
a collection of covers, including "If I Were A Carpenter",
which went to #76 on the Billboard Hot 100.A couple of years later, Bob
assembled The Silver Bullet Band and hit #80 with "Get Out Of Denver".
" Katmandu" fared much
better the following year, reaching #43.Bob Seger
and the Silver Bullet Band broke out in a major way in 1976 with the
release of Live Bullet, which
reached #34 and spawned a moderate hit with Bob's cover of Ike &
Tina Turner's "Nutbush City Limits".The album was such a runaway hit, Seger and company went from playing bars to packed
stadiums in a matter of days.Live Bullet hung around on the
charts for over three years.During
this time, Bob tirelessly recorded and toured in support of his
long-awaited and hard-fought success.Night Moves is still
esteemed as a veritable greatest-hits package amongst his fans. "Mainstreet"
went to #24 and the title track reached #4.It also featured another Segerfavourite, "Rock
and Roll Never Forgets", and on the strength of these songs the album
went top ten and has gone platinum six times over.Seger's
follow-up was Stranger in Town, which
contained what would become four of his biggest hits:
" Still the Same" went to
#5, "Hollywood Nights" and "We've Got Tonight"
cracked the top fifteen, and "Old Time Rock & Roll" the top
thirty.It was later
popularized in the film Risky
Business, when Tom Cruise lip-synched to it while dancing around in his
skivvies, and has become a staple on oldies radio.At the same time Stranger in Town was dominating the
airwaves, The Eagles hit #1 with "Heartache Tonight",
co-written by Seger.He had been friends with Glenn Frey
since the late sixties, when he produced Glenns band, The Mushrooms.As if things couldn't get
better, Bob's 1980 release, Against
the Wind, shot to #1 on the Billboard album chart.Frey and fellow Eagles Don Henley
and Timothy B. Schmit contributed backing vocals
to "Fire Lake", which went to #6. " You'll Accompany Me"
and the title track were both hits, as well, with the latter going to
#5.The album also won two Grammys, and it has sold over five million copies.Seger
followed Against the Wind with a
live set, Nine Tonight, on which
he performed a cover of "Tryin' To
Live My Life Without You", eventually taking it to #5.The
Distance went platinum in 1982 and is best remembered for "We've
Got Tonight", which became hit for Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton.Bob didn't release another
album until 1986's Like a Rock,
the title track of which has become a mainstay on Chevrolet truck ads ever
since.It too went platinum and
inspired a tour.A year later,
Bob's first and last #1 single came in the unlikely form of "Shakedown",
from the Beverly Hills Cop II
soundtrack.Bob took another
four-year hiatus and unveiled The
Fire Inside, and yet another four-year break before releasing It's a Mystery, which went
gold.A greatest hits package,
however, was hugely successful, and has sold over eight million
copies.Bob hit the road one more
time in 1996, the fourth biggest-selling concert tour that year.After this, he took a ten-year break
to spend quality time with his family. It was only interrupted by his
induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.Two years later, he returned to the
studio to record Face the Promise,
which debuted at #4 on the Billboard chart and spawned another tour.Later that fall, he was honoured to sing "America the Beautiful" at
the opening game of the World Series.To date, Bob Seger has sold about fifty
million albums worldwide.His album
of greatest hits has stayed on the Billboard Top 200 for a staggering
thirteen years.
Bob Seger recordings
Feel Like a Number
(Bob Seger)
Fire Lake (Bob Seger)
Tryin' To
Live My Life Without You (Eugene
Williams)
