All righty, we’ve had a lot of Seger-hatred show up at our ‘Non-Classic Rock’ poll party. And I’ll admit, I would’ve joined right in five years ago, as I fancied myself one of the premier Seger-haters in the country. That is, until I discovered Bob’s early Motor City rock-scene days with the Bob Seger System. So, it’s been a very long time since I did one of these Cases For (Phil) Collins, but this seems like the perfect opportunity to shed some light on an artist who may get a bad rap for a lot of the work he did later in his career (get it, like Phil Collins). So here’s my Case for Seger…
Seger started playing in bands as early as 1961, but it was in 1968 when he put together the Bob Seger System, which became a major live band on the Detroit music scene in the late-60′s and early 70′s…a dirty garage-rock scene that would later inspire the punk rock movement. The Detroit music scene in those days was one that was set completely apart from any other rock scene in the country…it was rough, gritty, and full of soul. With bands like the Stooges, the MC5, The Frost, SRC, Alice Cooper, and The Amboy Dukes, the scene was in stark contrast to the San Francisco hippie scene or the sexy L.A. music scene or even the NYC post-folkie scene. Detroit’s Grande Ballroom became one of the most important rock dungeons in the country.
But, to get to the point, Seger toiled for 10 good years, from 1966 to 1976, to very limited local success before he put out the Night Moves album with his newly-formed Silver Bullet Band and began his rise to super-stardom…and for many of ya’ll, his rise to super-suckdom. But if you hear some of the records made during that 10 years leading up to that, you just may be surprised. I certainly was when I started hearing this stuff over the past year or two. Let’s see…
Here’s the Bob Seger System’s “Noah” from their second album, which was released in 1969…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s25lpvoJ9fY&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01]
And you’ve gotta love the early performance and lack of facial here on “Ramblin Gamblin Man”…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2aBOTNGWMY&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]
And here’s an mp3 of the Thin-Lizzy covered “Rosalie” from Seger’s Back In ’72 album (from ’73)…
[audio="http://www.frannysilverman.com/NewmRadio/04%20Rosalie.mp3"]
So, has my Case for (Bob) Seger convinced anyone or swayed anyne’s opinion of Seger? See, he’s not all bad. In fact, he quite rocked for a quite a long time! Let me know if you wanna test drive a full early Seger album, and perhaps I can dub a cassette for you.
One more smokin’ Tube after the jump…
…but maybe they represent freedom in some way…especially the Beach Boys song and Mudcrutch song too!
