My Daily Musing: Bob Seger

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Bob Seger

Early Years

Bob Seger was born in Detroit, Michigan as Robert Clark Seger. He lived in Detroit for a six years, where his family moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan. When Seger was 10 years old, his father left them and moved to California. He graduated from Ann Arbor High School parentheses (Now known as Pioneer High School).

Bob Seger Influences

* Little Richard

* Elvis Presley

* James Brown

* The Del Vikings

* Van Morrison

On the back of Seger’s albums ‘Back in ‘72’ and ‘Live Bullet’, he mentions for Frank Miller, John Fogerty, Bruce Springsteen, Graham Parker. He mentioned them and hisself as having a connection to Van Morrison.

Early Career In Music

In 1961, Seger arrived in the music scene in Detroit with a three piece band called ‘The Decibels’. The group recorded a demo called ‘The Lonely One’. It was Seger’s first original song.

Seger joined the band the Town Criers after the Decibels disbanded. He was the lead vocal. The Town Criers had a steady following.

On one of the Town Criers’ gigs, Seger met a man named Doug Brown was the lead vocalist of the group but Seger did get to sing lead on some of the songs. The group released the first thing the' ‘TGIF’. Seger appeared the group's parody of Barry Sadler's ‘Ballad of the Green Berets’ which was later read retitled ‘Ballad of the Yellow Berets'. The song mocked draft dodgers. The song was withdrawn from the market soon after it was released because Sadler and his record label threatened lawsuit.

It was later that Seger met Edward “Punch” Andrews, who became he has long time manager while he was still with the Omens.

Seger began writing and producing for other acts. It was around this time that Seger and Doug Brown were approached by current Andrews and Leone to write a song for the Underdogs. The song was called ‘East Side Story’ himself. He officially quit the Omens but retained Doug Brown as his producer. Seger released his version of the song as Bob Seger and the Last Heard with Hideout records in January, 1966. The song ‘East Side Story' because a hit in the Detroit area. The single sold 50,000 copies in Detroit.

The name “The Last Heard" referred to that collection of the Omens and the Town Criers, who also recorded 'East Side Story' with Seger but later because the name of Seger’s band. The band assisted of the former Town Criers, Pep Perrine, Carl Lagassa, and Dan Honaker.

Following 'East Side Story' were four more singles: 'Sock It To Me Santa' {It was a James Brown inspired holiday single}, ‘Persecution Smith', ‘Vagrant Winter', and ‘Heavy Music'.

In 1968, Seger in the Last heard Heard signed up with Capitol Records. Capital changed the name of the band to The Bob Seger System. At this time,Carl Lagassa left the band and Bob Schultz joined. The System's first single from Capitol was an antiwar song ‘2 + 2 =? ‘. The band's second single was “Ramblin' Gamblin' Man”. The song “Ramblin' Gamblin' Man” was a hit in the Detroit area. The song also became Seger's first nationally charted hit.

The System's next project was the ‘Noah’ album. The album failed to chart at all. It led Seger to briefly quit the music industry and attend college. He returned the following year and put out the System’s final album ‘Mongrel’.

Afterwards, Seger went solo for a while.

In 1974, Seger formed the Silver Bullet Band. Seger and the Silver Bullet Band released the album ‘Seven’.

In 1976, Seger and his band had a breakthrough with the album ‘Live Bullet'. The album stand on the charts for 168 weeks. It to other albums.

Discography