Saturday, 28 September 2019

Highlights from My Bob Seger Blog Posts


The music of American rock singer Bob Seger is one of the key topics on this blog. I have been
writing about Bob Seger for 3 and a ½ years. I have written ten blog posts dealing with Bob Seger
and decided to write a post giving highlights from them all. Bob Seger’s band the Silver Bullet Band
is part of my Bob Seger posts, and is mentioned throughout this one. There are links to the original
blog posts, allowing you to access them if you wish. I feature quotes from some of them. Let’s start.
When I wrote this, there wasn’t a Bob Seger biography available. I gave my descriptions of how a
Bob Seger biography could function with things I’d like to see in it which include Bob’s working
relationship with the Silver Bullet Band, stories of his songs, information on his unreleased songs,
his working relationship with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, touring stories from the road and
more. I’m so pleased that a Bob Seger biography was published this year which is “Turn The Page,
The Bob Seger Story” by Edward Sarkis Balian. 
This is an article I wrote giving news on Bob Seger’s then upcoming album “I Knew You When” from a radio interview he gave and made my speculations about the album based on the information I had heard about it. The album did end up being released the following year in November 2017. I was correct in my speculation that it would have a mix of updated unreleased songs and completely new songs. Bob mentioned a track he re-wrote from 1976, which did not appear on the album. I’m pleased that the album still ended up titled “I Knew You When” and the fact that this blog post ended up becoming my most viewed one. 
As I like piano in rock music, I decided to write an article about the use of piano in Bob Seger’s
music. I listed ten Bob Seger songs with great piano in them played by different piano players. His
hit songs “Old Time Rock & Roll”, “We’ve Got Tonight” and “Against The Wind” were included. I’m
including one of them as well as an additional one for this post.

 We’ve Got Tonight - Barry Beckett (1978)
This song is a ballad credited with the Silver Bullet Band, but was recorded with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and has Barry Beckett playing the piano & organ. It opens with the great piano intro that’s played over and over during most of the song. In the bridge, the piano playing changes where it is played faster. The song has a good section where the chorus is played three times at the end, first as usual with the band, then a slow version just with piano & Bob’s voice that’s joined by the other instruments at the end which is followed by the last chorus with the band again that works very well.

 Even Now - Roy Bittan (1982)
This is my favourite Bob Seger song which is one of his forgotten hits. It reached Number 12 in the
US charts. The song has an incredible melody, powerful singing and it is piano driven rock. It has the
signature Bob Seger heartland rock sound. It opens with the very good piano playing from Roy
Bittan which is the lead instrument throughout the song. There is support from Craig Frost’s organ
and the sole guitar part by Don Felder. Just before the chorus, throughout the song Roy plays the
piano notes up the scale in a good way. Near the end of the song, Bob uses his powerful singing to
phrase ad libbed words such as “Oh” in an amazing way, and Roy’s playing there seems to be in
response to Bob’s singing.
This was a blog post where I imagined an unplugged concert by Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band.
I’m giving my take on how one of his hits could be featured from it below with one additional song
not covered in the original post.

Hollywood Nights
The intro would be extended played on the piano sticking to the melody with some improvisation
from Craig Frost (Silver Bullet Band keyboardist) who’d be joined soon by the other instruments. 

Mainstreet
Have Craig Frost play the incredible electric guitar riff from the original song on piano and come up
with a new piano solo in place of the original guitar solo.


Bob Seger Pinball Game - 14 Jul 2017
Bob Seger’s website produced a pinball game in June 2017 to celebrate his music joining streaming
services. It’s a fun game that I recommend playing. The game had been available until earlier this
month. The link to the game still works, but there is no content. I call on those behind Bob Seger’s
website to make the game available to play again. 
These are a set of classic rock songs that I think would be great for Bob Seger to cover where I
mention how his version could go. The artists featured are Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, REO
Speedwagon, Eddie Money, Journey, The Doobie Brothers, Boz Scaggs, Toto, Huey Lewis and The
News and Bruce Hornsby & the Range. I’m including one of the cover songs below from the article
and one new imaginary cover.  

Lights - Journey (1978)
This is a great song due to its melody, piano, guitar, organ and powerful singing. This version would
sound fantastic sung with Bob Seger’s powerful voice. I’d like to see Bob play more rock songs on
the piano, and am envisioning him play piano on this song as its piano rocks well, but isn’t
complicated.

Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song) - Billy Joel (1977)
This is a great song which sounds similar to Bob Seger’s music, thus I consider it a great fit for him.
Silver Bullet Band saxophonist Alto Reed would play the saxophone parts. Billy stutters a word in
each chorus, which reminds me of the “K-k-k-k Katmandu” stuttering that Bob did in his “Katmandu”
song. The stuttering is at the end of the words here, unlike in “Katmandu”. Have Bob keep the
stuttering parts at the end of the words, but bring in the feel of his “Katmandu” stuttering here. He
should also bring in a bit of the feel of his song “Sunspot Baby” to this version including adding a
guitar solo.


This is an article about the making of Bob Seger’s “Stranger in Town” album to celebrate its 40th
anniversary in May 2018. It’s one of his most successful studio albums as it has got certified six
times platinum in the US and features his hit singles "Old Time Rock & Roll", "We've Got Tonight",
"Still The Same" and "Hollywood Nights". “Stranger in Town” is the first Bob Seger album I listened
to about nine years ago and listening to it made me a Bob Seger fan. I consider it to be his best
album. I feature contributions from David Hood, Forrest McDonald, David Cole and John Arrias who
worked on the album.
I’m also a fan of Elton John, so I decided to write an article imagining the two singers performing
together in concert. The band combination I used is Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band members Craig
Frost (organ, keyboards), Alto Reed (sax, percussion, guitar), Chris Campbell (bass) and Elton
John’s original band members Davey Johnstone (guitar) and Nigel Olsson (drums). I’m featuring one
existing song I imagined them performing from the original post and a new one. 

Sunspot Baby (1976)
There would be the additional organ by Craig. Alto would play percussion. Following the last guitar
solo have an extended jam where Elton would incorporate a piano solo.

Miami (1986)
This song is chosen as its a pop rock ballad which also fits in with Elton John’s music. Interestingly,
there was a reference to Miami the city in “Sunspot Baby”. Bob played piano on the original, so have
both him and Elton play piano. The original had other horn instruments in addition to Alto’s parts, so
Alto would adapt some of his parts as he’s the only horn player in this version. There’s a bit of rock
piano playing by Bob in the original towards the end of the song. Have both Bob & Elton play the
rock piano parts together, extend it and have Elton come up with good piano parts of his own to go
alongside Bob’s playing.


This is a post featuring tweets about Bob Seger from the social media site Twitter. I had previously
written a similar post featuring tweets about Sri Lanka which gave me the inspiration for this one.
Topics featured “include his songs, his use of piano, his skills as a singer/songwriter, live performances, photos and more.” I’m featuring two tweets from the blog post below.






This is a blog post featuring embedded views of American places from Google Street View. They are American places referenced by or connected with Bob Seger. I had previously featured similar blog posts on Sri Lanka & Dubai and got the title idea from my previous blog post “Virtual Views of
Colombo, Sri Lanka”. Places featured include Detroit, Muscle Shoals, Miami, Manhattan, the Blue
Ride Mountains, Los Angeles and more. I’m giving two embedded views below with a quote from the original post. If the image of the place doesn’t load, you can click the “View on Google Maps” button.

 I’m featuring the iconic American landmark the Statue of Liberty which was featured on the cover of
his 1991 album “The Fire Inside”. The title track is one of the epic long Bob Seger songs (totalling
nearly six minutes) with incredible piano playing from Roy Bittan.
Here’s a look at the iconic building of his record label Capitol Records.
Additional Mentions
These are three other blog posts of mine that have mentions of Bob Seger.

Toto Tribute Album - 27 Jan 2016
This blog post is imagining a tribute album to rock band Toto by big names in classic rock. In the first
song, I wrote of Bob Seger & Elton John performing a duet of “Rosanna”. I used the same band
combination as my other blog post “Elton John & Bob Seger Live in Concert” above. 

Api Kawruda by Senaka Batagoda - 10 Mar 2017
This is about a great classic rock song that I recommend from my country Sri Lanka which sounds
like a Bob Seger song. I mention the similarities in this post. The post embeds the song from
YouTube. 

A Sri Lankan Classic Rock Station - 22 May 2018
I would like to see a Sri Lankan classic rock radio station and I wrote an article explaining how it
could function. Bob Seger is mentioned three times in this article.

So that was the highlights from my Bob Seger blog posts. It has covered a range of sub-topics which
include thoughts on Bob Seger’s songs, news on his music, imagining songs him performing in
concert & covering, the story of one of his popular albums, American scenery tried to him and
more. I feel that my blog could be the only blog to deal with Bob Seger as a key topic as I so far
haven’t seen another blog that mentions Bob Seger as one of its key topics or sole topic. If anyone
has a blog dealing with Bob Seger partly or fully, please let me know and I’d be very interested in
checking it out. I’ll continue writing about Bob Seger and I hope that through this blog, I’ll be able to
introduce Bob Seger’s music to new audiences around the world.
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)