The Power of Bob Seger's Singing

Bob Seger is an iconic American rock singer. He has a deep, powerful voice which can be intense & aggressive on rock songs and gentle & soft on ballads. In this article, I’ll be giving my thoughts on the power of Bob Seger’s singing referring to some of his songs. The YouTube official audio will be embedded for five of these songs discussed further down.

In his popular song “Old Time Rock & Roll”, he gives a real rock singing voice. He almost shouts while maintaining a melodic voice. He sings gently and intimately on “We’ve Got Tonight”. At the halfway point during the bridge, he suddenly changes his singing into an aggressive style which is very effective. Following the bridge, he goes back into the gentle, intimate singing. In “Katmandu” he sings so loud and does the creative stuttering “K-K-K-K-Katmandu” throughout the song.

In the heartland rocker “Even Now”, he sings so soulfully. I like how he sings both the lead and backing vocals in the chorus which would have been achieved by overdubbing. In this song, he creatively extends the words “now” and “somehow”. In the second verse, there is a good back and forth between his powerful singing and Roy Bittan’s piano notes. He closes out the song with good vocalising and saying the title.

I’ll now talk about a few of Bob’s later songs recorded in the 21st century. In his 2003 blues song “Satisfied” released in his late 50s, you can tell he’s much older than his prime, but he still sings powerfully. The lyrics “I can still snarl with the best” seems to have a double meaning that he can still sing his heart out. He sings that line so intensely. In the rock ballad “I’ll Remember You” recorded in the early 2010s and released on his last album “I Knew You When” in 2017, he sings so passionately. His singing on this track is so impressive for his senior age.

Bob often gives good vocal interjections during an instrumental section like a guitar solo or a piano solo. This could be saying something, singing the song title, ad-libbed lyrics or non-lyrical sounds. Examples of this are saying “hey” in the middle of Rick Vito’s first “Like A Rock” slide guitar solo & singing a vocal effect in the middle of the second solo, singing “ooooo” just before Pete Carr’s guitar solo in “Mainstreet”, saying “oh yeah” in Steve Nathan’s first piano solo in “Satisfied” & singing it with some vocal effects in the second piano solo.

Katmandu (1975)

Old Time Rock & Roll (1978)

We’ve Got Tonight (1978)

Satisfied (2003) 

I’ll Remember You (2017)

These are my thoughts on the powerful singing of Bob Seger. He is an expressive singer who made a great contribution to rock music. I consider him to be one of the world’s best singers.