The S Blog deals with the interests of a Sri Lankan abroad and is called The S Blog due to the many S topics covered. They include Sri Lanka, Songs, Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, Science Fiction, Star Trek and even other non S topics.
One of Bob Seger’s popular songs is “You’ll Accomp’ny Me”. It comes from his 1980 album “Against the Wind” which includes the hit single of the same name. I decided to write a blog post about the live version. The original version featured Bob Seger on acoustic guitar. He was accompanied by members of the Silver Bullet Band Chris Campbell (bass) & David Teegarden (drums) and Little Feat members Bill Payne (keyboards) & Sam Clayton (percussion). Little Feat is a southern rock band. This is an upbeat soft rock song with a jolly feel.
The live version is from 1981’s live album “Nine Tonight”. It was performed at the Boston Garden in October 1980 which is exactly 45 years ago. Silver Bullet Band members Drew Abbott and Alto Reed who weren’t on the original recording play on this version. Drew plays acoustic guitar and saxophonist Alto doesn’t play sax, but organ. Piano is played by keyboardist Craig Frost who joined the band for the “Against the Wind” Tour this performance is from.
The opening section has acoustic guitar with organ briefly appearing. Bob sings and soon the piano appears. Alto’s organ contributes greatly to the rich musical sound of this performance. Bob sings powerfully with passion. I think this version is better than the studio version. Craig’s piano is what elevates it in my view. I love the way he rocks on that instrument. The song concludes with Bob thanking the audience and saying “great to be back in Boston”. Even though this song is a ballad, it has a great rock energy. It showcases the power of Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band at their peak. Similar to how this performance is exactly 45 years ago, this month marks my 15th anniversary of becoming a Bob Seger fan in October 2010.
This is my 100th blog post. I started this blog “The S Blog” eight years ago. I decided to write a post giving some highlights from this blog and some new content based on the topics I cover.
I write about Sri Lanka on this blog as it’s an interest of mine and where I call home. Sri Lankan blog posts have covered economics, politics, history, photos and more. I’ve also shared ideas of my own that I think would improve Sri Lanka. I’ll include three Sri Lankan images I’ve taken below with a link to the blog post it’s from. The text comes from those blog posts.
We just looked at three different images from Sri Lanka which are regional, Kandy and Colombo. They show the unique look of each one and reflect Sri Lanka’s colourful nature. Wellawatte is where I was when I lived in Sri Lanka.
I’m a fan of classic rock music that uses piano. The singers I like the most are Elton John and Bob Seger. I’m going to embed my favourite Bob Seger song which is “Even Now”. It’s a piano-driven rock song from the 1980s. Bob provides a powerful melody and singing. It reached Number 12 in the US charts, but it unfortunately isn’t remembered as one of his classics. I hope it will someday be remembered that way. I consider it to be an incredible heartland rocker.
Caleb Quaye plays all the guitars on this Elton John song including an acoustic guitar in the background. The song opens with Caleb’s guitar intro. Elton’s piano comes in and out before coming in fully for a full band sound. This rocker incorporates elements of country and blues. The backing vocals sound like a choir. There is a special percussion beat going on during the choruses. Elton’s piano and Caleb’s guitars play well with each other including the powerful guitar solo that comes around the halfway mark. Ballad of a Well Known Gun is a good example of an americana styled rock song written by Elton John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin.
When I did the retrospective post “The S Blog One Year On” in January 2017, I created a word cloud of the words used in my blog’s first year. I just created another word cloud for my blog. I suspect it is covering the last year plus my blog labels. This was created using the website WordArt.com.
The top ten words are Song, Sri, Piano, Rock, Lanka, Bob, Bill, Elton, Plays and Sing. This makes sense as I write about songs & Sri Lanka and I’m into piano rock music. Bob represents Bob Seger and Elton represents Elton John. Bill is referring to keyboardist Bill Payne who I’ve written about on this blog. I recently wrote an article about his keyboards for Bob Seger. While Elton so far hasn’t worked with Bill Payne, he thinks highly of Bill’s piano playing. Elton John and Bob Seger came together via Bill Payne on Bob’s song “Love’s the Last to Know” that features Bill Payne on piano and Elton’s guitarist Davey Johnstone on acoustic guitar.
One issue I’ve been having most of the time over the last year onwards is an enormous amount of fake traffic. Real traffic unfortunately got much less since I began this blog. As this is my 100th post, it’s difficult to get 100 views and when I reach it, fake traffic plays a big role in it. I would like to have the amount of fake traffic replaced by real traffic with getting at least 100 views being normal. I’ll give four less known blog posts of mine which I’d like to see get more exposure. The heading has their name/link and date with a brief description below.
My 75th blog post about ten rock songs I enjoy that feature electric piano. The artists featured are Blues Image, Traffic, Elton John, Bob Seger, Eagles, Billy Joel, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Christopher Cross, Toto and Bad English.
This is about “Honey Man”, a duet by English superstars Elton John & Cat Stevens recorded in 1970. This song was unreleased until 2001. I embed it in the post.
I give five sectors I’m suggesting Sri Lanka diversity its exports into which are computers & electronics, visual effects for Hollywood, pianos & keyboards, vehicles and planes.
I’m pleased to reach 100 blog posts. I plan to continue writing about similar issues to what I’ve written before and hope to cover new ground in future posts.
Bob Seger has worked with keyboardist Bill Payne from 1978 onwards. Session musician Bill Payne is part of the southern rock band Little Feat. Bill first worked with Bob playing piano & organ on his 1978 hit “Hollywood Nights” from the “Stranger in Town” album. Bill’s keyboards are just organ at the start. During the first verse, he brings in his piano which adds depth to the song. The piano rocks well with some notable moments. A few years later Bill played all the keyboards (piano, organ & synth) on the ballad “You’ll Accomp’ny Me” from the “Against the Wind” album. This song opens with acoustic guitar and Bill soon brings in his piano & organ. His synth is hard to hear. The piano makes this song whole and there are strong organ moments. In both songs, Bill played with Bob who was the sole guitarist.
Hollywood Nights (1978)
You’ll Accomp’ny Me (1980)
On the next album “The Distance”, two songs Bill played piano include the country hit “Shame on the Moon” and the ballad “Love’s the Last to Know”. On the Rodney Crowell cover “Shame On the Moon”, the sole keyboards at the start are organ. After the first chorus, Bill brings in a memorable piano solo with piano continuing throughout the song. Bill’s piano elevates “Shame On the Moon”. Piano is the main instrument on the ballad “Love’s the Last to Know” giving Bill a stronger presence than the previous songs. He plays gently and melodically giving the power of a piano ballad. In these three songs, he played with Silver Bullet Band keyboardist Craig Frost on organ and would do the same on the songs in the next paragraph.
Bill played keyboards (piano & synth) on most tracks on the 1986 “Like a Rock” album. This is the most prominent presence he’s had on a Bob Seger album. I will describe what I consider to be his best contribution from that album. In the heartland rocker “American Storm”, his piano is driving the song. In the rock ballad title track, he was playing gently and supported Rick Vito’s slide guitar solos well. In the intense rock song “Sometimes”, he played a good supporting role and provided a memorable piano solo.
American Storm (1986)
This album also has songs with the combination of him on piano and Craig Frost on synth. The two keyboards went well together on “The Aftermath” with Bill rocking out well. The two instruments were used in a different way on the ballad “Somewhere Tonight”. Somewhere Tonight has gentle sections driven by Bill’s piano and rockier sections driven by Rick Vito’s guitar. On the following 1991 album “The Fire Inside”, he played on two Tom Waits covers. One of them was the jazz song “New Coat of Paint” which brings a completely different sound to what Bob normally does. Bill does incredible piano playing including having two piano solos. The other one was the country song “Blind Love” with his prominent gentle country playing.
We’re now going back to a Bob Seger original. Bill played piano on the 2006 rock ballad “Wait for Me” which is a very Bob Seger song. Bill gives warm melodic playing. He backed Bob Seger’s guitar solo. I didn't like how the “Face the Promise” album this song is from had a lack of keyboards on it. I wanted there to be more piano on the album. I wish Bill could have played on more tracks. His presence would have elevated the material like how he did on “Hollywood Nights” as that song was recorded as a band without the keyboards first. I’m imagining how great the title track could have sounded with Bill’s piano & organ.
Wait for Me (2006)
On Bob’s last album “I Knew You When” in 2017, Bill played on three songs. The “I Knew You When” songs featured unreleased songs, most of which had been updated as well as a few covers and newly written songs. These songs Bill played on were from the unreleased “Blue Ridge” album recorded in the late 1990s. On the piano ballad “I Knew You When”, Bill plays in a relaxed, gentle way. In aggressive rocker “Forward Into the Past”, Bill plays a supporting role. He gives good rock piano moments throughout the song. The song “Blue Ridge” opens with real drums and steel drums. I suspect these steel drums are played by Craig Frost on keyboards as I didn’t see any steel drums in the credits. Soon, Bill’s piano appears. It gives a good presence in this melodic rocker. Bill accompanies Bob on his rocking guitar solo.
Blue Ridge (2017)
These songs showcase Bill Payne’s contributions to Bob Seger’s work. He is one of the key session musicians Bob has worked with over the years. Bill contributed to the iconic Bob Seger sound and brought vibes from americana & southern rock. The Bob Seger songs he played on are rockers & ballads and also other genres like country & jazz. Bill showed the power of the piano as a rock instrument. I hope to see Bill Payne reunited on the next Bob Seger album.
