The 100th S Blog Post

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.

Diverse Views of Sri Lanka - 16 January 2020

A view of Bible Rock from a distance, taken near Kadugannawa.

Kaleidoscopic Kandy - 23 January 2020

A view of the Kandy Lake.

Captivating Colombo - 30 January 2020

Buildings in Wellawatte.

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.

In December 2022, I wrote the article “Ten Great Elton John Songs by Ten Different Guitarists”. It’s the inverse of my article “Ten Great Bob Seger Songs by Ten Different Piano Players”. Elton John’s guitarist Davey Johnstone plays on songs in both these two articles. I have also written “Ten Great Jackson Browne Songs by Ten Different Piano Players” which featured Elton John as one of the piano players. Moving back to the Elton John article, the guitarists I featured are Davey Johnstone, Caleb Quaye, Tim Renwick, Steve Lukather, Richie Zito, Eric Clapton, Chris Rea, Rusty Anderson, B.B. King and Doyle Bramhall II. I thought I’d feature a leftover which wasn’t in the original article, being the song “Ballad of a Well Known Gun”.

Ballad of a Well-Known Gun - Caleb Quaye (1970)

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.

Ten Great Electric Piano Rock Songs - 12 February 2022

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.

Elton John & Cat Stevens's Duet Honey Man - 29 October 2022

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.

The Power of Bob Seger’s Singing - 22 November 2023

This article is giving my thoughts on the power of American rocker Bob Seger’s singing. I refer to some Bob Seger songs in it.

Five Export Diversification Options for Sri Lanka - 20 April 2024

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.

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.

Russ Kunkel’s Drumming for Bob Seger

This article is about Los Angeles session drummer Russ Kunkel’s work for Bob Seger. He first appeared on Bob Seger’s 1982 album “The Distance”. He played on all but one track on that album. He played one or two tracks on subsequent studio albums until 1995’s “It’s A Mystery”. In this article, I’m discussing his work with Bob Seger, mentioning many of the songs he played on. I also embed the official audio from five of these songs just before the conclusion. The first Bob Seger track he played on is “Even Now”, my favourite Bob Seger song. This is a very heartland rock song and a wonderful way for Russ to begin working with Bob Seger. On this song, he is drumming with passion with some fancy hits. He was also on the two other singles “Roll Me Away” which is another heartland rocker and the country hit “Shame On The Moon”. Highlights from that album include “Love’s The Last To Know”, a ballad with soft drumming in its first half transforming into intense drumming in the second half. Another song worth mentioning is the rock & roll song “Makin’ Thunderbirds” where he opens the song. He played on the first two tracks of the 1986 album “Like A Rock” which were both hits in the US. These tracks were the heartland rocker “American Storm” and the rock ballad “Like A Rock”. In the title track, he opens with soft drumming. In the choruses and Rick Vito’s slide guitar solos he hits the drums harder giving powerful drumming moments. He is rocking well on a slow song. Five years later, he played the drums on the rocker “The Fire Inside” with a hard hitting drum opening. The drums are prominent on this song. It’s driven by the drums and piano. He played on the sessions of the 1995 album “It’s A Mystery”. Three songs have been released from these sessions, the first is “In Your Time” which appeared on 1994’s “Greatest Hits” album. The two songs which appeared on the “It’s A Mystery” album are “I Can’t Save You Angelene” and “West Of The Moon”. On these three songs, Bob played piano. Two of them are rock ballads with it clearly being an electric piano. The song that stands out is “I Can’t Save You Angelene” which is an uptempo blues song with acoustic piano. On this song, Russ does blues playing including closing the song. Even Now (1982)
Roll Me Away (1982)
Shame On The Moon (1982) Like A Rock (1986) The Fire Inside (1991) Russ Kunkel has a full drum sound, being a great rock drummer. His drumming is sharp and powerful. He supported Bob Seger excellently as a session musician. Some other songs he has played on that I like are “Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne”, “Let Her Go” by Dan Fogelberg, “Johnny Strikes up the Band” by Warren Zevon, “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)” by James Taylor and “Volcano” by the recently deceased Jimmy Buffett. Russ hasn’t played on a Bob Seger studio album since 1995. I’d like to see him work with Bob again. I’ll conclude by wishing Russ Kunkel a happy birthday for turning 75 this week.

Elton John & Bob Seger Live in Concert

Elton John & Bob Seger are my two favourite singers and I see similarities in their music. I

would love to see them performing together, so I decided to write an article imagining them

performing together in concert featuring songs by both singers. I envision a mix of supporting

musicians that work with each singer as the backing band. It would comprise Bob’s backing band the

Silver Bullet Band: Chris Campbell (bass, backing vocals), Alto Reed (saxophone, percussion,

guitar) & Craig Frost (organ, keyboards) and Elton’s original band members Davey Johnstone

(guitar, backing vocals) & Nigel Olsson (drums, backing vocals) who are part of his current

band. The current line-up of Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band is only these three members, as his

other backing musicians don’t appear to be official members. Elton would of course play piano and

Bob would play guitar, piano & tambourine. When Bob plays piano, he would play a second

piano in addition to Elton’s piano. I did in fact envision Elton & Bob perform with this backing

band in my previous blog post “Toto Tribute Album” imagining them performing a duet of “Rosanna”.

I gave an equal amount of songs that belong to each singer. I’m aware that there are some major

hits belonging to both of them not included here. The way I determined this list is by focusing on

songs of theirs I like looking mostly from their hit songs and thinking of ones which sound good in

collaboration. I’m including some of their hit songs that they haven’t played in concert for a while,

and there are also a few of their album tracks. I’ll now list how I see their songs played together.

Crocodile Rock (1973)

This is one of Elton’s biggest hits. It’s influenced by 50s rock & roll music, which was a big

influence on both singers. The song has a prominent farfisa organ sound on the original. In this

version, replace that organ sound with the one that Bob uses to be played by Craig and have Alto

play saxophone (an instrument not featured on the original recording).

Old Time Rock & Roll (1978)

This is Bob Seger’s signature song. It’s included after “Crocodile Rock” as the two songs are a bit

similar. Have Bob play electric guitar on this, with Davey playing lead. Have an added organ part by

Craig on this.

Candle in the Wind (1973)

Bob would play acoustic guitar and Davey would play electric guitar. This version would have the

added organ played by Craig. Alto would play percussion. Have Elton sing the first verse &

chorus, Bob sing the second verse and chorus and they’d share lines of the third verse with the third

chorus sung together.  

Mainstreet (1976)

This song is placed after “Candle in the Wind” due to the similarity it has to that song. The studio

version has this brilliant electric guitar riff played throughout that’s replaced with Alto’s saxophone in

live versions. Bring back the electric guitar riff for this version to be played by Davey and have Bob

on acoustic guitar. Have Alto on percussion.

Rocket Man (1972)

Have Bob play acoustic guitar and Davey play slide guitar. Craig would play the synth parts from the

original on keyboards. Alto would play percussion.

Hollywood Nights (1978)

Have Bob on electric guitar. The piano parts on the studio version starts in the middle of the first

verse, with it starting from the beginning in Bob’s live versions. Have the piano start from the

beginning on this version. Elton would keep most the special piano moments in the song while

putting his unique spin on them and adding a few of his own piano parts. The piano would be more

prominent on this version. The section at the end of the song has the backing vocalists singing

“Hollywood Nights, Hollywood Hills, Above All The Lights” with Bob responding to them. Have Elton

sing the backing vocalists part at the end in full lead vocal (without any contributions from the

backing vocalists onstage) with Bob’s part at the end being the same.

I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues (1983)

Have Bob play the harmonica solo that was played by Stevie Wonder on the original version. Alto

would play percussion.

I Can’t Save You Angelene (1995)

I included this song after Elton’s “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues” as it’s similar to that

one. I think this song sounds a lot like Elton John. I pointed it out in my previous blog post “Ten Great

Bob Seger Songs By Ten Different Piano Players” including its similarity to the previous song. Part of

it is the fact that Bob played piano on the original recording. Thus have Bob and Elton play piano

together on this version. Have added organ by Craig. Alto would play percussion.

Philadelphia Freedom (1975)

Alto would play the added sax. There would be no strings on this version. Craig would play added

organ.

Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me (1974)

This is placed before “We’ve Got Tonight” due to the two songs’ similarities. Elton and Bob would

again both play piano. They would use the George Michael duet version vocal arrangement, where

Bob would sing George’s lines and Elton would sing his lines from that version. Alto would play

saxophone as there were horns on the original. Craig would play organ on this version.

We’ve Got Tonight (1978)

Elton and Bob would both play piano on this. Bob would sing the first verse and chorus, the bridge

& the fourth chorus and Elton would sing the second verse & chorus. Elton and Bob would sing

the third and last chorus together. Alto would play percussion. This version would rock more than the

original as after the line “still here we are” the string parts would be played as a rock guitar part by

Davey.

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.

Island Girl (1975)

Bob would play acoustic guitar. The original has the electric guitar parts only in certain sections of

the song. In this version, have the electric guitar throughout the whole song. Alto would play the

added saxophone. Craig would play its mellotron and synthesizer parts on the keyboard including

the mellotron solo. Davey would play some rocking guitar riffs in the mellotron solo.

Still The Same (1978)

Elton and Bob would both play piano, as Bob played piano on the original version. Alto would play

acoustic guitar alongside Davey.

Love’s The Last To Know (1982)

This is included as Elton’s guitarist Davey played acoustic guitar on the original track. Craig and

Chris were also on the original recording. Alto would play percussion.

Honky Cat (1972)

Alto would play sax as there were horns on the original. The original’s stringed instrument was a

banjo played by Davey. Davey would still play that, but there would be the addition of electric guitar

on this version played by Bob. Have Craig play electric piano sounds on the keyboard as Elton also

played electric piano on the original.

Healing Hands (1989)

This is my favourite Elton John which he unfortunately no longer plays in concert. Craig would play

organ instead of the keyboard sounds on the original. Alto would play percussion.

Even Now (1982)

I thought it would be good to follow my favourite Elton John song with my favourite Bob Seger song,

which Bob too no longer plays in concert. In the original recording, Bob sings both backing and lead

vocals in the chorus. It’s not possible to sing both in a live context, so have Elton sing the backing

vocal lines in full lead vocal (without any of the backing vocalists on stage contributing). Bob would

sing his lead vocal part in the chorus like how he did on the studio version. Bob would also play

tambourine. Elton would also sing the second verse. This song has a brilliant piano part in it by Roy

Bittan. It’s different to Elton’s style, and Elton should both stay close the original part and add his

own spin on it.

England & America (2016)

This song is from the Deluxe Edition of Elton’s most recent studio album “Wonderful Crazy Night”. It

follows “Even Now” as it has musical similarities to it. Also, “Even Now” is from the 80s and “England

& America” has a real 80s rock sound. This song also sounds different to Elton’s usual style,

where it actually sounds more like a Bob Seger song than an Elton John song. Bob would play

electric guitar as this is a harder rocking song. Alto would play percussion.

Against The Wind (1980)

The backing harmony vocals in the studio version are sung by Bob Seger & late Eagle Glenn

Frey. Have Elton sing the backing vocal parts at the end solely by himself, and of course sing part of

the lead vocals with Bob. Bob would play acoustic guitar and Davey would play electric guitar. Alto

would play percussion.

Club at the End of the Street (1989)

Have Elton play acoustic piano (unlike the electric piano of the original recording) like how he did on

his 2000 concert/DVD One Night Only. Alto would play saxophone as there was one on the original.

I Don’t Wanna Go On With You Like That (1988)

Craig would replace the synth parts on the original with new keyboard parts on the organ. Alto would

play percussion.

The Fire Inside (1991)

This song is chosen to follow “I Don’t Wanna Go On With You Like That” as both songs are a bit

similar, from the same period and feature good rock piano parts. Also, both songs are rock songs

whose guitar part is acoustic and not electric. This song has fabulous piano work on the original that

was played by Roy Bittan. It would give Elton a great opportunity to showcase his piano playing skills

and be a challenge to play something that’s outside of his normal style & a rock piano piece

even more complicated than his normal work. Elton would both stay close to Roy’s original piano

part and add his own spin on it. Alto would play percussion.

Fire Lake (1980)

This is going from one Bob Seger “Fire” song to another, but it’s much slower than the previous one

as it’s a ballad. Have Bob on acoustic guitar and Davey on electric guitar. Alto would play percussion.

The Encores

Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting (1973)

In the intro Craig would play the added organ alongside the guitars before Elton’s piano comes in.

Bob would play electric guitar. Alto would play added sax.

Rock & Roll Never Forgets (1976)

This song is included after “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” as it sounds similar to it. It’s

chosen to conclude the show as Bob has been ending his concerts with it.

I hope you enjoyed my selection of songs Elton John and Bob Seger could perform together in a

hypothetical concert. It’s fitting as the concert opens with an Elton John song and closes with a Bob

Seger song. I’d be interested if you have any songs of theirs that you’d like to see them perform

together. Feel free to comment with those ideas. I think these two singers fit well together and am

sure this band would be performing great songs together.