Customer Reviews

Early Seger Vol. 1

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Rolling Stone put it succinctly when they said this album is a welcome sight, but that it's too short...and not without its gems. If you're a completist like I am and searched long and hard to get all of his now-out-of-print releases like Noah, Mongreal, Brand New morning, Back in '72 and so on, there are only four tracks that you will find completely new to your ears. The first six tracks are from some of those releases. The other four range from the early 70s to the mid 80s, and suond just fine. Rolling Stone and I both asked the same question: why wait so long to release them? Bob Seger has more than enough unreleased material for a good-sized boxed set that would also include all the hit songs he's had over the past 35 years. The extra tracks on both of his greatest hits CDs were fine, and his 2006 "Face the Promise" disc was full of proof that Seger hasn't missed a beat in the eleven years between that album and its predecessor. In other words, it's all good, but a boxed set while Bob Seger is still around to do the job right would be a wondrous thing and would make a lot of people very happy. On the plus side, the booklet included with the CD version of this package has some amazing photos of a very young Seger that will amaze his fans. If not a boxed set just yet, then please bring on volume two ASAP. There's a lot of material we'd all love to hear!

Matthew Brown (previous reviewer on this thread) is correct. I grew up in Ann Arbor in the 1960's and saw Bob Seger perform many times back then in the EARLY days. To me his best, most hard-hitting rock & roll was what he was doing back then, as Bob Seger and the Last Heard, and the Bob Seger System. I was never a fan of the Silver Bullet Band-- it just sounded really commercial and watered down to me. I guess his early music was deemed to be too gritty, too raw for mass appeal for some reason. Still, he was pretty successful here in Michigan with his earlier music. Perhaps this suggests that people from the Detroit area really ARE more bad-ass than much of the rest of the country... At any rate, here is what SHOULD be on this CD:

Heavy Music, East Side Story, Sock it to me Santa, 2+2 is on my mind, Ramblin'Gamblin' Man, Persecution Smith, Chain Smokin', Lucifer, etc. THIS stuff I would buy in a heartbeat.

But this will do for now.

After all, this is primal American rock; the sorta stuff we should have all grown up on. But like everyone else, there's just not enough here. In fact, it's downright skimpy.

The post-Night Moves outtakes are fine (Days When The Rain Would Come just shines) but of course it's the long lost stuff from the wilderness years that's the real meat. Get Out of Denver and U.M.C. are just stone-cold shoulda been classics that bad luck and bonehead decisions kept away from us for far too long. But in both cases, I suspect the real roadblock to any sort of decent career retrospective is record companies, not Bob himself.

In the first phase of his career, Bob recorded singles and albums for several different labels, so coordinating rights, particularly from defunct labels, is one problem. But I suspect a bigger stumbling block is that the vast majority of his recorded output is on Capitol, possibly the worst record label in the world when it comes to treating their older, legacy artists with any sort of respect. I mean, look how shabbily they're treated their biggest cash cow, The Beatles, over the years. Shoddy packaging, minimal documentation (if any), dubious push-button "remastering" -- the litany of sins goes on. It's not that they're "all about the music"; it's just that they're apparently dirt cheap. And if that's how they treat the Fab Four, how do you think they'll treat some Midwestern boy on his own?

Does Rhino still do retrospectives? Now there was a company that did it right, both with box sets and their 2-CD best-ofs. They'd wrangle all the rights, search out lost gems, involve the artist and package it with a booklet that was respectful, honest, sharp and actually worth reading. That's the sort of thing the fans want, and that Bob deserves.

If, on the other hand, the hold-up is Bob itself, well, gee, Bob, the only reason I finally gave in and started downloading your pirated early stuff a few years back is because I'd given up on it ever becoming available legally again. Ever. I mean, some of it's been unavailable for thirty years or more.

The fact I bought this CD even though I now own almost all of it already should be proof enough that there's a market for this stuff.

These are all fine examples of Bob Seger's early rock & roll days. Sound is great, too. I hope he continues to release more of his excellent out-of-print songs.

Finally Bob agrees to join us! This is a great CD, classic rock and roll at it's best. Hopefully if we all buy this he will release some more!!

This CD is a must have CD for anyone who likes Bob Seger such as myself. I just resently added this CD to my Bob Seger Collection an alsome CD. This Cd has songs that he recorded but was never released or added to any of his other CD's. A great CD and a must have for anyone who is interested in or already has a Bob Seger CD collection going.

Before reinventing himself as a "serious, professional balladeer and old-time rock reminiscer," Seger actually ROCKED. Soulful, hard hitting, heavy Detroit City ROCK N ROLL. Whenever I've tried to explain this to people who weren't raised in the shadow of the motor city as I was, they scoff at me and call my "rock dude" credibility into question. For some reason after Seger hit the big time, he and his manager Punch Andrews disowned all the records in his back catalog, the records that actually painted Seger as a rocker. It's baffling really. Like the 10 years he struggled in midwestern anonymity (and created his greatest body of work)never happened.

It's my belief that Mongrel is THE great lost Detroit rock record, a record which rocks every bit as hard as anything the MC5 ever put out (and I love the MC5...)

So while I believe that it's great that some of these tracks are finally seeing the light of day again, there is still so much good stuff out there that most people haven't heard.

The way "Early Seger" should look:

1. Ramblin Gamblin Man (from Tales of Lucy Blue)
2. 2 + 2 =? (Tales of Lucy Blue)
3. Looking Back (released as a single)
4. Rosalie (Back In 72)
5. Let It Rock (studio Smokin O.P.s)
6. Song To Rufus (Mongrel)
7. Heavy Music (parts 1 & 2)(single)
8. Evil Edna (Mongrel)
9. Highway Child (Mongrel)
10. Mongrel (Mongrel)
11. Lucifer (Mongrel)
12. Teachin Blues (Mongrel)
13. Leanin On My Dream (Mongrel)
14. Mongrel Too (Mongrel)
15. River Deep Mountain High (Mongrel)
16. Back In 72 (Back In 72)
17. East Side Story (single)
18. Turn The Page (studio-Back In 72)
19. Get Out Of Denver (seven)
20. U.M.C. (seven)
21. Katmandu (Beautiful Loser)
22. Black Night (Beautiful Loser)

I'm kind of an old fogie (almost 58) and I grew up in Michigan in the late sixties,so I knew Bob Seger's Real early classics. The titles of some were: Heavy Music, East Side Story, Sock it to me Santa, 2+2 is on my mind, Ramblin'Gamblin' Man, Noah, etc. The first 3 on this list were from Cameo Parkway records, whose present owner Abkco has finally after more than forty years of silence allowed them and also hits by ? and the Mysterians and the Rationals, to be available to us again. But Capitol has not yet let us have back the other songs on my short list, or several others I can't think of offhand. Many Seger fans (and I am only a casual fan of Seger music that came after the Beautiful Loser album of 1975) who did not live in Michigan in 1966-69 will not even recognize these songs, because most were not big hits nationally, though they often made No.1 in local Michigan markets. Heavy Music and Ramblin' Gamblin' Man, of course, have been around for some time on Live Bullet, but the studio versions that I used to hear on the radio all the time have not. 2+2 is still missing in action, as far as I know. I liked the early Bob better than his slicker "Greatest Hits" career that most people will know from the late seventies. I'd like to see these early hits in a complete version.

Two of these tracks are somewhat known, thanks to their presence on the excellent Live Bullet album, but most of this stuff is a mere sniff of what was to come. I'm buying this primarily to show Bob that he should join us in the 21st century. We aren't pirates. We're working stiffs who miss him and wish he'd end his holdout from the number one medium for distributing music. C'mon, Bob, let's turn on a new generation to true songcraft and the wonders of Rock 'n Roll. Release that incredible body of work to Amazon and iTunes so we can rock the world again! My vinyl is worn out and I'm tired of ripping from dinosaur CDs!

"Early Seger Vol. 1" is a strange compilation of material, some of it quite rare, from Michigan's hard charging and soulful favorite son, Bob Seger. I recommend this disc without reservation, but with two caveats: the disc is short and could have easily been fleshed out with other Seger obscurities; second, the disc's title really isn't accurate, as The Bob Seger System or The Last Heard aren't represented. This is a triviality to all but die-hard Seger fans, but those are the very people who are likely to buy this CD. Having said all that, I really liked the CD, and appreciated the insert photographs.

Although the well-known "Get Out of Denver" is my favorite track on the CD, the real notable things here are the rarities on the CD including some very interesting material choices. Bob's take on Gregg Allman's "Midnight Rider" is very distinctive; even though it's a widely covered song, Seger really puts his personal touch on it here, but while distinctive I will always think of it as an Allman Brothers piece. Contrasted to that is Seger's take on another widely-covered staple, "If I Were A Carpenter," which has been covered by everyone from Robert Plant (an excellent rendition) to Leonard Nimoy (not so much.) I am not a huge fan of the song itself, but really enjoy the treatment Seger gave it.

The CD also delivers plenty of Seger's distinctive hard-driving rock, with entries such as "U.M.C." and the unreleased gem "Gets Ya Pumpin.'" Of course "Get Out of Denver" can't be beat in this category, and the superior "Long Song Comin'" is another Seger rocker that could have been a classic.

In short, this is an interesting release for Seger fans, but may not be the best introduction for casual listeners. Hopefully one day more classic Seger that's been moldering in the vault will see the light of day: a box set would be most welcome.