Search - Bob Seger :: Early Seger Vol. 1

For once, I agree with Rolling Stone's review...

T. LeBaron | NH | 02/02/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"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!"

The REAL early years are totally missing!

R. Jacobi | Detroit | 02/20/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"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."

You're such a tease, Bob...

Kevin Burton Smith | Palmdale, CA USA | 02/03/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"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."