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Bob Seger Releases Night Moves, His First Big Studio Album

Bob Seger releases Night Moves, his first studio album to make an impact outside of Michigan.

Seger started in high school, making a name for himself in the vibrant Detroit music scene. By the time he was 23, he had a deal with Capitol Records and was a mentor to Glenn Frey, another local upstart. His talent was never in question - he could deliver bawdy rockers like "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" (with Frey on vocals) and lonely ballads like "Turn The Page" with a deft touch for lyrics and delivery. He built a huge following in Michigan, where his albums consistently sold in the tens of thousands, but had trouble reaching an audience past the border - there is only so much ground you can cover in a Winnebago filled with your backing band. Seger tried leaving Capitol to issue music on his manager's label, Palladium, but ended up going back to Capitol for his seventh album, Beautiful Loser, in 1975. He could reliably churn out an album a year, writing and recording in concentrated bursts between tours, but the songs for his next album were taking a while. To keep this train rolling, he made his next album a live set: Live Bullet, recorded during two invigorating Detroit concerts. It got through in a way his studio work couldn't, and finally inched his music out of the Midwest. By the time his next album, Night Moves, was ready, he had expanded his territory. Seger's recording workflow is unusual: his Silver Bullet Band, the one heard blowing the doors off Cobo Hall on Live Bullet, played on only two Beautiful Loser tracks and four on Night Moves. A lot of his recording is done in Alabama with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section behind him. But he chose a third location, Toronto, to record the title track, a story about coming of age in the heartland that Seger worked on for months. When it finally came together, it was clear "Night Moves" was they lynchpin of the album. Released six months after Live Bullet, Night Moves makes Seger a star at age 31 - old enough to look back on the days when he used to shake 'em down and remind us that rock and roll never forgets. The first two singles, "Night Moves" and "Mainstreet," are rooted in Seger's upbringing (the Main Street is in Ann Arbor, Michigan), but are the kind of wistfully nostalgic songs that connect with anyone who knows the thrill of making out in the back seat of a Chevy. They're national hits, picked up by radio stations across the country. By 1977, Seger is a star. Seger's next album, Stranger In Town, isn't released until 1978, which gives his new fans plenty of time to discover his back catalog. Beautiful Loser, which sold maybe 100,000 after a year, goes on to sell 2 million; "Turn The Page," from 1973, becomes a rock radio recurrent. Seger is more sanguine than most and better conditioned to handle his newfound notoriety. He does head to Hollywood, but only for a few months to finish recording Stranger In Town (again, many of these songs are done at Muscle Shoals). While there, he writes a song about a midwestern boy who finds love in the Hollywood hills, only to find himself lonely and homesick. That song, "Hollywood Nights," is one of four hits from the album. In the '80s, Seger becomes one of the most reliable hitmakers of the decade, and in 1987 lands a #1 with "Shakedown" from the movie Beverly Hills Cop II.

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