Before he busted into the mainstream with Live Bullet
in 1976, Bob Seger was a slammin’ garage rocker out of Detroit, building his legend as a hard-working performer who played loud and hard. I kid you not, I worked alongside a vintage Segerhead at a furniture factory in Archbold, Ohio, for a few summers in college, and this guy swore Seger wrote “Turn the Page” because he was getting old and needed a blow during his high-energy shows of the era.
Seger’s career has two halves: the decade before Live Bullet, when he was tearing apart clubs on a nightly basis, and the decades since, featuring the peaceful, easy, kinder, gentler, mainstream Bob that most rock fans know. Here’s to the Old Bob and his regionally popular first band, the Bob Seger System.
Check out one of his early hits from the late 1960s, “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man,” below. This rendition features the stud himself playing, of all things, what appears to be a Vox Jaguar (sigh … but I ain’t sighing about “the Old Bob” Á¢€” I’d love to have that keyboard). The show is called It’s Happening, a Dick Clark venture also known as Happening ’68 in its first season and Happening ’69 in its second, according to the Internet Movie Database.
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