Bob Seger

Whether gigging in long, tireless obscurity in the journeyman bars and clubs of his native Michigan or gliding through his late-'70s success, Bob Seger remained in spirit a working-class hero. Gruff-voiced and dramatic, he's a premier rock & roll singer, and his best songs render with dignity and empathy the hard victories and close defeats of ordinary lives. A sort of John Fogerty with more of a naturalist approach than that expressed by Creedence's ruralist myths, or a Springsteen without the vast sweep of the Boss' vision, Seger balances romance and realism--for all its inspirational verve, his work mainly is honest, solid, and strong.

Heavy rock along the lines of Free or Cream, Ramblin' Gamblin' Man boasts a great, Mitch Ryder-ish title track and very tough, bluesy stompers driven home with raw assurance. Mongrel hasn't quite the same crude, lean power--a remake of Ike and Tina Turner's "River Deep, Mountain High" betrays Seger's occasional tendency toward bombast--but with "Big River," the record sees the singer debuting the kind of confident midtempo ballad writing he'd later perfect with such hits as "You'll Accomp'ny Me" and "Against the Wind." A grab bag of covers as oddly diverse as Stephen Stills' "Love the One You're With" and Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock," Smokin' O.P. 's features "Heavy Music," its swagger recalling Spencer Davis' "Gimme Some Lovin" and a reading of Tim Hardin's "If I Were a Carpenter" that shows Seger capable as ever of fierce conviction, if not yet of much restraint. "Get Out of Denver," from Seven, is Seger at his fast-rocking finest; "U.M.C. (Upper Middle Class)" shows him flourishing a political conscience--and the album introduces the Silver Bullet Band, whose no-frills dependability makes possible a growing confidence in the singer that soon pays off in a new refinement that sacrifices little of his earlier energy.

Beautiful Loser's stately title track and its punchy cover of Tina Turner's "Nutbush City Limits" begin Seger's mature period. The trilogy that follows (Live Bullet, Night Moves, and Stranger in Town) is remarkable stuff-- "Night Moves" is not only Seger's best song, but one of rock's most moving exercises in elegy, and the vigor of the fast songs testifies not only to the pleasures of craft, but the rewards of keeping faith with fundamental rock & roll. Seger's glory moment, these three records sum up his strengths: clarity, endurance, and heart.

While "The Horizontal Bop" and "Betty Lou's Gettin' Out Tonight" rock with the offhand assurance Seger had unassailably gained by then, Against the Wind's ballads betray strain and a certain softness. Nine Tonight is expert but unnecessary. The Distance marks a return to form in its moody remake of Rodney Crowell's "Shame on the Moon" and in Seger's Detroit valediction, "Makin' Thunderbirds"--but the note of nostalgia he'd first sounded in Stranger in Town with "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll" is beginning to seem perfunctory. Like A Rock, however, testifies to Seger's survivalist courage. While the breakthrough intensity of his best work is missing, this is wise and confident music. A cover of Fogerty's "Fortunate Son" truly kicks, and in "The Ring" and its lament for an exhausted love, the veteran is doing what he--and few others--can do with frankness and focus: make rock & roll for full-grown men and women. The Fire Inside carries on the good fight, as does It's A Mystery, which ranges from his trademark nostalgia ("Rite of Passage") to a terrific cover of Tom Waits' "16 Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six." (PAUL EVANS)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide