Background
Seger was born at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Charlotte and Stewart Seger. At age five he moved with his family to Ann Arbor. He has an older brother, George.
1977
Seger (bottom right) and the Silver Bullet Band in 1977.
1980
Bob Seger performs on stage at Ahoy on 3rd December 1980 in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He plays an Ovation acoustic guitar.
2004
Inductee Bob Seger and rapper Kid Rock onstage at the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame 19th Annual Induction Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel March 15, 2004 in New York City.
2014
Bob Seger is seen performing at 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' on October 14, 2014 in Los Angeles, California.
2018
Live In Limbo Bob Seger at Air Canada Centre.
Tappan Junior High School
Pioneer High School
Lincoln Park High School
Seger was born at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Charlotte and Stewart Seger. At age five he moved with his family to Ann Arbor. He has an older brother, George.
Seger attended Tappan Junior High School, (Ann Arbor, Michigan) (now Tappan Middle School) and graduated from Pioneer High School in 1963 (at the time it was known as Ann Arbor High School). He ran track and field in high school. Seger also went to Lincoln Park High School for a year.
Seger began playing music in 1961 as the leader of the Detroit-based trio the Decibels; his future manager, Eddie "Punch" Andrews was also a member of the band. Moving to Ann Arbor, he played with the Town Criers before he became the keyboardist and vocalist for Doug Brown & the Omens. Billing themselves as the Beach Bums, the band released "The Ballad of the Yellow Beret," a parody of the Sgt. Barry Sadler song "The Ballad of the Green Beret." The single was withdrawn shortly after its release after Sadler threatened a lawsuit. In 1966, Seger released his first solo single, "East Side Story," which became a regional hit. Several other local hit singles followed on Cameo Records, including "Persecution Smith" and "Heavy Music," before his label folded. In 1968, he formed the Bob Seger System and signed with Capitol Records, releasing his debut album, Ramblin' Gamblin' Man, in the spring of that year. The title track became a national hit, climbing to number 17, but the group's follow-up, Noah, stiffed and Seger decided to quit the music business in 1969 to attend college.
One year later, Seger had returned to rock & roll with a new backing band, releasing Mongrel at the end of 1970. For 1971's Brand New Morning, he disbanded his group and recorded a singer/songwriter effort. Following its release, he began performing with the duo Dave Teegarden and Skip "Van Winkle" Knape, and they provided support on 1972's Smokin' O.P.'s, which was the first release on Palladium Records, a label he formed with Andrews. The album failed to sell, as did Back in '72 (1973) and Seven (1974), and he moved back to Capitol Records for 1975's Beautiful Loser. For the recording of Beautiful Loser, Seger formed the Silver Bullet Band, which consisted of guitarist Drew Abbott, bassist Chris Campbell, keyboardist Robyn Robbins, saxophonist Alto Reed, and drummer Charlie Allen Martin. Seger supported Beautiful Loser with an extensive tour with the Silver Bullet Band, and while it didn't make the album a hit, it provided a widespread grassroots following across the country. The touring paid off in 1976, when Live Bullet, a double album recorded in Detroit, became a hit, spending over three years on the U.S. charts and going gold; the album would eventually go quadruple platinum.
Seger returned with The Distance in 1982. The Distance was the first album since Seven to be recorded with the addition of session musicians, which caused guitarist Abbott to quit the band in frustration. Over the course of the next decade, the membership of the Silver Bullet Band shifted constantly. While The Distance featured "Shame on the Moon," his biggest hit single to date, its sales plateaued at a million copies, suggesting that his popularity was beginning to level off. Seger also began to drastically reduce his recording and touring schedules - he only released one other album, 1986's Like a Rock, during the '80s. Like a Rock and its supporting tour were both successes, paving the way for "Shakedown," a song taken from the 1987 soundtrack to Beverly Hills Cop II, which became Seger's lone number one hit. Four years after its release, he returned with The Fire Inside. Although the album went platinum and reached the Top Ten, it only appealed to Seger's devoted following, as did 1995's It's a Mystery, which became his first album since Live Bullet to fail to go platinum, leveling off at gold status.
A long hiatus followed, where Seger kept his head down and spent time with his family. These quiet years were only interrupted by his 2004 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Finally, in 2006, after an 11-year hiatus, Seger released Face the Promise, his first record since 1975's Beautiful Loser not to feature the Silver Bullet Band. Although it spawned no big hit singles - "Wait for Me" made it into the Billboard adult contemporary Top 20 - Face the Promise performed well, debuting at four on the Billboard charts on its way to a platinum certification. A couple archival projects followed: the 2009 compilation Early Seger, Vol. 1, which balanced previously released cuts with re-recorded old tunes, and the 2011 double-disc set Ultimate Hits: Rock & Roll Never Forgets, which was certified platinum and generated a modest adult contemporary hit cover of Tom Waits' "Downtown Train." A new album titled Ride Out appeared in October of 2014, debuting at number three on the Billboard charts. Seger next released I Knew You When, a 2017 album that was dedicated to the recently deceased Glenn Frey.
Politically, Seger has characterized himself as a centrist: "[I'm] right down the middle", he remarked.
When it comes to the race for U.S. President, on the Democratic side Seger says Hillary Clinton is his favorite candidate, but he really likes a lot of what Bernie Sanders has to say. On the Republican side, Seger says he believes Donald Trump will eventually drop out. He also says "Jeb Bush is my favorite. I think he's the smartest of the Bush brothers."
Quotations:
"That's a good way to live, go against the wind."
"I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then."
"Every now and then you'll nail one that's really, really special. And that's what you live for."
"Great sex is wonderful while it's happening, but who remembers great sex they had in 1983?"
"I never say never, because I don't want to be one of those guys."
"I really like the thing I did with Martina McBride. I had that song sitting around for a long time."
"I just fell into the Dylanesque idea of recording. He is real fast."
Seger never went through a heavy-drug period. He said: "Drugs are destroying so many people and I thought I ought to stand up and be counted. If they want to call me square, they can."
Seger's first marriage in 1968 lasted for "one day short of a year". He had a long-term relationship with Jan Dinsdale from 1972 until 1983. In 1987, he married actress Annette Sinclair and they divorced one year later. He married Juanita Dorricott in 1993, in a small private setting at The Village Club, in Bloomfield Hills; they have two children.