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15. Seger on the Rise Following the demise of Cameo-Parkway Records in September 1967, Bob Seger watched helplessly as his “breakout” hit, “Heavy Music,” lost momentum and fell off the national charts. His manager , Punch Andrews, at ‹rst thought of trying to place him with Motown, where the Underdogs had signed earlier in the year and were the label’s lone “white rock band.” But believing that the Detroit label’s marketing machine would not be right for the job, Andrews approached some other labels. No one was interested. They told him Seger was “too guttural, too hard,” and that he “wouldn’t play well in other cities.”1 Eventually, Andrews contacted Tom Gelardi, head of Capitol Records’ Detroit of‹ce: “We were discussing Bob’s career, and how he hadn’t been able to break outside of Michigan,” recalls Gelardi. “Punch told me that a disc jockey in Florida had been playing his records, and that Seger had just pulled in eleven thousand fans to a concert down there, so there was this great potential. Punch asked if I knew anybody at Capitol that might be interested in signing him. In fact, I had a good relationship with Carl Engelman , Capitol’s A&R director, so I put in a call saying, ‘Carl, I’d like to showcase a Detroit artist who is an amazing success in Michigan .’ We set something up for the next Friday afternoon at a teen club out on Northwestern Highway. Bob performed for forty-‹ve minutes, and did all those local hits, like ‘East Side Story,’ ‘Heavy Music,’ and some other originals.”2 At the end of the set, Engelman told Gelardi and Andrews that he wanted to sign Bob Seger to the label. “The interesting thing was that Engelman was impressed more by Seger’s writing ability than by his performance,” says Gelardi. “He said, ‘I want to sign him because he’s an incredible songwriter.’ And that’s pretty much how Bob got with Capitol Records.”3 150 Having been unhappy with the Last Heard moniker, Seger took the opportunity to change the name of the band to the Bob Seger System. The players remained the same, with bass player Dan Honaker and drummer Pep Perine at the core. Even with Seger’s name at the front, the band was always democratic. “I was making as much money as the drummer and the background singer, we were all in it together,” claimed Seger, who believed that “everybody went through the same amount of road torture.”4 Aside from money, the band also had a say in what they played, and how they should play it. Seger’s insecurity often made him go along with band decisions even when he felt they were not right. “I just wanted to play and make records,” he recalled. “I was afraid the band would break up.”5 In April 1968, Seger’s ‹rst Capitol single, the antiwar protest song “2 + 2 = ?” was released. Seger had undergone a transformation after a close friend was killed in Vietnam, and the record was an about-face from the hawkish “Ballad of the Yellow Beret” released two years earlier. The explosive “2 + 2” was a wild ride, with Seger questioning the demands of war. As usual, the record quickly raced up into the top 10 on Detroit charts, cresting at number 7, while failing to catch ‹re elsewhere. The song was included on Seger’s ‹rst Capitol album, originally to be titled Tales of Lucy, before producers settled on Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man, the title of the second single taken from the album. This time out, a smashing drum rhythm opened the way for Pat McCaffery’s harddriving organ, as Seger sang with a swagger about being free. “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” took off fast on both WKNR and CKLW, reaching number 3 in the Motor City. Along with Seger’s regular band, friend Glenn Frey played rhythm guitar and sang backup on the hit. On July 29, 1968, the Bob Seger System played at an outdoor concert at Oakland Mall in the Detroit suburb of Troy. It was one of the new, huge, enclosed malls designed to take business away from the older open-air shopping centers such as Northland and Eastland. The mall’s marketing director, Bob Jones, thought that a great way to draw attention to the grand opening would be to stage a free rock concert in the parking lot, featuring top Detroit bands such as the Amboy Dukes...

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