Turn The Page

Bob Seger, rockin' out in the mid 70's.

Right off, I've gotta say I haven't ever been that much of a Bob Seger fan. Maybe it's because anytime I hear a cover band strike up the intro chords to Seger's ubiquitous "Old Time Rock 'n Roll", I want to abandon my drink and head for the nearest exit. I completely concur with the sentiment of the lyric, but man, that song has been flogged to death! Due to nearly 40 years of overexposure to Seger's music, I see no need to own a hard copy of anything by Bob Seger. Yet, I have to acknowledge Seger for 2 things.

In December of 1976, I went to a Kiss concert at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Bob Seger was the opening act. By all appearances, Seger & Co. had been thrown to the wolves. Nearly 20,000 Kiss fans in assorted states of inebriation, primed and ready for the clown princes of rock, were in no mood for a scruffy, soulful band from Detroit; something that a Philly crowd would, under different circumstances, really get behind. I will always remember the sight of Seger, about 4 inches tall from where I was standing, rockin' his Motor City heart out in front of a turned off but unhidden, gigantic KISS logo! But aside from that show, Seger and crew apparently acquitted themselves very well indeed. Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley recalls that during Seger's stint opening for Kiss, he set the bar pretty high for Kiss to follow every night. "Bob got his first gold album on tour with us. And there were nights, where I can remember being in the dressing room and listening to the crowd reaction, and looking at the band and saying (laughs) 'We better go out there and kick some ass'. Bob was no nonsense, great rock and roll; his band always delivered the goods, and the crowd went crazy. That always made us work harder."

The other thing is that the first time I heard another one of Seger's signature songs, "Turn The Page", was after I'd had a long night at a bar, playing a gig with my 1st band, The New Heroes. I suppose Seger had played the song at that concert I went to, but I wasn't paying him that much attention, like everyone else. But on this particular night, as I lay awake in my bed, with the echo from the amplifiers ringing in my head, I really connected with the song's lyric. It's as if Seger was saying directly to me "If you keep this band shit up, that's cool, but this is what it's really like out here". It's probably a small factor in why I never made a career of it.

From Bob Seger's "Live Bullet" album, here's "Turn The Page", in case the radio hasn't played it in the last hour or so.

For what it's worth, Bob Seger is also one of those musicians who was lucky enough to get onto a major label (Capitol) on a development basis, meaning the label would work with the artist to build their reputation, over the course of possibly several albums, to develop them into the major act they had the potential to be. That business model just doesn't happen any more. Now, if you don't have a hit right out of the box, you're done.

Metallica had a similar development period over their first 3 or 4 albums, during which, like Seger, they toured their butts off. To this day, they are rarely not on the road somewhere. I don't know of anyone who would refer to Metallica as a cover band, but like many rock bands, that's how they got their start. During their first few years, they almost played 50% cover songs at their shows. Even now, you can expect they will do at least two or three covers at any given concert. Some of these songs have been 'Metallicized' enough that they are more identifiable with Metallica than the original artist; no small achievement for any musician.

Metallica covered Seger's "Turn The Page" for their 1998 'odds & sods' album of covers and b-sides, "Garage Inc.". Their version of "Turn The Page" was released as a single, which reached and held #1 on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for 11 consecutive weeks; the longest time Metallica has ever spent at the top of any Billboard chart.

Drummer Lars Ulrich had heard the original song while driving across the Golden Gate Bridge and later commented that he thought "it had James Hetfield all over it". Guitarist/singer Hetfield himself said "I heard a song about the road life with a kind of somber, gruff, honest lyric in there. The lyrics are us. We've been road dogs since day one."

Metallica's rendition is taken at much the same tempo as Seger's, but with a much heavier feel. The saxophone part is replaced by a high slide guitar line from Kirk Hammett. This recording meets all the prime criteria for a Kool Kover, as it totally respects the original song, but sounds like no one else but Metallica. Crank it!

I may not have any Bob Seger cd's myself, but that doesn't mean that you can't load up on 'em at Amazon, where you can also find all the Metallica your inner metalhead can handle.