AIR DATE: August 2019

SHOW THEME: Bob Seger

 

ERIC: Hey everybody, it’s Eric Church back for the fifty-fourth episode of “Outsiders Radio.”  I’ve been off the road these last few weeks, and it’s given me a chance to actually SEE some concerts.  Back in June, I went to Detroit to see Bob Seger play the amphitheater there.  He’s calling this his Final Tour, and I wanted to see him in his home town.  As many of you know, I do some Seger covers in my show.  Over the years, I’ve done Travelin’ Man, Get Out of Denver, and Roll Me Away. Two years ago, we recorded THIS Seger song during my show in Omaha.

 

 

Bob Seger was a guy who saved my career.  He hired me to open for him in 2006 at a time when I wasn’t getting much work.  He heard my first album, “Sinners Like Me, and invited me to open for him.  So now, all these years later, I wanted to see him in Detroit on his tour.  I had a chance to speak with him before the show, and I told him I wanted to be there to thank him for what he’s done for music, and for what he did for ME.  Bob has always been my guy.  If you give me one artist, it’s Bob Seger.  There’s something “blue collar” about him that I relate to. You probably hear more of him in my music than anyone else.  So we’re gonna focus on a couple aspects of Seger in this edition of Outsiders Radio.

 

While he made most of his records with his own Silver Bullet Band, he recorded several albums in the mid-to late 70s with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.  By that time, those guys were already world famous.  They’d recorded with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan.  THEN they worked with Seger.  He recorded many of his biggest hits with them, but here are just a couple. 

 

 

        

 

Just a couple of mid-70s classics from Bob Seger recorded with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.  If you listen to the opening piano riff in “Old Time Rock & Roll,” the guy playing it was Barry Beckett.  He also played keyboards on Paul Simon’s hit Kodachrome.  Those two songs are probably enough to make him immortal.  It’s a short drive from Muscle Shoals to Nashville, and by the 80s, Barry and the rest of the players in Muscle Shoals were doing sessions in Music City.  For example, Barry co-produced THESE hits by Hank Williams Jr.

 

 

 

Just a couple of classic Hank Jr. songs co-produced by Barry Beckett, who played piano in the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.  By the 90s, Barry produced records by Alabama and Kenny Chesney.  In 1994 he helped Neal McCoy achieve his first two #1 songs.

 

 

 

Back-to-back #1s from Neal McCoy, produced by Barry Beckett from the early 90s.  We got started on this path with the music of Bob Seger on this edition of Outsiders Radio.  Bob’s hits recorded in Muscle Shoals got the attention of a lot of Nashville country stars.  ONE of those songs found it’s way to Kenny Rogers who had a #1 crossover hit with Sheena Easton.

 

 

That hit by Kenny Rogers solidified Bob Seger’s position as a songwriter in Nashville.  Seger co-wrote the Eagles hit “Heartache Tonight,” later covered by Conway Twitty.  In 1985, Waylon Jennings recorded one of Seger’s 70s hits.

                                                                                                      

 

When Waylon Jennings records one of your songs, that might be enough to give you some “country cred.”  Bob Seger influenced a lot of country singers in the 90s.  In 2012, Seger was invited to the Hall of Fame induction of Garth Brooks, who identified Seger as one of his main influences, along with Haggard, Strait, and Jones.  A few years ago, Garth recorded an album of covers, and included THIS Seger hit.

 

 

 

We could talk about Bob Seger’s influence on country music for days, and we’ll come back to this subject in future episodes of Outsiders Radio.  One thing Bob Seger has always done is give a shot to aspiring new musicians.  He did that for me in 2006, and he was still doing it back in June when I saw him in Detroit.  So we’re gonna do that here on Outsiders Radio.  There’s a new singer from Georgia named Jon Langston who’s been on Luke Bryan’s Sunset Repeat Tour. About ten years ago, Jon was a student at Gardner-Webb University near Charlotte, North Carolina, and apparently he went to one of our free shows there.

 

Jon Langston: I remember when I was in college and he played Coyote Joes, he did those free shows, I remember standing in line with all our friends in the freezing snow, just waiting to get into that show. I was a huge Eric Church fan in college, I thought it was so cool he was putting on free shows to launch his stuff, I thought that was awesome, really related to his music, so I have so much respect for him and what he does, and it was so cool to find out I was gonna be on the same label EMI as him, it’s very awesome.

 

 

 

That’s the latest from newcomer Jon Langston.  As we said, he’s on the road right now with Luke Bryan, so hopefully you’ll go out and see Jon & Luke.  Maybe while you’re there, Jon will do one of MY songs.

 

Jon Langston: “Yeah I do Drink In My Hand or something like that, any time we can throw an Eric Church cover in there, it never fails. We do Guys Like Me, cause there’s a lot of love songs in our set, and I want a song that talks to the guys in the crowd, that was the one that did it, and it’s always a fun one

 

 

Summer vacation is just about over.  My boys are back in school.  So it’s about time to resume my Double Down Tour.  The fall leg kicks off in Green Bay on September 13^th, and then continues through November.  We’ll leave you with one of our new songs, and see you next time here on Outsiders Radio.