Early Bob Seger

If you’re a fan of Bob Seger, past or present, you have to check out the Facebook page “Early Bob Seger.”

https://www.facebook.com/EarlyBobSeger?fref=ts

Want to hear “Death Row,” the wonderful, now obscure flip side to Seger’s fiery anti-war song “2 + 2″? It was posted on “Early Bob Seger” last month.

There are lots of rare photos, including one of Seger we’d never seen, aged about five or so, and videos of his early TV appearances, concentrating, of course, on the early Seger songs, including one on Robin Seymour’s “Swingin’ Time” (airing on Windsor’s Channel 9)when he performed “East Side Story,” and a video of him performing “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” on the short-lived national show “Happening.” Best of all is a clip of him singing “Lucifer” (and playing a wonderfully scruffy old guitar) with the Bob Seger System, enduring an interview by one of the more obnoxious ’60s hosts we’ve seen.

There’s no indication on the page about who runs it, but after maybe 30 seconds of digging we found the perpetrator: Lansing-based writer Rich Tupica.

Tupica started the site because he believes that Seger’s early recordings have been unjustly neglected.

“I’m not sure why the recordings are still out of print, I’m sure the Seger camp has their reasons,” Tupica said.

“Maybe they will be re-issued with some bonus tracks someday. But that’s why I started the Early Bob Seger Facebook page, because people need to hear it, especially if they love Michigan rock ‘n’ roll. Listening to those early singles, under the rawness you can hear Seger’s songwriting gradually evolve into his current style, that post-’Beautiful Loser’ sound that made him a legend. It’s really quite interesting to listen to his evolution from the early club days to the stadium-filling era, both of which, I think are genius songwriting.”

And just posted today, here’s early audio of a live Bob Seger System show, complete with power outage, hecklers and interesting onstage banter.