BOB SEGER INDUCTED INTO THE SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME

6/15/2012

Bob Seger, was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame last night (June 14th) at New York City's Marriott Marquis. Joining Seger were Gordon Lightfoot, Meat Loaf composer Jim Steinman, country music's Don Schlitz, and Broadway's Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones. The six beat out the shortlisted competition, which included such heavyweights as Pete Townshend, Elvis Costello, Steve Miller, Dion, Yusuf Islam (a.k.a. Cat Stevens), Tom Waits, Blondie's Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, The Eurythimics' Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart, and George Michael.

Special Award Recipients included Bette Midler, Ne-Yo, Lance Freed, and Ben E. King. The legendary Woody Guthrie received the first ever Pioneer Award posthumously. Among the presenters and performers appearing last night were Stevie Nicks, Kenny Rogers, Meat Loaf, Emmylou Harris, and A&M Records founder Jerry Moss, among others.

Before the ceremony, Bob Seger filled us in on how he picked what to perform last night: "We're gonna do 'Turn The Page' 'cause it's so iconic and it's something that Alto (Reed) can play on, y'know? And it's just easier because I haven't got to get the horns and the girls in and, y'know, I haven't got to get Moose (Brown) in (and) we don't need to get as many people in. And they told me . . . the reason I picked 'Turn The Page' is because the stage is so small."

Seger spoke about the induction, telling Billboard: "It's a really nice honor. They've been doing it since '69, so they haven't taken it lightly. Songwriting. . .I really work hard on that. I like to think that, like (Don) Henley says, I leave a little blood on the page and work really hard on my lyrics chord changes, structure and everything. So it's pretty heartening to get that nod."

Although Seger has often been called a poet by fans and critics alike, he takes a far more practical view of his songwriting: "I don't consider myself a poetic writer, as such. I think I'm more conversational, more narrative; and if I do hit a good image, it's luck."

We asked him to tell us the back-story to 1976's "Night Moves," which came to define his '70s era. He told us it was pulled directly from his teen days back in Michigan: "Basically, what we'd do, we'd go out and get in a farmer's field outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan where I grew up -- I was born in Detroit, but I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And there were all these farmer's fields out there, and we would just pick one at random, hoping that nobody caught us, and put our cars in a circle, and the headlights would shine in on everybody having the party, and we would dance and we would play this guy's record player -- the 45's, the stuff of the day. And the girls loved the Ronettes records -- y'know like, 'Be My Baby' and things like that, and we would dance and just go wild out in the field, and we called them 'grassers.'"


 «  Return to previous page
 »  Send to a friend
Subscribe to channel