But they’re happier entertaining rowdies at a road house. Seger's backing musicians – the Silver Bullet Band and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section – can get grandiose (see “Sunburst,” which manages to recall “Dear Prudence,” “Thunder Road” and epic Led Zeppelin all at once). The pure energy comes by never straying far from the bar. No, but those non-hits came straight from Chuck Berry riffs and made for some ace album cuts: Check out the sleazy, sloppy fun of “Sunspot Baby.” There's a lot of stuff that we do that is pure energy, too, but those weren't the hits.” “I guess I was real inspired by the way they wrote, so a lot of our hits ended up being very narrative.
“I was influenced in the early '70s by the narrative songwriters that came along – the James Taylors and the Kris Kristoffersons and the Jackson Brownes,” Seger told the Austin American-Statesman. With a kind of mission statement, Seger opens the set with “Rock ‘n’ Roll Never Forgets” singing: “Sweet 16’s turned 31 / Feel a little tired, feeling under the gun / Well, all Chuck's children are out there playing his licks / Get into your kicks / Come back baby / Rock ‘n’ roll never forgets.” It’s about trying to hang on to the beauty of youth as you’re dragged into the mediocrity of middle age. Thematically and sonically, Night Moves has a lot in common with Born to Run and Jackson Browne’s best ’70s albums. What they woke up to was a masterpiece of American rock ‘n’ roll. The rest of the country is just waking up.” “If anything, he’s been a local legend in his hometown of Detroit and most of the Midwest for almost a decade, amazingly having three of the four biggest selling albums in the history of the Detroit market. Arrived? For chrissakes, the man has been playing professionally for half his life already since his first gigs as a sixteen year old in 1960,” Steve Weitzman wrote in Circus on May 26, 1977. “The word is that rock singer Bob Seger has arrived. First time that’s happened outside of Detroit.” Of course, when Night Moves made Seger an “overnight sensation,” older fans let new ones know they had been missing out on for a long time. I actually got mobbed last night by some people after the show. Shortly after the record’s release, at a show in Buffalo, Seger told his hometown paper, “It’s kinda nice. Virtually every song on Night Moves has a hunger, toughness and drive that is almost palpable, and in the lyrics Seger has written for the powerful surging melodies can be found a continuing fascination with the underdog, the loser and the oppressed.” “As a result of Night Moves, he has suddenly become one of the hottest attractions in pop music.
“Well, it turns out that Seger has the last laugh,” Larry Rohter wrote in the Washington Post on Aug. In early 1977, The British Encyclopedia of Rock described him as “one of the great lost figures of rock ‘n’ roll’” (c’mon, lost at 31?) and that he “has always seemed destined to miss out on the big time.” It also put Seger on the path toward becoming an icon. The record went on to go six times platinum (and sell as many copies of Born to Run). He had spent years becoming a Midwestern legend with live shows and singles blazing up the local charts, but had yet to break nationally. The Michigan singer-songwriter turned 30 while writing and recording the album. For Seger, the set could have ushered in the autumn of his career.
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