Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 128

4P DETROIT FREE PRESSSUNDAY, AUGUST 4, 1991 Creative fire returns: Seger is back on track with his new album Inside' sags fc rfll if- '4t -m i pf. fit JL 1 r-f RICHARD LEEDetrolt Free Press Ben Moon at Cadieux Stage, wrapping up a video for "The Real Love." The Tracks Of 'The Fire It won't be in stores until Aug. 24, but among music fans there's already great curiosity about the songs on Bob Seger's first album in almost 5V2 years. Here's a track-by-track preview of "The Fire Take a Chance: A full, dense and hopeful rocker that finds the narrator on the threshold of a new relationship. The Real Love: A medium-tempo acoustic-guitar strummer in the vein of "Fire Lake" and "Shame on the Moon." Guest appearances by Heart-breaker Mike Campbell, Patty Smyth and J.D.

Souther. Sightseeing: A jaunty, Zydeco groove colored by Bruce Hornsby's accordion. Real at the Time: A guitar-laden rocker about lost love. Detroiter Thor-netta Davis contributes background vocals. Always in My Heart: Quiet, bluesy and bittersweet; Hornsby on piano.

The Fire Inside: A familiar Seger mover, driven by piano and acoustic claiming physical and emotional abuse. "That'll all come out eventually, what happened there," he says. "I can't take that too seriously, really. We stopped living together six months before we were divorced, and that was a little sad period, but we were pretty much determined to get divorced. And after that, she started the present lawsuit and stuff.

I don't think about it too much because it's just ridiculous, absurd. The courts will out; I'm confident of that." He still has the touch Surprisingly, Seger's tribulations are not reflected on his new album. "The Fire Inside" is upbeat and positive, filled with songs that affirm Seger's faith in love and lasting rela-1 tionships. In fact, the album kicks off with "Take a Chance," which finds the narrator at the start of a new romance. And Seger says even the lost love congs are not about his ex-wife.

it? sing someone else's songs, it's like putting on a whole different set of clothes. It's just fun to be in that territory. I feel a kinship with Tom Waits; I love the way he writes, which makes it easy to do the songs. "It's a romantic kind of album, but there's some irreverence in it, too. You always like to think you're growing as a writer, and I think I have pretty high standards (Don) Henley, Joni Mitchell, people like that who I think are really, really special.

In a lot of ways, it's just the songs I wrote at the time, and you just hope they're good enough." The taskmaster gets to work Of course, the creative process is never that casual with Seger. "The Fire Inside" was more than two years in the making, with recording in Los says he has no regrets I know." Except that the song became a No. 3 hit for Stewart in 1989. The implication, of course, is that Stewart stole Seger's idea. Stewart's manager, Arnold Steifel, claims Stewart recorded the song before his get-together with Seger.

Seger was also invited to sing Orbi-son's "Pretty Woman" for the mega-hit film that starred Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. This he simply turned down, since he was busy writing and recording "The Fire Inside." "We have this rule of let's not be in competition with ourselves for radio play," he explains. "We were hoping to have our own album out, so for that particular period I didn't do (songs for) any movies." Seger says he has no regrets about his decision. By Gary Graff Angeles and Nashville and arduous mixing sessions that left those working with him exhausted, sometimes frustrated but ultimately impressed by his sense of detail. "I made my last contribution to this record a year ago, and he continued to play with it for another year," says Don (Was) Fagenson, the former Detroiter who produced five of the album's 12 songs.

"I thought it was total madness, that he was beating the stuff to death until I heard the album. Then I said, 'I got it. That's the way he And he did improve the album, so it was smart not to give it up until he was happy." Bruce Hornsby, who plays accordion on "Sightseeing," chuckles when asked what kind of taskmaster Seger was in the studio. "He does know what he wants," Hornsby says. "And I'm not saying that in a bad way.

He's strong, and he has a strong opinion, which is good. I'd rather have that than someone who's real nebulous." The album's title, in fact, may sum everything up. "It's important to retain your passion," Seger says. He bristles when it's suggested that people have wondered in the last five years whether the fire still burned inside him. "Oh yeah, yeah.

As a matter of fact, I think it might even be too important to me." He glances up at the ceiling, as if telepathically tuning in to manager Andrews in his upstairs office. "We just had a smell-the-roses talk in the park, me and Punch, because we're working so hard. The danger we have is that we both care about it so much that we can burn ourselves out. You hit that wall where you get so tired and you haven't got time to be with your family, with the people you love, and then you can do some damage. "But we know we're not going to smell any roses for a while.

We're up against it now, and it's important that we not let up." SEGER, from Page IP "Rock 'n Roll Never Forgets" still be a formidable part of its future? is at that point in his career where that next album becomes real important," says radio consultant Fred Jacobs, whose classic rock format has helped reinforce Seger's superstar status. think a lot of programmers are looking for this album to find out which way he's going to go. Is it going to be the soft ballad stuff or is he going to rock out or is he going to try to go down the middle?" -The person who knows is sitting in the basement of his manager's Birmingham offices the morning after wrapping up shooting of a video of "The Real Love." Wearing a sleeveless blue T-shirt, black sweat pants, a cap" from the Royal Oak bar Jukebox and new Nikes, Seger takes a drink of coffee and acknowledges the pressure his long absence created. "It's time to kind of dust the rust off," he says. "I think I'm back in the groove now.

To me, you know what it's like? It's like if you're Carl Lewis and let's say he's had an injury, and he's about to do his first long jump in six years or something like that. He's been down when he ordinarily wouldn't be, and; he's got to go out and start competing again. think that's kind of where I am now'. Tm running on creative juices right now. I'm running on creative fire, and that's a good place to be." A five-year roller coaster ride Since 1986, however, the playing field has changed.

"It's a brave new world," he says. "There are all sorts of things we pooh-poohed before because we were selling so many records. 'Maybe they need that, but we don't need I've got to do videos for every song now, where before we'd do them sort of half-heartedly." Capitol, meanwhile, has grand plans for "The Real Love." It's pitching it simultaneously to rock, Top 40 and adult-contemporary radio stations, an approach that president Hale Milgrim says' is "just for the superstars." In Cleveland, a classic rock station received favorable listener feedback when it sneaked "The Real Love" on the air last week. (Capitol eventually insisted it stop playing the record.) "If you talk to the average consumer don't think they realize it's been five years," Milgrim says. "It's hard to feel like he's gone away." -But for Seger, the past five years have been an emotional odyssey rambling the triumph of a quick-hit "vehicle for a movie" that earned him Oscar, Grammy, Golden Globe and American Music award nominations to the depths of a bitter divorce and the death of his mother.

Charlotte Seger, who raised Bob and his brother, George, after their father left them, was hospitalized for 10 months with cardiopulmonary disease" before her death in 1989. "It was 10 months of going to the hospital every day," Seger says. "We're a small family, and I had to be there- I wanted to be there. It was out of my control, so why worry? I just tried to be there for her." Seger has little to say about Annette Sinclair, whom he married in late 1987 and divorced 10 months later. She has since filed a suit that's pending in Oakland County Circuit Court, cop me uvv.

-mc1 Bob Seger works with cameraman consistent album since 1977's "Stranger in Town." There's plenty of rock 'n' roll, from the pounding "Take a Chance" to shouters like "Real at the Time," "Which Way" and the metallic "The Mountain," which features guitar dueling between Seger and Joe Walsh. The reflective Seger is also there, both on the up-tempo numbers and on quieter songs such as "Always in My Heart" and the sentimental "The Long Way Home." "Sightseeing," meanwhile, cruises on a Zydeco groove, and on two Waits compositions, Seger strides through smoky saloon blues Coat of and stone country "It just came from me wanting to do something different, to break the mold a little bit," Seger explains. "When you Lost chances? Seger Bob Seger, not Rod Stewart, could have hit big with "Downtown Train." And Seger, not the late Roy Orbison, could have won a Grammy for the title song of the film "Pretty Woman." Both were opportunities lost during Seger's five-year recording hiatus. And both have stories. Seger recorded Tom Waits' "Downtown Train" during early 1989, in sessions that also produced two Waits songs "Blind Love" and "New Coat of Paint" that appear on Seger's new album, "The Fire Inside." That summer, Seger traveled to Sweden, Ireland and England, and while in the latter he hooked up with Rod Stewart.

The old friends went out on the town and "raised a few. The next thing I knew," says Seger, "a month later he recorded 'Downtown Train' in London, and two months later he recorded it in the same studio I recorded it in in Los Angeles. That's all nnnnrDR if guitar. Roy Bittan (E Street Band) and Steve Lukather (Toto) contribute. New Coat of Paint: A smoky saloon blues number written by Tom Waits and featuring members of Little Feat.

Which Way: An angry blues shout-er featuring a hot slide guitar solo from John Jorgenson. The Mountain: Seger goes metallic on this big beat number that closes with a guitar duel between him and Joe Walsh. The Long Way Home: Quiet, sentimental and contemplative, with one of Alto Reed's finest saxophone solos. Blind Love: Another Waits number, this one stone country and lots of fun. She Can't Do Anything Wrong: A basic 12-bar rocker about a 16-year-old.

Clearly the album's weakest number. By Gary Graff Seger bio, album list, Page 5P. "I guess it is a positive record," he says. "I think I draw that from my friends." He cited steady marriages for Alto Reed, the saxophonist in his Silver Bullet Band, and his manager, Punch Andrews. "These are the people I spend most of my time with.

I've got a good support system here." Then he pauses, and remembers September 1989, when things began to improve for him. "I was starting to feel real good again. My mother was at peace; her misery was over. Life was getting better. I just felt like getting back to work and really enjoyed writing the songs again." The result is an album that shows unquestionably that Seger's muse hasn't slipped.

Though "The Real Love" is a prototypical Seger "medium" a meaty melody atop mid-, tempo rhythms "The Fire Inside" is filled with hard-rocking songs and stylistic change-ups. It's perhaps his most OGDEN ST1EKS MSTrimENliI)GETFO amM ty lfiiniiiv mrin'f I i mm STUDIOS FLORIDA'jsJ! ill) LVJJ VJAAW.VAUJLWB During his five-year recording hiatus, Bob Seger passed up an opportunity to sing "Pretty Woman" for the hit film starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. rv I mmwmiMm I 1 I 11 m-i 1 1 I 1 v' -V '1 x'i 1 'Jj Somewhere on the Mexican Riviera a beautiful heiress is missing. Only one man tan find her. Unfortunately, they sent two.

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