PRE-ORDER BEGINS TODAY – STREET DATE NOVEMBER 22
Los Angeles, CA – October 4, 2019 – Capitol Records/UMe are pleased to mark the 40th anniversary of Bob Seger’s 5X platinum, chart-topping album Against The Wind with a first ever remastered vinyl reissue to be released Friday, November 22nd.
Against The Wind will be offered in standard black vinyl (150 gram) with fully restored original artwork. Additionally, a limited edition color version in translucent blue vinyl (150 gram) will be released that will include a bonus commemorative 7” black vinyl single of two of Seger’s early recordings “Lookin’ Back” b/w “Lucifer.” The rare studio version of “Lookin’ Back,” reissued for the first time since it was originally released in 1971, was released as a 7” single only and “Lucifer” was the first and only single released from Seger’s 1970 album, Mongrel. The single will be in a classic 7” Capitol Records sleeve inside of the album jacket.
Originally released in 1980, Against The Wind features the hit songs “Against The Wind,” “Fire Lake,” “Her Strut,” and “You’ll Accomp’ny Me.” The album spent six weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Top Albums chart and earned Seger & The Silver Bullet Band a GRAMMY® Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
The album includes guest performers including Glenn Frey, Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit of the Eagles who leant background harmony vocals on “Fire Lake” with Glenn Frey also adding background vocals on the title track. Dr. John played keyboard on “The Horizontal Bop,” and The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section made their fourth appearance on a Bob Seger album, returning to produce and perform five of the ten songs, with the remaining tracks produced by Seger, Bill Szymczyk (Eagles, B.B. King, The J. Geils Band) and Punch.
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— QUOTES FROM SEGER —
“I think of all the albums I’ve ever done, Against The Wind is probably the easiest for me to listen to,” Seger told Redbeard. “It’s probably the most fulfilled I ever was as a songwriter. Things were going along real good, I was very relaxed, the tracks were very spontaneous, and the people I was working with, it was very exciting to be working with them.”
“I was a very hard-working person…I was so busy working all the time that I was quite closed off. I think it wasn’t until 1980 that I really opened up, and that’s why I think I have such fond memories of Against The Wind. I think at that point I had relaxed, and you can almost hear it, there’s less desperation – I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing – but Against The Wind is far more relaxed and offhand than Stranger in Town and Night Moves….” In the Studio With Redbeard
Seger said of the title track: “My old friend Glenn Frey of the Eagles had an idea that our guitarist Drew Abbott should play along with the piano solo. He and I then went out and did the background vocals together. The line ‘Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then’ bothered me for the longest time, but everyone I knew loved it so I left it in. It has since appeared in several hits by other artists, so I guess it’s OK.”
— REVIEWS —
“Mr. Seger has a really classic, burly rock-blues baritone, suitable for both up-tempo rockers and the warmer, more confidential kind of ballad. It is the sort of voice whose very sound, if one hasn’t heard it for a while, serves to remind the listener of rock’s past and its black pioneers… And his ‘serious’ songs not only often do touch deeper chords, but are also counterbalanced by jolly, up-tempo rockers. Against The Wind is an honest, attractive album, and it may confirm Bob Seger’s place among the rock stars he sometimes emulates.”
- John Rockwell, New York Times
“While he includes several high-yield rockers in the new Against The Wind, the heart of the LP is in the more reflective tunes. On first hearing, the ballads may seem too close to earlier Seger works, but they represent a mastering of the form. The album’s best ballads offer some of the most moving expressions of struggle against disillusionment since Jackson Browne’s Late for the Sky LP in 1974. The key is the recognition that the individual must ultimately rely on himself and that the biggest challenge may be in dealing with his own insecurities.”
- Robert Hilburn, Los Angeles Times
“It’s astonishing that after all this time Bob Seger can still invest meaning in the perishing clichés that comprise his musical vocabulary. Yet invest them he does and Against The Wind proves that, while nothing whatever has changed, Seger and company still do what they do with a sense of enthusiasm and style. Every bar of boogie, every blues based guitar solo and gravelly sung note has been committed to vinyl a thousand times before by Seger and his rank competitors, but here it sounds like it may be fun – if not to listen to, then at least to perform. Treading water is an admirable enough trait, especially for someone with Seger’s venerable stature.
- LA Weekly
“If nothing else, Against The Wind is about fighting the odds, taking a gamble, remaining a rebel. For Seger, stardom presents a new, dehumanizing obstacle… That diverse style has served Seger well, enabling him to achieve top-40 success while still remaining true to the hard-core rock that built his reputation… Against The Wind upholds Bob Seger’s reputation in a style befitting someone who has defied the odds before, and won.”
- Greg Kot, Quad-City Times
“…It shows a more honest, up-front Seger wrestling with the over-30 struggle of reconciling maturity with the reckless and nostalgic abandon of youth.”
- Steve Morse, Boston Globe
For additional information on Bob Seger, please visit BobSeger.com.
Stream your Bob Seger favorites, here.