Description

Bob Seger in 1972

Tom Weschler spent more than ten years from the late 1960s through the 1970s in the Bob Seger camp, working as tour manager and photographer during Seger’s hard-gigging, heavy-traveling, reputation-making early days. Weschler’s behind-the-scenes photographs document the frustrations and triumphs of recording, performing, songwriting, and building the Seger empire before the breakthroughs of Live Bullet and Night Moves. Travelin’ Man collects Weschler’s early photos with additional images leading into the present. Weschler and award-winning music journalist Gary Graff annotate the images with Weschler’s recollections of the events and Graff provides additional background on Seger’s career in an introduction, timeline, and cast of characters section.

Weschler’s photographs and stories pull back the curtain on seldom-seen aspects of Seger’s career, including time in the studio recording Mongrel, early struggles to get radio airplay, and small shows at schools and shopping malls. Weschler captures Seger’s personality on stage and at home and reveals the colorful personalities of those people he worked and performed with, including Alice Cooper, Bruce Springsteen, Glenn Frey, and KISS. He takes readers inside Seger headquarters in Birmingham, Michigan, and practice space in Rochester, Michigan, introducing them to renowned manager Punch Andrews and the various members of Seger’s bands. Weschler’s photos feature highlights like Seger’s show at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1976, his first gold record in 1977, the first meeting between Seger and Bruce Springsteen in 1978, and Seger’s induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.

Travelin’ Man also contains art from eight Seger album covers that Weschler designed, a foreword by John Mellencamp, an afterword by Kid Rock, and a comprehensive discography. Seger fans and readers interested in music and biography will enjoy the one of a kind story in Travelin’ Man.

Author(s)

Tom Weschler is a photographer living and working in metropolitan Detroit. He has been photographing musical events since 1964 when at age fifteen he photographed the Beatles first American television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in his bedroom.

Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist based in Detroit whose work appears regularly in numerous publications, including Billboard, the New York Times Features Syndicate, UPI, the Oakland Press, Revolver, Red Flag Media, and GrokMusic.com. He also reports on music news for WCSX in Detroit, WHQG in Milwaukee, and Radio 106.7 in Columbus, Ohio. He is the founding editor of the MusicHound Essential Album Guide series and editor of The Ties That Bind: Bruce Springsteen A to E to Z.

Reviews

“True insights into Bob Seger’s lengthy career are a rare thing. That is remedied in Travelin’ Man . Tom Weschler and Gary Graff respectfully bring light and vision to an artist and an era that deeply deserves a closer look.”

— Howard Kramer, curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum 

“Tom and Gary’s pictures and stories took me right back to my days at WRIF in Detroit. A new Seger album would come out, and Punch would be on the phone making sure we were all over every track. Travelin’ Man is a vivid reminder of those times and the impact Bob had on making the Motor City ‘the home of rock ‘n roll.’”

— Fred Jacobs, president of Jacobs Media

"Travelin' Man captures in photographs the history and legacy of one of the great American rock classics, Bob Seger."

— George Thorogood

“I’ve been spoonfed Bob Seger from the time I was born. My parents had barn parties on the weekends; they’d get some old tubs and fill them up with beer, and they had a stereo out there and a dirt floor and they’d just throw down—and Bob Seger was always the soundtrack.”

— Kid Rock, from the Afterword

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• Bob Seger in 1972
• Author bio
• Advance praise
• Press release