Capitol 1204,
Producers: Bob Seger, Punch, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, and Bill Szymczyk
Track listing: The Horizontal Bop / You’ll Accomp’ny Me / Her Strut / No Man’s Land / Long Twin Silver Line / Against the Wind / Good for Me / Betty Lou’s Gettin’ Out Tonight / Fire Lake / Shinin’ Brightly
May 3, 1980
6 weeks
A decade into his career, Detroit native Bob Seger finally found success with Live Bullet, a two-disc set featuring the singer and his Silver Bullet performing in front of his hometown fans at Cabo Hall. The album only reached number 34, but it set the stage Seger’s commercial breakthrough with his next two studio albums: 1976’s Night Moves and 1978’s Stranger in Town. Those albums climbed to numbers eight and four, respectively, and made Seger a star.
Against the Wind was a bit more subdued than Night Moves and Stranger in Town, which were generally rocking affairs. “Both of those albums were huge hits, but I got kind of more laid-back thing for Against the Wind ” says Seger. “There were a ballads that I had sitting around. ‘Fire Lake’ was nine years old when I cut that at Muscle Shoals. There was a lot of mid-tempo stuff that I wanted to do, like ‘Shining Brightly,’ ‘No Man’s Land,’ ‘You’ll Accomp’ny Me,’ ‘Good for Me’…I sensed that if I just took a little bit of the edge off, I might have a shot at Number One, so I went for it.”
The album was recorded over a two-year period at various studios, including Criteria Studios in Miami, the famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama, and Bayshore Studios in Coconut Grove, Florida. “During that two-year period, we were on the road for about a year and a half,” says Seger. “We would cut a track here and there and then go play concerts for two or three months.”
As was the case on his previous two hit albums, Seger was not solely backed by his Silver Bullet Band. The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, consisting of pianist Barry Beckett, organist Randy McCormick, guitarists Pete Carr and Jimmy Johnson, bassist David Hood, and drummer Roger Hawkins, was featured on five tracks.
The singer also called on his longtime friend and fellow Detroit native Glenn Frey and Frey’s fellow Eagles Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit to contribute backing harmonies to “Fire Lake.” Says Seger, “That was great. They really went out of their way. They spent about five hours on it. We thought they did it good in the first take, but they’re perfectionists.”
It turned out to be time well spent, as “Fire Lake” climbed to number six on the Hot 100 the same week that Against the Wind hit the top spot.
Reaching Number One was no easy feat for Seger, however, as the album had to topple The Wall, a massive hit for Pink Floyd. In its third week on the album chart, Against the Wind rose to number two, but it stayed there for the next eight weeks before dethroning the mighty Floyd. “I remember my manager calling me up every week while we were on tour and saying, ‘We’re Avis,’ which meant we were still number two,” Seger says, referring to the Avis car-rental firm, whose advertising slogan at the time was, “We’re number two, but we try harder.”
“Then,” says Seger, “one week my manager called and said, ‘Hertz,’ ” a reference to Avis’s longtime competitor. That one word, “Hertz,” was enough for Seger and his band to start the celebration. Says Seger, “We just ran into the hall and started screaming and jumping up and down.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of May 3, 1980
1. Against the Wind, Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band
2. The Wall, Pink Floyd
3. Glass Houses, Billy Joel
4. Mad Love, Linda Ronstadt
5. Light Up the Night, The Brothers Johnson