Someone spiked the whiskey with acid

Ramblin' Gamblin' Man - The Bob Seger System (1968)

This was the first music I ever bought. I was twelve or thirteen in the late 80s, having recently discovered oldies AM radio. One evening I heard this album's title track being played and thought it was a pretty rocking tune, certainly standing out amidst the Paul Ankas, Bobby Curtolas, Frankie Vallis and what-have-you.

The radio station took requests but for some reason, it took them a while to dig out "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" for another spin.

Perhaps tired of waiting, I saved up my allowances for a few weeks and headed into Zellers where I had seen the cassette on sale for somewhere between five and ten dollars (and I'm thinking eight).

The album blew my young mind away and remains a five-star classic to this day for me. Whyever Seger has no interest in reissuing this long out-of-print gem is beyond me. I was fortunate enough a couple years back, before I even had a computer, that a friend of mine burned me a copy for my birthday.

It had been years since I had been able to listen to my worn-out cassette and the passage of time did not diminish its enjoyment. The title track, (85/100), opens the album and rocks hard but it is when it ends that the album really cranks up the gears.

"Tales Of Lucy Blue", (89), is just one lysergic-drenched tale of messed-up love. "Ivory", (90), is another. Seger's vocals, whether gruff on "Ramblin'", wired on "Lucy", or the grunt of "Ivory", match the frenetic energy of the tracks. "Gone", (85), is a mellow, echo-drowned trip, equally appealing in its mournful wistfulness. "Down Home", (73), kicks hard, taking names, with sweet harmonica work by Mike Erlewine.

"Train Man", (95), (http://www.mediafire.com/?min5tbmygdt), became my favorite song when I was thirteen, its mystery packed ever-so-carefully. The whole song, folky at first glance, but with a haunted underbelly, feels as if precariously balanced on a precipice, just barely hanging by a thread. When it unravels, as all things must, it is a beautiful explosion, which can only be contained by fading out and ending with a bitter, acoustic lament. And that's just side one.

Side two begins with back-to-back complete psychedelic blues meltdowns. Musically speaking, that's a good thing. "White Wall", (89), brings lysergic resurgence to the album, alternating jazzy reverie with wah-tipped nightmare, while "Black Eyed Girl", (93), (http://www.mediafire.com/?zedoddgllnz), is a dirty, hard riff wallowing in slide sludge, like a shot of Jack Daniels with a heroin chaser. "2+2=?", (85), is a catchy politically-charged single, followed by the mellow funk of "Doctor Fine", (66), a short instrumental. The album concludes with, appropriately enough, "The Last Song", or "(Love Needs To Be Loved)", (85), which is beautifully true and has its own crazy breakdown chant, like a song-within-a-song, before closing the album just as it should, with nine solid beats and one last harmonic sigh.

If all you know about Bob Seger is "Old Time Rock And Roll" or "Night Moves", then you will likely be surprised by this album, which might as well be by a Bob Seger from a parallel universe where someone spiked the whiskey with acid.

Ramblin' Gamblin' Man (album): 88/100