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Against the Wind

A Tribute to Bob Seger by Ed Payne

The Rodney Crowell song “Shame on the Moon,” that Bob Seger later covered (and is the best known version is the song) is the song that eventually led to Ed Payne’s tribute album, “Against the Wind: A Tribute to Bob Seger.” It was one of those songs he tried to learn in his younger days, “but just wasn’t getting it, so I put it away,” Ed explained.

Fast forward many years later: he was going through some of his old sheet music and catalogues and he ran across it. The first time he tried to play it, it worked, and the idea for a Bob Seger tribute album was born. “To this day I have no idea why it didn’t work then but came so easily many years later…”

During Ed’s time with the band “Two Eds Are Better Than One,” the popular Bend, Oregon act played one Seger song, “Old Time Rock and Roll.” Although he had been listening to Seger for years, he only knew two of his songs all the way through when he started the project, so he learned eight more for the tribute album.

Bob Seger was born in 1945 and is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist from Detroit who is became known on a national level for his album “Live Bullet” recorded with the Silver Bullet Band in 1975, and later for the studio album “Night Moves.” His songs deal with love, women and blue-collar themes and he helped define the genre of heartland rock. One of the songs he is most known for is “Like a Rock” the song that plays on the long-running Chevrolet ad campaign, an association that Seger was explicit about in order to support struggling American automobile workers in Detroit.

Seger still performs today and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.