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Credit: Far Out \/ American Talent International \/ Capitol Records \/ Public Domain<\/p>\n
November 8th, 2026 \u00b7 7:00pm GMT <\/p>\n
Bob Seger<\/a> was never afraid to admit when different artists had had an influence on his work. <\/p>\n For instance, the hit song he wrote with the Eagles, \u2018Heartache Tonight\u2019, he has said on many occasions was influenced by Sam Cooke. The original melody, which weaves its way throughout the entire track, was very much the byproduct of Cooke, and Seger, along with his fellow co-writers, were jamming and playing around using his work as a template. You can very much hear the influence in the song\u2019s leading groove, and that gave the band something to build on. <\/p>\n \u201cSo, we\u2019re playing that groove, and Glenn\u2019s singing the verses, and suddenly, out of the blue, the chorus came into my head<\/a>,\u201d said Seger. \u201c\u2018There\u2019s gonna be a heartache tonight, heartache tonight, I know.\u2019 I started singing that, and Glenn goes: \u2018Yeah!\u2019 I took what he was singing about and jumped right into the chorus.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t just Cooke who inspired him either. His first release came in 1961 as part of the band The Decibels, so he started making music during one of the most inspirational periods for music there\u2019s ever been. There were so many people that he could take inspiration from, as this was a time when the seeds had been sown for rock, and the genre was finally starting to flower. <\/p>\n While Seger would likely say that there were plenty of different musicians who helped him develop his style and tone of voice, he has previously admitted that there were three out-and-out artists on whom he based his entire sound. <\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to be as rhythmic as James Brown,\u201d he said. That\u2019s one hell of a tall order, but you can understand why Seger was inspired by Brown, as he was one of the first ever musicians who was able to completely contextualise what it meant to be a backing band. Every instrumentalist, no matter what they played, was able to tap into a percussive element within their music. Rhythm took precedence over arrangements and melody, and it created a larger-than-life beat that Brown could do his thing to. <\/p>\n \u201cAs deep as Bob Dylan,\u201d said Seger. Once again, a tall order but an understandable one. A lot of people look to lyrics as a necessity, as they think you need words in your song so that listeners have something they can latch onto, and as a result, the true meaning behind those words becomes anodyne. Bob Dylan didn\u2019t think like that<\/a>. He used his songs to peel back layers of society, and reveal to listeners things that they weren\u2019t previously aware of. <\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n \u201cAnd as fiery as Little Richard,\u201d surmised the singer. One of the most definitive rockstars on the planet, it wasn\u2019t just his sound that people were so drawn to, but the chaotic and animalistic approach with which he performed. He gave rock music the energy that we now take as standard. <\/p>\n Whether Bob Seger achieved this or not is up for debate, but it\u2019s certainly a good bar to set for himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter<\/p>\n