Bob Seger doesn't always get the respect he deserves outside the Midwest -- he's a populist who is more concerned with his fans than with critics or media tastemakers -- but there's no arguing the man is the real deal, a talented songwriter and powerhouse vocalist who has played the game his own way and won throughout a career in music that began in 1961. Given that artists as diverse as
Dave Edmunds,
Metallica,
the Hellacopters, and
Thin Lizzy have covered
Seger's tunes over the years, the notion of a
Bob Seger tribute album would seem like a great idea, but the folks who compiled this disc have not just dropped the ball, they kicked it under the house where it's not likely to ever be seen again. The only artist of any note to appear on
A Tribute to Bob Seger is former
Wet Willie vocalist
Jimmy Hall, who delivers strong but not especially imaginative versions of "Hollywood Nights" and "Against the Wind," though
Hall's tracks sound like pure gold compared to the rest of the stuff on this disc. If
Ten Story Tale,
the Fourth Street Flyers or
Jim Daniels & the Bourbon Brothers have accomplished anything of note in the music world, they've managed to keep it a secret, and their performances here sit somewhere between a better than average karaoke singer and the fourth-best bar band in town -- competent but dull and lacking anything close to the passion and force of
Seger's original recordings. And to fill out the disc, the last three selections on
A Tribute to Bob Seger are instrumental backing tracks for three songs that previously appeared on the album, sounding even more lifeless without a singer. To say that
Bob Seger deserves better than this is almost beside the point -- hell,
Vanilla Ice deserves better than this -- but given how simple it would be to find ten or so artists who could do something interesting with
Seger's catalog of great songs, this album is little short of a travesty and even less imaginative than its title.