Motor city's beloved musician on 50-year career
Rock icon Bob Seger has sold more than 50 million albums and he's not done yet. His recently released album, "Ride Out," earned the number three spot on the Billboard 200, the highest of his already historic, 50-year career.
"Well it's just great to be able to do it, you know, because I love doing it," Seger said on "CBS This Morning." "And consequently, the success allows me to keep doing it, and that's just really gratifying."
Before Bob Seger's music made it to movies and television, the Detroit native struggled for more than a decade to reach a national audience. He worked briefly at a car factory after high school in the '60s and played as many as 250 shows a year across the country.
Seger's big break came in 1976 with back-to-back releases of "Live Bullet" and "Night Moves." Both albums went platinum the same day.
His songs about the working class were instrumental in shaping the sound of "heartland rock" and notably the sales of GM, who used his song "Like a Rock" in a more than decade-long campaign.
"Well they loved it and they called for it, and for a long time I turned it down," Seger said. "It was really surprising, it lasted 10 or 12 years, but in the final analysis it sold a lot of trucks ... so that made GM very happy and it made all the workers very happy, and the profits went way, way up."
In 1996, Seger brought his years of success to a halt. In what became a 10-year hiatus, Seger decided it would be best to raise his two kids alongside wife Juanita Dorricott.
But that wouldn't be the first time Seger showed dedication to his family. On his new album, the song "You Take Me In" is a tribute to Dorricott -- a surprise she only found out after the album's release.
"I kept it a secret for three years," he said. "I recorded it three years ago, and the day the record came out -- the day we got a copy of it -- I gave it to her and she's playing it in the car ... and she said, 'What's this?' ... and I said, 'This is for you.' So about halfway through she goes for the glove box and the tissues."
While his latest music is being hailed as some of his best, it's his past work that earned him a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Songwriters Halls of Fame in 2012.
Now, 41 years after writing his anthem about a musician's life on the road, Seger will tour once again to support his first studio album in eight years.