Other big names to use their services around this time include Paul Simon and Rod Stewart. The Muscle Shoals musicians (affectionately labeled "The Swampers" in " Sweet Home Alabama"), got producer credits on the Beautiful Loser songs they worked on, which didn't amount to much at first, but ended up providing a nice revenue stream when Seger's career took off. For Seger, it also took some of the burden off his band - many bands have cracked after stepping off the tour bus and into the confines of a studio, where they are expected to again do the bidding of the group leader. Recording there was a lot less expensive compared to a big-city studio, and the quality was excellent. Seger was in tune with his Silver Bullet Band when he was on the road, but a lot of his studio work around this time was done at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in the small but musically fertile outpost of Sheffield, Alabama, which is where he recorded seven of the nine songs on Beautiful Loser, including "Katmandu." The owners of the studio were also the musicians: Jimmy Johnson (guitar), Barry Beckett (keyboards), David Hood (bass) and Roger Hawkins (drums). Beautiful Loser eventually sold over 2 million copies. Seger soon joined the ranks of top-rank rockers, which boosted his back catalog. When he issued the Night Moves album in October, he was a national act. With "Katmandu" a standout track, the album did extremely well in Michigan and Ohio, and word spread around the country, even on the coasts where Seger was little known. It was taking a while for Seger to record his next album, so his label, Capitol, issued a live album called Live Bullet in April 1976 to keep him on the market. Many of the Beautiful Loser tracks, including this one, worked very well live, and Seger's Silver Bullet Band was firing on all cylinders. By this time, fans and critics couldn't figure out why he wasn't catching on outside the heartland - if folks heard this guy, they reasoned, surely they'd dig it. But its national chart placing of #43 was typical - wide swaths of the country just weren't exposed to Bob Seger.īeautiful Loser was Seger's eighth album. ![]() ![]() Like most of Seger's output up to 1976, "Katmandu" was a popular track in his home state of Michigan, where some radio stations would play records and a legion of fans would buy his records.
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