If you don’t listen to Bob Seger, with his horn-blowing, rhythm curating Silver Bullet Band, you should. Nine Tonight, a live compilation album comprised of two live performances from 80 & 81, flawlessly captures the hopped-up energy and non-assuming down-home shtick of this legend in the height of his celebrated, classic rock pilgrimage. Straightforward, certainly does not equal mundane.

There is a certain circle of classic rock bands (which, when analyzed, highlights specific albums) that embody the bulk of my early, classic-rock-stratosphere-puncturing inauguration into a wealth of audible pleasure that reached passed the (familiar) heavy wave of Bon Jovi and Def Leppard. I have my father to thank for this, and not a Bob Seger reference goes by that doesn’t remind me of riding in my father’s pickup, and listening to, among a slew of other classic rock essentials, Nine Tonight.

… that kind of music just soothes the soul…