Bob Seger Proves That ‘Rock And Roll Never Forgets’ With New Hits Collection

As Bob Seger continues to prep material for his next album, he’s looking back with a new double CD anthology called ‘Ultimate Hits: Rock And Roll Never Forgets,’ which lands in stores on Nov. 21. (Who knew that song title would work so well for repackaging purposes?)

We recently got an advance look at the collection via ‘Hey Hey Going Back To Birmingham,’ Seger’s updated version of the Little Richard staple which as our review notes, is an infectiously enthusiastic recasting of the original.

‘Hey Hey’ is the latest gem unearthed from Seger’s archives of older previously unreleased recordings, and the rumor mill suggests that more of the same could come out at a later point, ala ‘Early Seger: Vol. 1.’

‘Ultimate Hits’ sticks close to the advertised playbook, offering mostly classic Seger favorites – but there are a couple of surprises within its 26 tracks.  Seger’s version of the holiday chestnut ‘Little Drummer Boy’ makes its first appearance on a one of his albums, along with the original mono version of ‘Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man.’

All tracks have been remastered from the original master tapes and the collection also includes Bob's take on ‘Downtown Train,’ which was released as a single earlier this year.

It’s cool to finally get ‘Little Drummer Boy’ as part of a Seger album, but we can’t help but wish that there would have been some additional holiday cheer included on this collection – ‘Sock It To Me Santa,’ specifically, which he cut early on in his career under the pre-Silver Bullet banner of ‘Bob Seger and the Last Heard.’

But hey, that’s what a box set is for, right?

Seger hits the road for another stretch of tour dates beginning in November (where he'll be working in a new guitarist, Kenny Greenberg). He originally projected a short tour of 18-20 shows and instead, will wrap up 2011 having played 50. With a new album on the horizon, could there be more shows in 2012? Only time will tell.