Bob Seger took a step closer to a new album — which would be his first since 2006’s Face the Promise — with the release of a new song on Thursday.
Seger released a cover of John Hiatt‘s “Detroit Made” — the opening song on his spring 2013 tour — to radio stations, specifically timed to the Woodward Dream Cruise, an annual car event held in the Detroit suburbs. (Seger name-checked Woodward Avenue in his 1980 song “Horizontal Bop.”)
He produced and recorded the song in Nashville, using Silver Bullet Band singers Shaun Murphy, Laura Creamer and Barb Payton as well as recent Silver Bullet guitarist Rob McNelley.
“I stumbled on ‘Detroit Made’ on [SiriusXM] Outlaw Country,” Seger told Billboard during the tour last year. “I downloaded it, and that’s a great [show] opener for us. My initial plan was to have Kid Rock do it with me, but he was just so busy with the start of his tour that we weren’t able to do it. I thought it would be great.”
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Hiatt released “Detroit Made,” a musical mash note to the Buick Electra 225, on his 2011 album Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns. Besides “Detroit Made,” Seger also debuted his own “All of the Roads” and another cover, the Wilco/Billy Bragg/Woody Guthrie song “California Stars,” during the 2013 tour — both of which he’s also recorded.
No details about a new album have yet been announced, however, though a fall release has been rumored.
Seger has released several new songs since Face the Promise. He released four fresh tracks on the 2009 compilation Early Seger Vol. 1 and two other covers — Little Richard’s “Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey (Going Back to Birmingham)” and Tom Waits‘ “Downtown Train” — on Ultimate Hits: Rock and Roll Never Forgets in 2011.