New book 'Travelin' Man' offers rare view of Seger

Of the many benefits Thomas Weschler reaped from working as Bob Seger's road manager, there's one in particular that makes him chuckle. No, it wasn't the proximity to girls, access to the music or all the fun backstage.

It's a love of indie/art films.

"I was a blockbuster-type movie fan in the '50s and the '60s -- 'Jason and the Argonauts' and all that," says Weschler, 60, of Royal Oak. "Seger was interested in art films, Czechoslovakian filmmakers, Truffaut, you name it. When we hit a city, instead of going back to the hotel after the show and trashing the rooms, he and I would go to these movies. Years later, it dawned on me I love going to deep movies, and that's why. He's a brilliant guy -- that comes through in his lyrics, of course."

Weschler plied his trade as a rock photographer before, during and after his stint as Seger's road manager from 1969 until '73, and his access led to a wealth of photographs published in a book, "Travelin' Man: On the Road and Behind the Scenes with Bob Seger" (Wayne State University Press, $27.95), written with longtime Detroit music journalist Gary Graff.

The book's formal publication date is Oct. 15, but it is already in many local bookstores and available at amazon.com.

There are so few books on Seger out that, even though "Travelin' Man" is Weschler's memoir, not Seger's, pent-up demand by the Detroit rocker's fans pushed the book to No. 5 Monday on amazon.com's list of rock books, before it was even widely available.

The rock photography bug first hit Weschler when he sold photos of the Beatles he'd taken from TV to his Beatlemaniac classmates.

In 1968, two years after he graduated from Rochester High School, Weschler was working for a music equipment company when he met Seger's longtime manager Ed "Punch" Andrews.

While attending Oakland Community College (and later, Oakland University), Weschler went to work as a roadie for the Seger organization, for head road manager "Krinkle" Kruezcamp. Several months later, when Krinkle got sick, Weschler was promoted to road manager.

Manager Andrews shows up in the book as a colorful figure with a tough, all-business exterior and a propensity for hilariously profane straight talk. When Weschler told him he was going to quit college to work for the Seger band full-time in the early '70s, Andrews exploded with rage. The part we can reprint in a family newspaper: "You gotta go to college. Do you think I want a dope to run my band out there on the road?"

"Well, he was going to throw away college to be a roadie," Andrews says today, still incredulous. (Weschler didn't drop out.)

Always protective of Seger, Andrews at first cast a jaundiced eye on the book project. "I was pleasantly surprised," he says. "I expected a C plus to B minus, so I was stunned when I saw it. I'd never heard the story told that way. It was his story and it was great. I'm pretty proud of Weschler."

Seger fans will get inside information, too; the book includes a time line of important dates in Seger's career, a glossary of prominent characters who pop up in the book, and an exhaustive list of all the band members Seger worked with over the years.

But it's the 170 evocative, black-and-white photographs that tell the story. At the beginning, we see a young, fresh-faced Seger on and off stage, playing at the gigs longtime Detroiters will remember, like the outdoor concert celebrating the opening of Oakland Mall in 1969. The hippie years in Rochester and Bogey Lake are documented, and Seger's dramatic, slow but steady drive to the top of the music world in the '70s, both on and offstage.

Working for the Seger organization gave Weschler more than a few backstage coups. "Bob trusted me," Weschler says. "He didn't like other photographers taking pictures of him. You can see, in some of the pictures where other photographers are present, he's only looking at me."

One of Weschler's most iconic sessions was a series of photographs taken backstage at Pine Knob in 1978 of Seger's first meeting with Bruce Springsteen. He laughs, remembering how he outmaneuvered the other photographers to get the money shot.

Weschler had hired Seger's bodyguard John Rapp in 1971, so when he asked Rapp to lock the dressing room door so the other photographers couldn't get in, Rapp happily assented.

"He didn't even let Punch in, until he insisted," Weschler says.