There are times when an object's rarity causes us to value it more than it deserves. There are also times when our admiration for a certain individual makes us gloss over his or her weaknesses. In addition, many of us tend to become overly nostalgic for our own pasts. In any case, I certainly know that I do. These are things I occasionally mulled over in my quest to track down Bob Seger's out-of-print 1969-1974 back catalog. Was the sheer rarity of these albums making me value them more than they deserved? Was I simply becoming nostalgic for a time (the early seventies) and a place (Detroit) that perhaps didn't warrant such a warm and fuzzy backward glance? Full disclosure first. I don't want to create the impression that I've always been a Bob Seger fan--quite the contrary. I remember hearing his music back in the '70s, but the stuff I liked then was the Grease and Saturday Night Fever soundtracks, along with the disco and pop tunes I heard on t...
