"East Side Story" is an early Bob Seger

Bob Seger

Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...

 single. It was Seger's first single with his group The Last Heard, marking his departure from Doug Brown and the Omens and the beginning of his own career. The song reached #3 on the Detroit charts.

History

Seger had originally written the song for a local Detroit band called the Underdogs, managed by Edward "Punch" Andrews along with Seger. Andrews was looking for a song for the Underdogs to follow up their successful "Man in the Glass," so Doug Brown and Seger each wrote a song. Seger recalls: "They liked what I wrote, which was 'East Side Story.' But they didn't like the way the Underdogs did it. So we recorded it ourselves, and then Doug and I went our own ways. I started my own band." Members of both the Omens and Seger's own Town Criers played on the studio version. The single, which cost $1,200 to make, sold 50,000 copies. Seger made his television debut performing this song on the show Swingin' Time

Swingin' Time

Swingin' Time was a music variety show, similar to American Bandstand, hosted by WKNR-AM personality Robin Seymour . It ran in syndication in the late-1960s...

, hosted by Robin Seymour.