The opening guitar riff on Bob Seger’s “Mainstreet” offers up a wistful yearning of times gone by...remembering and wanting to go back to those past days for at least one more time before it’s time to check out.

Such desires are possible only in dreams, but brought to the fore by songs like this. “Mainstreet” was Bob’s reminiscences about his days as a high school teenager, hanging out on the Ann Arbor street brought to life in the song.

That particular street was not Main Street, but Ann Street, running east to west between the Huron River and the University of Michigan. It was ‘down on Ann Street’ where Bob says he experienced his ‘awakening’ - that is, from being “a quiet, awkward kid” to his eyes and mind opening to what his life could be and the fun he could have.

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Seger was very much influenced by a club that was on Ann Street. According to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times via Songfacts, Bob stated, "I can’t remember the name of the club, but the band that played there all the time was called Washboard Willie. They were a Delta and Chicago blues band. Girls would dance in the window.....That’s where I would go but I was too young to get in. It wasn’t in a great part of town but college students loved to go there."

East Ann Street was filled with black-owned businesses with plenty of shops, pool halls and blues bars, with a reputation for extensive gambling and pool that went back into the 1800s. Unfortunately, by the 1970s, pool and gambling were pushed aside for violent crimes and drug trafficking.....Ann Street had established a tougher reputation for drug trafficking. Police crackdowns and building restorations brought back a sense of pride to the area.

As for the name ‘Ann Street’, it was named after the same persons that the town of Ann Arbor was named after: Ann Allen and Ann Rumsey, the wives of Ann Arbor founders (in 1824) John Allen and Elisha Rumsey. The ‘arbor’ comes from the good number of bur oak trees they witnessed on arrival.

Just wondering:
Ann Street and the actual Main Street intersect right at an area where there are plenty of old shops and buildings just up on Main. Could Bob have been referring to that particular intersection?

Bob Seger's "Mainstreet"

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