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- Sleazegrinder
- The Stooges. Had they continued playing leaf blowers and vacuum cleaners we mighta shoved them in the post-hippy schizoid noise-rock dustbin with Silver Apples or Simply Saucer but between guitarist Ron Asheton's sudden discovery of scuzzy, gutter-scraping riffs and Iggy Pop's peanut butter smearing, loose chimp stagecraft, punk rock - and our new lives - began.
- MC5. Pseudo-revolutionaries and drug-hoovering felons, MC5 were as much an outlaw gang as a band, but Christ, could they play. Perhaps the most muscular rock n’ roll outfit ever, their music sounds literally like homemade firebombs smashing through plate glass windows and let's face it, every high energy rock band since have been eating their dust.
- Alice Cooper. Sensing Motor City's relevance to the cause, the ever-opportunistic Alice dragged his boys from the desert to Detroit at exactly the right time.
- Bob Seger. From his humble beginnings as a garage rocker in the Last Heard to the muscular hard rock of the Bob Seger System and the radio-baiting Silver Bullet Band, Seger ably represented the “regular guy” in rock n’ roll, the working class, blue-collar, beer-guzzling factory worker that just wanted to annihilate their weekend in a blur of revving motors and high-octane rock music.
- The Birth of Detroit Music
- Detroit: A Jazz Hub
- The Motor City
- Detroit’s Blues Heritage
- Detroit, Country, and Rock ‘N’ Roll
- Detroit and Motown
- Motown Opens For Business
- Smokey Robinson
- The Secrets to Motown’s Success
- The Car Industry’S Impact on Music in Detroit
When construction began on the celebrated Orchestra Hall in June 1919 – a venue that is thriving again as home to the world-famous Detroit Symphony Orchestra – there were just under one million residents of a bustling port city that spans 143 square miles. A third of Detroit’s population were foreign-born. The hall opened in the mid-20s, by which t...
Detroit is well known as the birthplace of soul stars such as Jackie Wilson, Smokey Robinson, and Diana Ross, but it was also where numerous top jazz musicians – many of whom recorded for Blue Note Records – were born. The stellar list includes guitarist Kenny Burrell, trumpeter Donald Byrd, harpist Alice Coltrane, pianist Tommy Flanagan, trombonis...
At the time, booming Detroit was often referred to as “the Paris of the West,” praised for its picturesque broad river, wide boulevards, Grand Circus Park, and the architectural delights of its buildings, including the Central Train Depot, Masonic Temple, Institute Of Arts, Guardian Building and Fisher Building. Despite its visual attractions, Detr...
During the Second World War, Detroit became a center for armaments manufacture. The Ford Motor Company made tank engines, army Jeeps, and nearly 7,000 B-24 Liberator Bombers. One man who worked as a laborer at Ford’s Rouge Steel Mill during the conflict was blues musician John Lee Hooker, who moved to Detroit as a teenager, joining a fresh wave of ...
Country music was popular in Detroit in this period, too, with bands such as Eddie Jackson And The Swingsters building on the appeal of the western swing of Chief Redbird. In the 30s and 40s, massive migration from the Appalachian states brought a bluegrass influence to Detroit music. In December 1953, The Motor City Jamboree made its debut at the ...
In the late 50s, rock’n’roll ruled the airwaves in Detroit. But one remarkable man would change all that: Berry Gordy, Jr. Gordy, the seventh of eight children, had been interested in the music business since the age of ten. One of his first songs was a ditty for the family business, Gordy Printing, and he spent a lot of time roaming Hastings Stree...
Gordy was 29 when he used an $800 loan from his family to put down a deposit on a small two-story wooden house at 2648 West Grand Boulevard. His neighbors in the run-down district included a funeral home and a beauty parlor. Gordy and his first wife, Thelma, lived upstairs and converted the garage into a recording studio and the kitchen into a cont...
One of Gordy’s key early signings was 19-year-old Robinson, a born entrepreneur, who helped get Tamla and Motown records played on influential Detroit radio stations such as WJLB, WWJ, and WCHB. The success of rock’n’roll had shown that DJs had a huge say in making or breaking musicians. The big stations, such as WWJ, reached half of eastern Americ...
Gordy built his company along lines that mimicked Ford in its division of labor and focus on a product suitable for a mass market. His Motown studio worked almost 20 hours a day, assembling hundreds of possible releases. Gordy imposed a system of strict quality control. At 9 am each Friday, he chaired a “product-evaluation meeting.” Producers and s...
The indelible link between the car industry and the city’s musicians carried on into the 60s and 70s, through rock stars such as Suzi Quatro and Bob Seger. Quatro’s father, Art, was a semi-professional musician who worked at General Motors. Seger’s father, Stewart, was a medical technician for Ford. He played several instruments and exposed his son...
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- "What's Going On" Marvin Gaye (Tamla) 1971. Berry Gordy didn't want to release this, deeming it "uncommercial." The Motown chief finally relented when Gaye — who co-wrote it with Four Top Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Motown in-house songwriter Al Cleveland — threatened to permanently stop recording.
- "Living for the City" Stevie Wonder (Tamla) 1973. Another sociopolitical zinger, it describes ghetto life as aptly as any ever written. Although Wonder — who's never sounded angrier — set the story in Mississippi and NYC, it could just as easily be describing life for many African-Americans in the Motor City.
- "96 Tears" Question Mark & the Mysterians (Cameo) 1966. When Rudy Martinez and his Hispanic buddies created this classic (originally "69 Tears" — reason for change obvious!)
- "No Fun" The Stooges (Elektra) 1969. Marsh could've just as easily used this song to coin the "punk rock" label. There are numerous songs on that first album to choose from, but this grinding ode to boredom and self-hate gets the nod — not only because it best encapsulates the band's mood and minimalist aesthetic and not only because the Sex Pistols recorded it ...
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Detroit's Classic Rock Station for over 24 years ... April 19th, Massive Day For New Music Check Out Stunning New Detroit Lions Uniforms April 18, 2024
Detroit Rock. During the late '60s and early '70s, Detroit was home to not just Motown, but a thriving rock & roll scene that had a major impact on mainstream hard rock of the '70s, and also laid much of the initial groundwork for the punk movement. Detroit rock was simple, hard-driving, and ultra-high-energy; it was also often raw and grimy ...
Alice Cooper, a Detroit native who'd been playing Arizona and Los Angeles, returned to the city and streamlined his band's sound to become one of hard rock's greatest performers, while former Ann Arbor garage rocker Bob Seger finally broke through to stardom in the mid-'70s after nearly a decade of recording impassioned, traditionalist rock & roll.
Apr 6, 2024 · Folk & Blues. Jazz. Funk & Soul. Reggae. 228 upcoming concerts. Saturday 06 April 2024. Sponge General 11, Striking South, Resurrection Story, and Mortilus. Diesel Concert Lounge Detroit , Chesterfield, MI, US. Saturday 06 April 2024 – Saturday 06 April 2024.
