September 7, 2023 • 33 mins
Detroit has risen from the ashes before. Maybe that is where all the music comes from. Written by Samantha Farrell
Special thanks to:
Ann Delisi - catch her long time show on WDET in Detroit on the weekends from 11-2 Allen Penniman - city planner, urbanist and man about town
Links:
https://www.udiscovermusic.com/in-depth-features/detroit-music-history/
https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/michigan/articles/from-motown-to-8-mile-the-music- of-detroit-michigan
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-battle-over-technos-origins www.willdailey.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
October fifth, nineteen sixty six. The temptations in the Supremes
are heating up the airwaves and on other channels, alarm
bells are ringing. Just thirty miles outside of Detroit, the
Enrico Fermi nuclear generating station is getting hot, too hot.
It's the early years of humanity's dance.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
With nuclear energy.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
The government is working over time to show that the
splitting of an atom can go a different kind of way,
That maybe the unfathomable energy and heat that could level
a city could also be used to power one. That
Oppenheimer's creation could be used in the service of and
not the destruction of mankind. And that's all well and
good until it's not. There are hazards in hubris and
(00:52):
handling the unruly and wild building blocks of the universe.
The process can run away. The reactor is growing hotter
and hotterer in its not cooled down fast enough. Well
have you been to the movies lately? Luckily Fate looked
down upon the Motor City with mercy. That day, the
partial meltdown was contained and no radiation escaped, but the
(01:13):
long shadow of what if remained. As always, we must
count on the poets and musicians to tell it straight.
Gil Scott Heron saying, in his enlightened weariness, we almost
lost Detroit. Just thirty miles from Detroit, there stands a
giant power station. It ticks each night as the city sleeps,
(01:34):
seconds from annihilation.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
But no one stopped to.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Think about the people or how they would survive.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
And we almost lost Detroit this time. How could we
ever get over losing our minds? Gil Scott hero We
almost lost Detroit?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Has there ever been a city more precarious sleep toois
at the edge of either disaster or glory. This city
has been called many names, some good, some awful. The
arsenal of democracy, the automotive capital of the world, MotorCity, Motown,
murder City, ghost town, the Paris of the Midwest, the
d It has lived as many lives as, if not more,
(02:19):
and is once again in the middle of rewriting its
own story, with hopefully all its grit and glamour intact.
The first time I pulled into Detroit, I was walking
through the dtw and saw a slogan scrawled on Purple
gift store sweatshirts. They read Detroit Versus Everyone, And I
know this might be a recycled saying heard millions of
(02:40):
times if you're from there, but.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It moved me.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
This is a city defined by the resilience and strength
of its people. When it was a national joke in
the eighties to say, will the last person in Detroit
please turn off the lights?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Lights, the lights, the lights.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
There is an entire city still there, circling its own
and flipping the bird to everyone. A place that was
once the richest city in America that plunged into a
vision of urban dystopian apocalypse. But never turn the lights out.
They dimmed, the factories emptied. But as we know from
previous episodes like Providence, Rheland, abandoned warehouses and empty spaces
(03:17):
are the fairy godmother to the artist, to culture. There
is a freedom when everyone has written you off, you
take risks, the rent is affordable.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
You make things.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You have space and time to absorb different sounds and
few styles and time signatures, and misuse instruments or use
them correctly for the first time, and create entire new
genres that can change the world. Motown techno, true grit,
rock and roll, the beating, jagged heart of the Midwest.
Detroit has always been a place of human friction. The
(03:50):
most ancient of heat, founded in seventeen oh one by
a French trader named Cadillac.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Of course his name is Cadillac.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
It was a fur trading outposts where the French and
the Brits and the Natives mixed. Civil War era is
the last run on the underground railroad for those on
a desperate run to the Canadian border. Nineteen hundreds is
where Henry Ford had the bright idea to automate an
assembly line and give the world its wheels that define
America in its sound, both in song and noise pollution,
(04:20):
where thousands of immigrants from across the world and Black
Americans leaving the Jim Crow South migrated inwards for jobs
and a chance, bringing their music and food and their
culture and their hopes and their dreams, all mixing together.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Right off Lake Erie. It's Detroit verse.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Everyone and everyone should know the artist that Detroit has
given us. Alice Coltrane, Madonna, Milk Jackson, Parliament and Funkadel Lizzo,
Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, the White Stripes, Smokey Robinson, the Wine.
It's for Diana Rock, Anny Morell, Eminem Hook Wilson Brede,
(05:01):
Van Fleebig, Sean Anita Baker, Suphie and Stevens, Glenn Fry, Rodriganz, Jackie,
will Sobs, Alo j Dillon, Martha and the Van Dells,
Wading Alice Cooper, Iggy pop.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Elmore.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Leonard once wrote, there are cities that get by on
their good looks, offer climate and scenery, views of mountains
or oceans rock bound with palm trees, and there are
cities like Detroit that have to work for a living.
In the nineteen forties, Detroit was the fourth largest.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
City in the US.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Assembly lines for Ford, GM and Chrysler plants were hungry
for people, and folks came running for the chance. The
so ongoing promise of work started bringing Detroit some of
its own icons, like a future blues legend by the
name of John Lee Hooker, or a twenty nine year
old music obsessed Korean Warvett fresh off of failed record
store venture, who was working at the Ford Lincoln Mercury
(05:58):
plant assembly line, Berry Gordy Junior. But in some horrible
demonstration of Newton's third law, each action in nature has
an equal and opposite reaction. The boom that made Detroit
the Paris of the Midwest would soon be followed by
its nosedive into the definition of urban decay. In the
nineteen fifties, the car industry decentralized, factories closed, the warehouses empties.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Jobs evaporated.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So did the people, and a year after we almost
lost Detroit to a nuclear meltdown, a human meltdown nearly
finished the job. The Riots of nineteen sixty seven exposed
deep racial tensions, the same ones echoing all over the US,
were concentrated like nitroglycerin in the diverse, yet segregated Detroit.
The riots would leave the city smoldering in the next
(06:45):
ten years would be full of chaos and destabilization as
the city tried to right itself. The soul called white
flight saw the suburbs empty out, and with that some
of the money and institutions the wealthy funded. The population
dropped from nearly two million in nineteen fifty to six
hundred and seventy seven and twenty fifteen. It wrecked the
(07:06):
city's tax base and played a major part in the
mess that ended up with Detroit in an eighteen billion
dollar hole, going bankrupt, becoming America's poorest big city. The
barbed wire and the bricks went up. Desolate streets and
abandoned houses became synonymous with the city. For those who
stayed believe in the promise of an uncertain future. If
(07:28):
they didn't, they would have split a long time ago.
It is a spirit that defines folks here and the
artists and the work that they make. There is an
originality here that exists nowhere else.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
To remain in a.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Forsaken city means to build your own world, your own universe,
to give a distinctly Detroit sound to your town. The
Sound of Our Town is a podcast about our cities
and our live music culture. It's there for you wherever
(08:03):
you're touching down, wherever you live, wherever you're moving to,
wherever you dream of going. It is a tricky world
out there, but it has existed for a very long
time and will exist for a long time after this.
One thing that has always been true is that we
have had music with us the whole time. Not on
(08:24):
streaming platforms, not on YouTube, not even on recording formats.
But it's been with us when we are with each other.
So here we are, Episode five, Season two of Sound
of Our Town. I am your host, Will Daily and
In this episode, we're visiting Detroit, Michigan. The first morning
(08:52):
I ever woke up in Detroit, bleary eyed in some
chain hotel, I pulled back the curtains to see Stevie
Wonder and this giant smiling face painted four stories high
on an adjacent building, A moment to set the tone
for one time in MotorCity or Motown. In fact, we
have Motown to thank for bringing us the wonder of
(09:12):
Stevie Wonder. They signed him to his first record deal
at the tender age of eleven years young. But the
influence of Motown on the American musical landscape is so vast,
so oversized, it could even make this eight thousand square
foot mural that can be seen by an airplane feel
tiny in comparison. I would bet it's nearly impossible to
(09:33):
find a human in the USA whose life's soundtrack has
not been lit up at some point by the timeless
hope enjoy that artists from Motown have injected into our
collective psyche. I could easily make this whole entire episode
of Motown Pilgrimage, as there are still many places and
spaces in this town to immerse yourself that musically honor
this sound and vibe. But before Motown came bumping and
(09:56):
grooving into the night, it grew strong by eating veget
and listening to jazz. The word Detroit is practically synonymous
with the verb jazz, and no place honors that legacy
in its most original essence better than Baker's Keyboard Lounge.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
A perfect first stop.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Mister Clarence Baker opened this joint in nineteen thirty nine,
and it is said to be the longest running jazz
nightclub in the world. His mission was to seek out
and find the best and brightest jazz stars and get
them to his joint, and that's exactly what he did.
The list of who's played at Baker's reads like a
Wikipedia entry into the history of the genre. And while
(10:36):
Bakers hosted famous singers and musicians of all instruments, Billie Holiday, Alfzgerald,
Pat Meffeini. It is called the Keyboard Lounge after all,
and all roads begin and end at Baker's. By pulling
up to the eighty eight, you were given a few
clues to the orientation of this venue, which from the
outside looks like a giant keyboard. From the keys emblazoned
(10:57):
on the stage floor to the original iconic keyboard bar
are built in nineteen fifty It winds its way through
the wavy, sonic soul of the place. The house piano
seven foot Steinway from nineteen fifty seven was picked out
by none other than Art Tatum and played through the
years by the likes of Charlie Parker, Gingkrupa, Oscar Peterson,
John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Art Blakey, Horace Silver Monk, and.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Dave Brubek, to name a few.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
These days you'll find the place filled with up and
coming local jazz talent, as well as contemporary blues and
jazz stars, all kept warm by the sonic fires soaking
up the history and minor sevens and flat nines that
this space is absorbed for nearly eighty years. The Willis
(11:44):
Show Bar sits in the historic cast corridor. A neon
sign hanging above the industrial door invites you in to
what is not immediately obvious, but if you sold drawn
and passed through the velvety curtains that separate the entrance
from the rest of the lounge, it is to step
back in time. You lay your eyes, adjust to the warm,
dim lighting and flickering candles. The original Willis opened in
(12:06):
nineteen forty nine and for thirty years was a music
spot in burlesque Joint. It closed, like so many other
venues in.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
The late nineteen seventies. Well.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
This closure was due to rumors of prostitution running out
of the back, though in the early eighties the owners
of a floral shop named Blossoms and Detroit bought it
and kept it from demolition until twenty fifteen, when Sean Patrick,
an entrepreneur visiting from La fell in Love. A full
set of renovations were done, staying true to its original
glamour and vibe, guided in loving obsessive detail by old
(12:37):
photographs of the original Willis. There are no windows to
interrupt the sound in the mood, leather seating and a
dark sleek wood all pointing you towards the bar, which
is good because the stage is behind the bar. In
true throwback style, you'll find DJs, Detroit's finest jazz, R
and B soul, in motown bands and burlesque dancers on
(12:58):
any given night of the week. It is a fantastic
listening room. The present owner spared no expense, took great
pains to have a venue with impeccable sound for the
audience and the performer. And if you were lonely, there
are people here. They are dressed up and they are
quietly enjoying classic craft cocktails in the low lit intimacy
of the room. In a city that loves music, you
(13:21):
can catch touring acts and excellent local musicians. But it's busy,
so call ahead to reserve a table and make sure
you look sharp. You don't want people knowing you from
out of town. Detroit is massive, one hundred and thirty
(13:42):
nine square miles the size of Manhattan, Boston and San
Francisco combined, So you need a car. And because also
it's MotorCity, people love to drive. Standing on these wide
streets at any point in the day, you are likely
to see the stuff of motorhead dreams, souped up vintage Cadillacs,
pristine Mustang's condition, linking continentals. It will only further your
(14:03):
temporal disorientation. You can feel the flow of times past
when folks end mass will cruise down to Heart Plaza
to our no cover spot. An event actually a story
about how a town can save its sound. This is
Detroit Jazz Fest now usually for a no cover spot,
it's a small room that doesn't bother with charging you five, ten, fifteen,
(14:25):
twenty dollars.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
But this is something else.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Jazz Fest is four NonStop days of the best jazz,
blues and soul music on Labor Day weekend. It is
in fact the largest free jazz festival in the world
and resolutely, unabashedly jazz, making it the best no cover
spot in Detroit. You won't catch the algorithm's favorite pop
star of the week trying to sneak in here by
covering something of Frank Sinatra. It is a celebration of
(14:52):
the current practitioners of the art and attracts three hundred
and fifty thousand of the truest jazz enthusiasts.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
From around the world every year.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
The festus both provincial and international, celebrating Motor City based
artisans that continually expand Detroit jazz style, who also happened
to be international heroes like Lewis Haynes, Regina Carter, and
Kenny Garrett. In its forty year run, it was once
the Montro Detroit Jazz Festival. It was left for dead
with the rest of Detroit when the economic free fall
(15:23):
of the early aughts happened in steps Gretchen Vlad, jazz angel, philanthropist,
the heiress to the Cardhart Empire, fittingly a company known
for making the trusted gear of the working people. She
took over, underwrote most of it, brought the sponsors back,
and was adamant it should be free, because she understood
(15:43):
that there was something to lose the way we almost
lost Detroit. If we as a nation lose jazz, the
light of this genre, this great American gift to the world,
Wayne's without the oxygen of attention. So give people easy
access to it and make the vessel no cover. Detroit
(16:11):
born musician Alice Cooper once described it as such, if
you go to Los Angeles, if people are going to
see the Stooges or Alice Cooper, they go to work,
they go home, they put on their black leather jackets,
grease their hair, wet their torn Levi's, and go to
the show. In Detroit, they just come from work and
they're already in their black leather jackets and everything else.
(16:32):
Iggy Pop, MC five, Alice Cooper, Rare, Earth, Bob Seeger
All Detroit. The iconic Cream magazine started here as well.
Covering this scene, Lester Bangs, one of the world's best
rock and roll music writers, was profiling the wild, outrageousness
of the characters, electrifying Detroit rock, giving these local stars
a national name. The city was rough and ready, and
(16:55):
it had a soundtrack to match. Garage rock followed suit
launch the careers of hometown heroes like the White Stripes,
the Gorris and Sponge. The list goes on and on.
Detroit Rock City. It's not just a nickname. It's a
town built around melting faces for generations. Now now there
are multiple ways to immerse yourself in the sonic lineage
(17:16):
and get your face melted while you're in Detroit. Cliff
notes version I could send you to the ornate and
gorgeously restored Fillmore Theater to see big acts like Lil Wayne,
seven Dust or the Flaming Lips. I could also direct
you to the gothic rock haven of the Masonic Temple,
where the Stones and Grace, Jones and Rodriguez rocked out.
But we have yet another shining example of how people
(17:37):
from Detroit love Detroit and passionately spend their time and
money helping to bring it back from the brink. Detroit
local mister Jack White of the White Stripes is one
such individual. He created third Man Records in two thousand
and one as a passion project. He was just trying
to release White Stripe records on vinyl. This action evolved
into a small empire, a retail records store in the
(18:00):
front and a vinyl pressing plant in the back. Inspired
by the car factories he grew up around. It is
a candy land for the music junkie. Third Man specializes
in bringing back new releases of classic Detroit records and more,
while also pressing records for today's budding and established artists.
Live shows that third Man take place in the Blue
Room in their intimate, hard hitting shows where sets are
(18:22):
recorded straight to vinyl. There's no place like it. It
is the ultimate stop in rock city to get your
face melted. And third Man just announced a partnership with
Blue Note Records to release the three thirteen series, a
collection of music either Blue Note artists from Detroit made
or recorded here, handpicked by Blue Note President and Detroit
native Dawn was in an age where music and feel
(18:46):
like an invisible commodity. There is something so right about
holding in your hand the sweet analog joy of waves
encased in wax. There are nights when you might find
(19:11):
yourself in an underground club in Berlin at two am.
The walls, the very air itself, vibrating and pulsating from
enormous speakers wedged into the seams of concrete. Thumping music
sucks you into seismic trance with the sea of other humans,
all thanks to the hypnotic power of techno. Now, if
you say the word techno to most folks, you may
(19:31):
automatically associated with Europe and house music, and well, you're right,
but you're also wrong. Techno, as we know it was
a name and a sound born in you guessed it,
the warehouses and underground music scene of Detroit. The Cork Synthesizer,
(19:52):
the Mini mook in the tr nine oh nine all
entered electronic dance music chat in Detroit in the early
to mid nighteteen teen eighties thanks to the Belleville III.
Dwan Atkins, Derek May, and Kevin Saunderson were bored by
motown and rock and needed a new sound for their town,
for their time and their experience. They began experimenting with
(20:15):
electronic and synthetic soundscapes, making something edgier, more cool, and
detached that happened to be utterly danceable. As Derek May
famously described this, hepnotic dance blend of styles. As George
Clinton in Kraftwork got stuck in an elevator with a
synthesizer for the late nineteen eighties, it had escaped via tape,
(20:37):
the warehouse incubators to Detroit had been unleashed on the
global rave and dance scene. The whole world of electronic
music would be looking to Detroit. You can do the
same by getting your booty to Movement Fest. It's an
annual festival, a Memorial Day weekend that's been running since
two thousand and six. The whole city turns out for
(20:57):
this distinctly Detroit event, making it perfect event to build
your calendar around. It is a dance party, and it
is all love. It is a celebration of techno in
Techno's hometown, in the deep utopian sci fi afro futuristic
ideals that imbue the music. There are six stages, each
with their own flavor and character. And while there is
(21:18):
the ticket experience, there are also the after parties, the
house parties, and the warehouse parties. That keep going until
the sun comes up. Sometime in twenty eighteen, my TV
finally bloomed into life the most beautiful shot and carefully
(21:41):
framed face of Aretha Franklin standing at the podium of
the New Missionary Baptist Church in Watts It filled my screen,
It filled the living room amazing grace. Aretha's best and
biggest selling live gospel album of all time had been
shot on film over the course of two days by
the now feigned but at the time and up and
(22:03):
coming director Sidney Pollock, and somehow it was only just
now seeing the light of day. The heat of the
room in the church is palpable. The shot of her
face beautiful, glistening with sweat, poised as if at the
start of a race, slightly shy, giving her this otherworldly
glow against.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The white back trot.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And then she opens her mouth, and what happens next
is hard to say.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Time stopped.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
I was transported from my couch into the pews next
to Mick Jagger, our mouths open in disbelief with everyone else,
as her staggering, soul quaking voice rose to sing, what
a friend we have in Jesus. The film is ninety
minutes that will absolutely rock you. It will make you
shiver and weep. It will make you happy that somehow
(22:51):
your atoms made their way to planet Earth and coalesced
into a sentient being with ears to imbibe this amazing grace.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Indeed, and that is.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Why I would propose that for the first time, the
Vatican of a city is a person, and that person
is Detroit's own daughter and music icon.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Of Wretha Franklin.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
And as luck would have it, a venue named in
her honor is actually ranked as one of the one
hundred best outdoor venues in the world, and that is
Zaretha Franklin Amphitheater on the banks of the Detroit River.
You can wave at Canada in this six thousand person
open air, recently renovated waterfront venue. This premier summer concert
(23:37):
venue has been in business since nineteen eighty four and
is brought in over one hundred and fifty thousand visitors
a year. But that's not counting all the folks who,
in long tradition set up lawn chairs outside the venue
and get their grill and drink on with an earshot,
or the boats that pull up for some water based tailgating.
The performers have their backs to the water as the
(23:58):
night descends. It is a whole scene in so very Detroit.
The list of past performers will make your eyes water,
and it hosts a wildly diverse and welcoming selection of genres,
including a listers like Aretha herself, Eric Abadou, Diana Ross,
the Temptations, Michael McDonald, George Clinton, Stevie Wonder. I could
(24:18):
go on, but instead I'll just tell you to go
on Graham Boulevard past GM's new electric vehicle factory. There
is an unassuming red brick box of a building. There's
no sign. You would only go there if you knew
(24:40):
what you were looking for. This gem is so hidden,
I'm hoping I'm not going to piss anyone off by
mentioning it. But there is a secret museum hidden there
that is a mecca for the true devotees of techno.
Exhibit three thousand is located on the first floor of
the headquarters of Record Label and collective Underground Resistance. Exhibit
three thousand is a a small gallery that documents the
(25:01):
birth and rise of techno in Detroit in careful and
loving detail. There is darkness deepness and soulfulness woven into
the computer generated beats that was distinctly of Detroit's musical
DNA in the nineteen eighties. Electronic music fans are genre
obsessive impride themselves on tracing the lineage of each subgenre. However,
(25:24):
the recently open Museum of Modern Electronic Music in Frankfurt,
Germany called itself the first techno museum in the world,
which is surprising as Exhibit three thousand has been opened
since two thousand and two. The minimization of Detroit's role
and lack of credit given to the city's musical pioneers
sent an outcry throughout the international electronic music community. A
(25:46):
lot of people had no idea that the founders of
this genre are black, and it goes back to the
reason you are creating the exhibit in the first place,
to make sure that this rich musical history is not
erased but celebrated accurately, and to make sure Detroit in
the truth wasn't once again written off and out of
history when Motown was exploding into pop culture imagination. The
(26:18):
importance of the business of this record label and the
artists it represented, the Black Americans, is hard to quantify.
It meant something. In a time when segregation divided daily life,
a black man, Barry Gordy, started a black owned music
label that featured predominantly black artists, rocketing a style of
music drenched in blackness to the top of the charts.
(26:40):
It was indescribably important. The music of Motown reflected hope
in the darkness of times, and that vibe resonated and
transcended racial and social boundaries that had felt all but
written in stone. It is and was a gift to America.
So this time to prep for your trip, I'm not
going to give you content to consume or a book
(27:02):
to read. I'm telling you to get to Detroit and
before or after that first stop, head to Hitsville, USA
itself also known as the Motown Museum. It just underwent
the multimillion dollar expansion. And when you visit, you are
going to the original headquarters of Motown, into the original studio,
a where the songwriters, producers, musicians, and vocalists piled in
(27:24):
together to work on a dream of being a hit machine.
It's important to know that dreams do come true. And
Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, the Temptations, and Marvin Gay are
a few legacies to attest to that you never know
some of that good energy might.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Just rub off on you.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
In exhibit three thousand, there is a painting on the
wall named Detroit Babylon by local artist ron Zacren.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It looks as if it were a relic.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Pulled from the wreckage of some ancient, un known technocracy.
A gray hued human cyborg stands in the foreground. In
the distance, a vast cities stretches out in the shadows
of two nuclear reactors. Only this time, the nuclear reactors
are powered by a pair of rollin eto eights, an
homage to the partial meltdown where we almost lost Detroit. However,
(28:18):
in this version, the music is in control. It is
the music that keeps the lights on and sends electricity
and heat to the core, one that does not destroy
or creates. The Detroit of today is bruised, but not broken.
It has problems. It has been nearly redlined into oblivion,
and rampant discrimination in the real estate and banking industries
has made it literally impossible for local people to get
(28:40):
loans to buy houses and open businesses.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
But there are people like.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
The Greening of Detroit who are turning abandoned housing lots
into gardens. There are good people fighting to change with
the culture of housing and lending so that all the
local people can be a part of the future of
this city. Though the population declined, people are here and
more are coming. There are our better housing options for
cheaper Here. You can own a home. There's a stable
mayor who is trying to address the problems. You can
(29:06):
take a risk, you can hustle harder. Detroit is a
city of creators, and to top it off, Detroit is
as fun as hell. The nightlife and the music is amazing.
In this post pandemic era, we are seeing venues vanished
like meteorites in the sky. Where the arts are so
anemically supported by our own government, we stand to lose
so much. The essence of music is the rawness of
(29:29):
humanity rubbing against itself, the joy of the pain and
struggle expressed in the most ancient of ways. Music venues
are the grounding locations of this friction. They are historical
and cultural sites whose value goes way beyond the simplicity
of commerce. When these venues fold and are paved for
atm chiosks and high rise buildings, no one can afford
(29:52):
to live in We anesthetize our experience. We almost lose Detroit,
We almost lose our soulf. Else and one more thing.
It's a little funny how the past can talk to
the future. Let me try my Latin here speramus meliora
(30:15):
resurgent snibus. It translates into we hope for better things.
It shall arise from the ashes. That's not a quote
I stole from a Starbucks cup. This is the Latin
motto for Detroit, written in eighteen o five. After a
fire swept through and decimated the city that year, a
(30:37):
bucket brigade of six hundred residents valiantly tried to save
their own town, but failed. Every building was leveled to
smoldering ash, and the city is now once again rising
from the ashes, and those that remain sustained the culture
in a way only a lifetime in the trenches can do.
There's a little grocery store and cafe run by a
long time Detroit native DJ and storyteller and DeLisi. There's
(31:00):
one of the many who recently took over the Sprout House,
a natural food market and cafe in Detroit that's been
running for forty years. Selling food in Detroit is practically
punk rock activism. Detroit is a food desert, sorry, a
food apartheid, as I was recently corrected. A desert would
imply that this is a naturally occurring phenomena. But this
issue is entirely man made. Because the banks and insurers
(31:22):
won't lend in Detroit. There are hardly any grocery stores
in a city of seven hundred thousand. An entire generation
of kids think you can buy dinner at the gas station.
It's yet another way we've almost lost Detroit and been
doing so ourselves. Rising from the Ashes is not just
about the music. It's about the people keeping the shelves
stalked in hot plates, waiting. And if we're waiting for
(31:45):
the last person in Detroit to turn out the lights,
I bet against every odd that we'll be waiting for
a long time.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Well we did it.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Episode five, Season two, Detroit, Michigan. Thank you to everyone
who has followed this show, and an extra special thanks
to those that have reviewed it. The algorithm gods are
watching this little show about big sounds, and every follow
and review gets us to another town. Dm me if
you have any questions or further suggestions.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Let me know how we're doing. What you want to hear.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
You can hit me up on Instagram at Will Daily
Official or just search Will Daily, d Ai, l e
Y anywhere on your favorite platforms. Sound of Our Town
is a production of Double Elvis and iHeartRadio. You can
also hit us up on ig at Double Elvis and
Twitter at Double Elvis FM. The show is executively produced
by Jake Brennan and Brady Sadler for Double Elvis Production
(32:41):
assistants by Matt Bowden. The show is created, written, hosted,
and scored by me Will Daily. This episode's head writer
is Samantha Ferrell. Remember that name and a special thank
you to and Delasi catch your longtime show on wdet
and Detroit on the weekends from eleven to two and
Alan Penemin City Planner, Urbanist, and Man about Town. Music
(33:04):
for this episode was composed and performed by me Will Daily.
You can check out my music on Spotify, Apple Bandcamp,
or wherever you get sonics. You can also go to
Will Daily dot com.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
We're not even halfway through this season.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
We're off to the next Town episode six in two weeks.
I'll see you out there and thank you for your ears,
October fifth, nineteen sixty six. The temptations in the Supremes
are heating up the airwaves and on other channels, alarm
bells are ringing. Just thirty miles outside of Detroit, the
Enrico Fermi nuclear generating station is getting hot, too hot.
It's the early years of humanity's dance.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
With nuclear energy.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
The government is working over time to show that the
splitting of an atom can go a different kind of way,
That maybe the unfathomable energy and heat that could level
a city could also be used to power one. That
Oppenheimer's creation could be used in the service of and
not the destruction of mankind. And that's all well and
good until it's not. There are hazards in hubris and
(00:52):
handling the unruly and wild building blocks of the universe.
The process can run away. The reactor is growing hotter
and hotterer in its not cooled down fast enough. Well
have you been to the movies lately? Luckily Fate looked
down upon the Motor City with mercy. That day, the
partial meltdown was contained and no radiation escaped, but the
(01:13):
long shadow of what if remained. As always, we must
count on the poets and musicians to tell it straight.
Gil Scott Heron saying, in his enlightened weariness, we almost
lost Detroit. Just thirty miles from Detroit, there stands a
giant power station. It ticks each night as the city sleeps,
(01:34):
seconds from annihilation.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
But no one stopped to.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Think about the people or how they would survive.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
And we almost lost Detroit this time. How could we
ever get over losing our minds? Gil Scott hero We
almost lost Detroit?
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Has there ever been a city more precarious sleep toois
at the edge of either disaster or glory. This city
has been called many names, some good, some awful. The
arsenal of democracy, the automotive capital of the world, MotorCity, Motown,
murder City, ghost town, the Paris of the Midwest, the
d It has lived as many lives as, if not more,
(02:19):
and is once again in the middle of rewriting its
own story, with hopefully all its grit and glamour intact.
The first time I pulled into Detroit, I was walking
through the dtw and saw a slogan scrawled on Purple
gift store sweatshirts. They read Detroit Versus Everyone, And I
know this might be a recycled saying heard millions of
(02:40):
times if you're from there, but.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
It moved me.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
This is a city defined by the resilience and strength
of its people. When it was a national joke in
the eighties to say, will the last person in Detroit
please turn off the lights?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Lights, the lights, the lights.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
There is an entire city still there, circling its own
and flipping the bird to everyone. A place that was
once the richest city in America that plunged into a
vision of urban dystopian apocalypse. But never turn the lights out.
They dimmed, the factories emptied. But as we know from
previous episodes like Providence, Rheland, abandoned warehouses and empty spaces
(03:17):
are the fairy godmother to the artist, to culture. There
is a freedom when everyone has written you off, you
take risks, the rent is affordable.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
You make things.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
You have space and time to absorb different sounds and
few styles and time signatures, and misuse instruments or use
them correctly for the first time, and create entire new
genres that can change the world. Motown techno, true grit,
rock and roll, the beating, jagged heart of the Midwest.
Detroit has always been a place of human friction. The
(03:50):
most ancient of heat, founded in seventeen oh one by
a French trader named Cadillac.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Of course his name is Cadillac.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
It was a fur trading outposts where the French and
the Brits and the Natives mixed. Civil War era is
the last run on the underground railroad for those on
a desperate run to the Canadian border. Nineteen hundreds is
where Henry Ford had the bright idea to automate an
assembly line and give the world its wheels that define
America in its sound, both in song and noise pollution,
(04:20):
where thousands of immigrants from across the world and Black
Americans leaving the Jim Crow South migrated inwards for jobs
and a chance, bringing their music and food and their
culture and their hopes and their dreams, all mixing together.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Right off Lake Erie. It's Detroit verse.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Everyone and everyone should know the artist that Detroit has
given us. Alice Coltrane, Madonna, Milk Jackson, Parliament and Funkadel Lizzo,
Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, the White Stripes, Smokey Robinson, the Wine.
It's for Diana Rock, Anny Morell, Eminem Hook Wilson Brede,
(05:01):
Van Fleebig, Sean Anita Baker, Suphie and Stevens, Glenn Fry, Rodriganz, Jackie,
will Sobs, Alo j Dillon, Martha and the Van Dells,
Wading Alice Cooper, Iggy pop.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Elmore.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Leonard once wrote, there are cities that get by on
their good looks, offer climate and scenery, views of mountains
or oceans rock bound with palm trees, and there are
cities like Detroit that have to work for a living.
In the nineteen forties, Detroit was the fourth largest.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
City in the US.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Assembly lines for Ford, GM and Chrysler plants were hungry
for people, and folks came running for the chance. The
so ongoing promise of work started bringing Detroit some of
its own icons, like a future blues legend by the
name of John Lee Hooker, or a twenty nine year
old music obsessed Korean Warvett fresh off of failed record
store venture, who was working at the Ford Lincoln Mercury
(05:58):
plant assembly line, Berry Gordy Junior. But in some horrible
demonstration of Newton's third law, each action in nature has
an equal and opposite reaction. The boom that made Detroit
the Paris of the Midwest would soon be followed by
its nosedive into the definition of urban decay. In the
nineteen fifties, the car industry decentralized, factories closed, the warehouses empties.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Jobs evaporated.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So did the people, and a year after we almost
lost Detroit to a nuclear meltdown, a human meltdown nearly
finished the job. The Riots of nineteen sixty seven exposed
deep racial tensions, the same ones echoing all over the US,
were concentrated like nitroglycerin in the diverse, yet segregated Detroit.
The riots would leave the city smoldering in the next
(06:45):
ten years would be full of chaos and destabilization as
the city tried to right itself. The soul called white
flight saw the suburbs empty out, and with that some
of the money and institutions the wealthy funded. The population
dropped from nearly two million in nineteen fifty to six
hundred and seventy seven and twenty fifteen. It wrecked the
(07:06):
city's tax base and played a major part in the
mess that ended up with Detroit in an eighteen billion
dollar hole, going bankrupt, becoming America's poorest big city. The
barbed wire and the bricks went up. Desolate streets and
abandoned houses became synonymous with the city. For those who
stayed believe in the promise of an uncertain future. If
(07:28):
they didn't, they would have split a long time ago.
It is a spirit that defines folks here and the
artists and the work that they make. There is an
originality here that exists nowhere else.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
To remain in a.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Forsaken city means to build your own world, your own universe,
to give a distinctly Detroit sound to your town. The
Sound of Our Town is a podcast about our cities
and our live music culture. It's there for you wherever
(08:03):
you're touching down, wherever you live, wherever you're moving to,
wherever you dream of going. It is a tricky world
out there, but it has existed for a very long
time and will exist for a long time after this.
One thing that has always been true is that we
have had music with us the whole time. Not on
(08:24):
streaming platforms, not on YouTube, not even on recording formats.
But it's been with us when we are with each other.
So here we are, Episode five, Season two of Sound
of Our Town. I am your host, Will Daily and
In this episode, we're visiting Detroit, Michigan. The first morning
(08:52):
I ever woke up in Detroit, bleary eyed in some
chain hotel, I pulled back the curtains to see Stevie
Wonder and this giant smiling face painted four stories high
on an adjacent building, A moment to set the tone
for one time in MotorCity or Motown. In fact, we
have Motown to thank for bringing us the wonder of
(09:12):
Stevie Wonder. They signed him to his first record deal
at the tender age of eleven years young. But the
influence of Motown on the American musical landscape is so vast,
so oversized, it could even make this eight thousand square
foot mural that can be seen by an airplane feel
tiny in comparison. I would bet it's nearly impossible to
(09:33):
find a human in the USA whose life's soundtrack has
not been lit up at some point by the timeless
hope enjoy that artists from Motown have injected into our
collective psyche. I could easily make this whole entire episode
of Motown Pilgrimage, as there are still many places and
spaces in this town to immerse yourself that musically honor
this sound and vibe. But before Motown came bumping and
(09:56):
grooving into the night, it grew strong by eating veget
and listening to jazz. The word Detroit is practically synonymous
with the verb jazz, and no place honors that legacy
in its most original essence better than Baker's Keyboard Lounge.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
A perfect first stop.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Mister Clarence Baker opened this joint in nineteen thirty nine,
and it is said to be the longest running jazz
nightclub in the world. His mission was to seek out
and find the best and brightest jazz stars and get
them to his joint, and that's exactly what he did.
The list of who's played at Baker's reads like a
Wikipedia entry into the history of the genre. And while
(10:36):
Bakers hosted famous singers and musicians of all instruments, Billie Holiday, Alfzgerald,
Pat Meffeini. It is called the Keyboard Lounge after all,
and all roads begin and end at Baker's. By pulling
up to the eighty eight, you were given a few
clues to the orientation of this venue, which from the
outside looks like a giant keyboard. From the keys emblazoned
(10:57):
on the stage floor to the original iconic keyboard bar
are built in nineteen fifty It winds its way through
the wavy, sonic soul of the place. The house piano
seven foot Steinway from nineteen fifty seven was picked out
by none other than Art Tatum and played through the
years by the likes of Charlie Parker, Gingkrupa, Oscar Peterson,
John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Art Blakey, Horace Silver Monk, and.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Dave Brubek, to name a few.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
These days you'll find the place filled with up and
coming local jazz talent, as well as contemporary blues and
jazz stars, all kept warm by the sonic fires soaking
up the history and minor sevens and flat nines that
this space is absorbed for nearly eighty years. The Willis
(11:44):
Show Bar sits in the historic cast corridor. A neon
sign hanging above the industrial door invites you in to
what is not immediately obvious, but if you sold drawn
and passed through the velvety curtains that separate the entrance
from the rest of the lounge, it is to step
back in time. You lay your eyes, adjust to the warm,
dim lighting and flickering candles. The original Willis opened in
(12:06):
nineteen forty nine and for thirty years was a music
spot in burlesque Joint. It closed, like so many other
venues in.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
The late nineteen seventies. Well.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
This closure was due to rumors of prostitution running out
of the back, though in the early eighties the owners
of a floral shop named Blossoms and Detroit bought it
and kept it from demolition until twenty fifteen, when Sean Patrick,
an entrepreneur visiting from La fell in Love. A full
set of renovations were done, staying true to its original
glamour and vibe, guided in loving obsessive detail by old
(12:37):
photographs of the original Willis. There are no windows to
interrupt the sound in the mood, leather seating and a
dark sleek wood all pointing you towards the bar, which
is good because the stage is behind the bar. In
true throwback style, you'll find DJs, Detroit's finest jazz, R
and B soul, in motown bands and burlesque dancers on
(12:58):
any given night of the week. It is a fantastic
listening room. The present owner spared no expense, took great
pains to have a venue with impeccable sound for the
audience and the performer. And if you were lonely, there
are people here. They are dressed up and they are
quietly enjoying classic craft cocktails in the low lit intimacy
of the room. In a city that loves music, you
(13:21):
can catch touring acts and excellent local musicians. But it's busy,
so call ahead to reserve a table and make sure
you look sharp. You don't want people knowing you from
out of town. Detroit is massive, one hundred and thirty
(13:42):
nine square miles the size of Manhattan, Boston and San
Francisco combined, So you need a car. And because also
it's MotorCity, people love to drive. Standing on these wide
streets at any point in the day, you are likely
to see the stuff of motorhead dreams, souped up vintage Cadillacs,
pristine Mustang's condition, linking continentals. It will only further your
(14:03):
temporal disorientation. You can feel the flow of times past
when folks end mass will cruise down to Heart Plaza
to our no cover spot. An event actually a story
about how a town can save its sound. This is
Detroit Jazz Fest now usually for a no cover spot,
it's a small room that doesn't bother with charging you five, ten, fifteen,
(14:25):
twenty dollars.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
But this is something else.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Jazz Fest is four NonStop days of the best jazz,
blues and soul music on Labor Day weekend. It is
in fact the largest free jazz festival in the world
and resolutely, unabashedly jazz, making it the best no cover
spot in Detroit. You won't catch the algorithm's favorite pop
star of the week trying to sneak in here by
covering something of Frank Sinatra. It is a celebration of
(14:52):
the current practitioners of the art and attracts three hundred
and fifty thousand of the truest jazz enthusiasts.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
From around the world every year.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
The festus both provincial and international, celebrating Motor City based
artisans that continually expand Detroit jazz style, who also happened
to be international heroes like Lewis Haynes, Regina Carter, and
Kenny Garrett. In its forty year run, it was once
the Montro Detroit Jazz Festival. It was left for dead
with the rest of Detroit when the economic free fall
(15:23):
of the early aughts happened in steps Gretchen Vlad, jazz angel, philanthropist,
the heiress to the Cardhart Empire, fittingly a company known
for making the trusted gear of the working people. She
took over, underwrote most of it, brought the sponsors back,
and was adamant it should be free, because she understood
(15:43):
that there was something to lose the way we almost
lost Detroit. If we as a nation lose jazz, the
light of this genre, this great American gift to the world,
Wayne's without the oxygen of attention. So give people easy
access to it and make the vessel no cover. Detroit
(16:11):
born musician Alice Cooper once described it as such, if
you go to Los Angeles, if people are going to
see the Stooges or Alice Cooper, they go to work,
they go home, they put on their black leather jackets,
grease their hair, wet their torn Levi's, and go to
the show. In Detroit, they just come from work and
they're already in their black leather jackets and everything else.
(16:32):
Iggy Pop, MC five, Alice Cooper, Rare, Earth, Bob Seeger
All Detroit. The iconic Cream magazine started here as well.
Covering this scene, Lester Bangs, one of the world's best
rock and roll music writers, was profiling the wild, outrageousness
of the characters, electrifying Detroit rock, giving these local stars
a national name. The city was rough and ready, and
(16:55):
it had a soundtrack to match. Garage rock followed suit
launch the careers of hometown heroes like the White Stripes,
the Gorris and Sponge. The list goes on and on.
Detroit Rock City. It's not just a nickname. It's a
town built around melting faces for generations. Now now there
are multiple ways to immerse yourself in the sonic lineage
(17:16):
and get your face melted while you're in Detroit. Cliff
notes version I could send you to the ornate and
gorgeously restored Fillmore Theater to see big acts like Lil Wayne,
seven Dust or the Flaming Lips. I could also direct
you to the gothic rock haven of the Masonic Temple,
where the Stones and Grace, Jones and Rodriguez rocked out.
But we have yet another shining example of how people
(17:37):
from Detroit love Detroit and passionately spend their time and
money helping to bring it back from the brink. Detroit
local mister Jack White of the White Stripes is one
such individual. He created third Man Records in two thousand
and one as a passion project. He was just trying
to release White Stripe records on vinyl. This action evolved
into a small empire, a retail records store in the
(18:00):
front and a vinyl pressing plant in the back. Inspired
by the car factories he grew up around. It is
a candy land for the music junkie. Third Man specializes
in bringing back new releases of classic Detroit records and more,
while also pressing records for today's budding and established artists.
Live shows that third Man take place in the Blue
Room in their intimate, hard hitting shows where sets are
(18:22):
recorded straight to vinyl. There's no place like it. It
is the ultimate stop in rock city to get your
face melted. And third Man just announced a partnership with
Blue Note Records to release the three thirteen series, a
collection of music either Blue Note artists from Detroit made
or recorded here, handpicked by Blue Note President and Detroit
native Dawn was in an age where music and feel
(18:46):
like an invisible commodity. There is something so right about
holding in your hand the sweet analog joy of waves
encased in wax. There are nights when you might find
(19:11):
yourself in an underground club in Berlin at two am.
The walls, the very air itself, vibrating and pulsating from
enormous speakers wedged into the seams of concrete. Thumping music
sucks you into seismic trance with the sea of other humans,
all thanks to the hypnotic power of techno. Now, if
you say the word techno to most folks, you may
(19:31):
automatically associated with Europe and house music, and well, you're right,
but you're also wrong. Techno, as we know it was
a name and a sound born in you guessed it,
the warehouses and underground music scene of Detroit. The Cork Synthesizer,
(19:52):
the Mini mook in the tr nine oh nine all
entered electronic dance music chat in Detroit in the early
to mid nighteteen teen eighties thanks to the Belleville III.
Dwan Atkins, Derek May, and Kevin Saunderson were bored by
motown and rock and needed a new sound for their town,
for their time and their experience. They began experimenting with
(20:15):
electronic and synthetic soundscapes, making something edgier, more cool, and
detached that happened to be utterly danceable. As Derek May
famously described this, hepnotic dance blend of styles. As George
Clinton in Kraftwork got stuck in an elevator with a
synthesizer for the late nineteen eighties, it had escaped via tape,
(20:37):
the warehouse incubators to Detroit had been unleashed on the
global rave and dance scene. The whole world of electronic
music would be looking to Detroit. You can do the
same by getting your booty to Movement Fest. It's an
annual festival, a Memorial Day weekend that's been running since
two thousand and six. The whole city turns out for
(20:57):
this distinctly Detroit event, making it perfect event to build
your calendar around. It is a dance party, and it
is all love. It is a celebration of techno in
Techno's hometown, in the deep utopian sci fi afro futuristic
ideals that imbue the music. There are six stages, each
with their own flavor and character. And while there is
(21:18):
the ticket experience, there are also the after parties, the
house parties, and the warehouse parties. That keep going until
the sun comes up. Sometime in twenty eighteen, my TV
finally bloomed into life the most beautiful shot and carefully
(21:41):
framed face of Aretha Franklin standing at the podium of
the New Missionary Baptist Church in Watts It filled my screen,
It filled the living room amazing grace. Aretha's best and
biggest selling live gospel album of all time had been
shot on film over the course of two days by
the now feigned but at the time and up and
(22:03):
coming director Sidney Pollock, and somehow it was only just
now seeing the light of day. The heat of the
room in the church is palpable. The shot of her
face beautiful, glistening with sweat, poised as if at the
start of a race, slightly shy, giving her this otherworldly
glow against.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
The white back trot.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And then she opens her mouth, and what happens next
is hard to say.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Time stopped.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
I was transported from my couch into the pews next
to Mick Jagger, our mouths open in disbelief with everyone else,
as her staggering, soul quaking voice rose to sing, what
a friend we have in Jesus. The film is ninety
minutes that will absolutely rock you. It will make you
shiver and weep. It will make you happy that somehow
(22:51):
your atoms made their way to planet Earth and coalesced
into a sentient being with ears to imbibe this amazing grace.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Indeed, and that is.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Why I would propose that for the first time, the
Vatican of a city is a person, and that person
is Detroit's own daughter and music icon.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Of Wretha Franklin.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
And as luck would have it, a venue named in
her honor is actually ranked as one of the one
hundred best outdoor venues in the world, and that is
Zaretha Franklin Amphitheater on the banks of the Detroit River.
You can wave at Canada in this six thousand person
open air, recently renovated waterfront venue. This premier summer concert
(23:37):
venue has been in business since nineteen eighty four and
is brought in over one hundred and fifty thousand visitors
a year. But that's not counting all the folks who,
in long tradition set up lawn chairs outside the venue
and get their grill and drink on with an earshot,
or the boats that pull up for some water based tailgating.
The performers have their backs to the water as the
(23:58):
night descends. It is a whole scene in so very Detroit.
The list of past performers will make your eyes water,
and it hosts a wildly diverse and welcoming selection of genres,
including a listers like Aretha herself, Eric Abadou, Diana Ross,
the Temptations, Michael McDonald, George Clinton, Stevie Wonder. I could
(24:18):
go on, but instead I'll just tell you to go
on Graham Boulevard past GM's new electric vehicle factory. There
is an unassuming red brick box of a building. There's
no sign. You would only go there if you knew
(24:40):
what you were looking for. This gem is so hidden,
I'm hoping I'm not going to piss anyone off by
mentioning it. But there is a secret museum hidden there
that is a mecca for the true devotees of techno.
Exhibit three thousand is located on the first floor of
the headquarters of Record Label and collective Underground Resistance. Exhibit
three thousand is a a small gallery that documents the
(25:01):
birth and rise of techno in Detroit in careful and
loving detail. There is darkness deepness and soulfulness woven into
the computer generated beats that was distinctly of Detroit's musical
DNA in the nineteen eighties. Electronic music fans are genre
obsessive impride themselves on tracing the lineage of each subgenre. However,
(25:24):
the recently open Museum of Modern Electronic Music in Frankfurt,
Germany called itself the first techno museum in the world,
which is surprising as Exhibit three thousand has been opened
since two thousand and two. The minimization of Detroit's role
and lack of credit given to the city's musical pioneers
sent an outcry throughout the international electronic music community. A
(25:46):
lot of people had no idea that the founders of
this genre are black, and it goes back to the
reason you are creating the exhibit in the first place,
to make sure that this rich musical history is not
erased but celebrated accurately, and to make sure Detroit in
the truth wasn't once again written off and out of
history when Motown was exploding into pop culture imagination. The
(26:18):
importance of the business of this record label and the
artists it represented, the Black Americans, is hard to quantify.
It meant something. In a time when segregation divided daily life,
a black man, Barry Gordy, started a black owned music
label that featured predominantly black artists, rocketing a style of
music drenched in blackness to the top of the charts.
(26:40):
It was indescribably important. The music of Motown reflected hope
in the darkness of times, and that vibe resonated and
transcended racial and social boundaries that had felt all but
written in stone. It is and was a gift to America.
So this time to prep for your trip, I'm not
going to give you content to consume or a book
(27:02):
to read. I'm telling you to get to Detroit and
before or after that first stop, head to Hitsville, USA
itself also known as the Motown Museum. It just underwent
the multimillion dollar expansion. And when you visit, you are
going to the original headquarters of Motown, into the original studio,
a where the songwriters, producers, musicians, and vocalists piled in
(27:24):
together to work on a dream of being a hit machine.
It's important to know that dreams do come true. And
Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, the Temptations, and Marvin Gay are
a few legacies to attest to that you never know
some of that good energy might.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Just rub off on you.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
In exhibit three thousand, there is a painting on the
wall named Detroit Babylon by local artist ron Zacren.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It looks as if it were a relic.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Pulled from the wreckage of some ancient, un known technocracy.
A gray hued human cyborg stands in the foreground. In
the distance, a vast cities stretches out in the shadows
of two nuclear reactors. Only this time, the nuclear reactors
are powered by a pair of rollin eto eights, an
homage to the partial meltdown where we almost lost Detroit. However,
(28:18):
in this version, the music is in control. It is
the music that keeps the lights on and sends electricity
and heat to the core, one that does not destroy
or creates. The Detroit of today is bruised, but not broken.
It has problems. It has been nearly redlined into oblivion,
and rampant discrimination in the real estate and banking industries
has made it literally impossible for local people to get
(28:40):
loans to buy houses and open businesses.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
But there are people like.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
The Greening of Detroit who are turning abandoned housing lots
into gardens. There are good people fighting to change with
the culture of housing and lending so that all the
local people can be a part of the future of
this city. Though the population declined, people are here and
more are coming. There are our better housing options for
cheaper Here. You can own a home. There's a stable
mayor who is trying to address the problems. You can
(29:06):
take a risk, you can hustle harder. Detroit is a
city of creators, and to top it off, Detroit is
as fun as hell. The nightlife and the music is amazing.
In this post pandemic era, we are seeing venues vanished
like meteorites in the sky. Where the arts are so
anemically supported by our own government, we stand to lose
so much. The essence of music is the rawness of
(29:29):
humanity rubbing against itself, the joy of the pain and
struggle expressed in the most ancient of ways. Music venues
are the grounding locations of this friction. They are historical
and cultural sites whose value goes way beyond the simplicity
of commerce. When these venues fold and are paved for
atm chiosks and high rise buildings, no one can afford
(29:52):
to live in We anesthetize our experience. We almost lose Detroit,
We almost lose our soulf. Else and one more thing.
It's a little funny how the past can talk to
the future. Let me try my Latin here speramus meliora
(30:15):
resurgent snibus. It translates into we hope for better things.
It shall arise from the ashes. That's not a quote
I stole from a Starbucks cup. This is the Latin
motto for Detroit, written in eighteen o five. After a
fire swept through and decimated the city that year, a
(30:37):
bucket brigade of six hundred residents valiantly tried to save
their own town, but failed. Every building was leveled to
smoldering ash, and the city is now once again rising
from the ashes, and those that remain sustained the culture
in a way only a lifetime in the trenches can do.
There's a little grocery store and cafe run by a
long time Detroit native DJ and storyteller and DeLisi. There's
(31:00):
one of the many who recently took over the Sprout House,
a natural food market and cafe in Detroit that's been
running for forty years. Selling food in Detroit is practically
punk rock activism. Detroit is a food desert, sorry, a
food apartheid, as I was recently corrected. A desert would
imply that this is a naturally occurring phenomena. But this
issue is entirely man made. Because the banks and insurers
(31:22):
won't lend in Detroit. There are hardly any grocery stores
in a city of seven hundred thousand. An entire generation
of kids think you can buy dinner at the gas station.
It's yet another way we've almost lost Detroit and been
doing so ourselves. Rising from the Ashes is not just
about the music. It's about the people keeping the shelves
stalked in hot plates, waiting. And if we're waiting for
(31:45):
the last person in Detroit to turn out the lights,
I bet against every odd that we'll be waiting for
a long time.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Well we did it.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Episode five, Season two, Detroit, Michigan. Thank you to everyone
who has followed this show, and an extra special thanks
to those that have reviewed it. The algorithm gods are
watching this little show about big sounds, and every follow
and review gets us to another town. Dm me if
you have any questions or further suggestions.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Let me know how we're doing. What you want to hear.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
You can hit me up on Instagram at Will Daily
Official or just search Will Daily, d Ai, l e
Y anywhere on your favorite platforms. Sound of Our Town
is a production of Double Elvis and iHeartRadio. You can
also hit us up on ig at Double Elvis and
Twitter at Double Elvis FM. The show is executively produced
by Jake Brennan and Brady Sadler for Double Elvis Production
(32:41):
assistants by Matt Bowden. The show is created, written, hosted,
and scored by me Will Daily. This episode's head writer
is Samantha Ferrell. Remember that name and a special thank
you to and Delasi catch your longtime show on wdet
and Detroit on the weekends from eleven to two and
Alan Penemin City Planner, Urbanist, and Man about Town. Music
(33:04):
for this episode was composed and performed by me Will Daily.
You can check out my music on Spotify, Apple Bandcamp,
or wherever you get sonics. You can also go to
Will Daily dot com.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
We're not even halfway through this season.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
We're off to the next Town episode six in two weeks.
I'll see you out there and thank you for your ears,
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