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In the history of popular music, some cities play a more significant role than others. New York and Los Angeles, by virtue of size, location, and proximity to the music industry, figure larger than anyplace else. In the midst of the British Invasion, London achieved a similar status. Nashville, too, carved out a special place, due to the fact that Country music's writers, performers, and most significant institutions settled there. New Orleans and Memphis, of course, are places with deep history that loom large. But out there in middle America are cities of real significance to the Rock and Roll story. Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit are among them. Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin recounted the band's manager, Peter Grant, saying, ""If you blow it in Cleveland, you're finished. Don't even start." The heartland, for bands like Zeppelin, was a testing ground.
In this chapter, Detroit is singled out as a case study. Lessons will explore Detroit from a number of angles. The protagonists are diverse: John Lee Hooker, Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder, Berry Gordy, the Stooges, the MC5. In the age before the Internet, cities like Detroit could establish a regional identity that had its own logics. Artists could be stars in their region and almost unknown elsewhere, because radio and press were more regionalized. Bob Seger broke out as a major regional act well before he extended that reach with "Night Moves" and other national and international hits. Everything you needed was there at home, and every act that seemed to matter would come through.
A destination for African Americans coming north during the Great Migration, Detroit had a rich black culture that informed its Blues, R&B, and Soul offerings. And the quality of that music affected the white performers, from Mitch Ryder to Iggy Pop. The lessons coming in the second phase of this project will look at years in which a rich cross-cultural dialogue took place through music, with Motown Records, "The Sound of Young America," serving as a kind of emblem of what was possible. But they also look at the current status of the so-called "Rust Belt." So many years later, with the American auto industry largely gone, Detroit suffers. The city's music, whether that of the White Stripes or Eminem, has carried on, but never as it did in the golden age of the city's musical life.
lesson:
The Sound of Blue Collar Detroit
How did Rock and Roll serve as an expressive tool for the working-class youth of Detroit?
lesson:
Assembling Hits at Motown
How did Motown Records in Detroit operate during the 1960s?
Video
video:
Detroit: City on the Move
<p>In the history of popular music, some cities play a more significant role than others. New York and Los Angeles, by virtue of size, location, and proximity to the music industry, figure larger than anyplace else. In the midst of the British Invasion, London achieved a similar status. Nashville, too, carved out a special place, due to the fact that Country music's writers, performers, and most significant institutions settled there. New Orleans and Memphis, of course, are places with deep history that loom large. But out there in middle America are cities of real significance to the Rock and Roll story. Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit are among them. Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin recounted the band's manager, Peter Grant, saying, ""If you blow it in Cleveland, you're finished. Don't even start." The heartland, for bands like Zeppelin, was a testing ground.</p> <p>In this chapter, Detroit is singled out as a case study. Lessons will explore Detroit from a number of angles. The protagonists are diverse: John Lee Hooker, Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder, Berry Gordy, the Stooges, the MC5. In the age before the Internet, cities like Detroit could establish a regional identity that had its own logics. Artists could be stars in their region and almost unknown elsewhere, because radio and press were more regionalized. Bob Seger broke out as a major regional act well before he extended that reach with "Night Moves" and other national and international hits. Everything you needed was there at home, and every act that seemed to matter would come through.</p> <p>A destination for African Americans coming north during the Great Migration, Detroit had a rich black culture that informed its Blues, R&B, and Soul offerings. And the quality of that music affected the white performers, from Mitch Ryder to Iggy Pop. The lessons coming in the second phase of this project will look at years in which a rich cross-cultural dialogue took place through music, with Motown Records, "The Sound of Young America," serving as a kind of emblem of what was possible. But they also look at the current status of the so-called "Rust Belt." So many years later, with the American auto industry largely gone, Detroit suffers. The city's music, whether that of the White Stripes or Eminem, has carried on, but never as it did in the golden age of the city's musical life.</p>
video:
The Birth of Motown
<p>In the history of popular music, some cities play a more significant role than others. New York and Los Angeles, by virtue of size, location, and proximity to the music industry, figure larger than anyplace else. In the midst of the British Invasion, London achieved a similar status. Nashville, too, carved out a special place, due to the fact that Country music's writers, performers, and most significant institutions settled there. New Orleans and Memphis, of course, are places with deep history that loom large. But out there in middle America are cities of real significance to the Rock and Roll story. Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit are among them. Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin recounted the band's manager, Peter Grant, saying, ""If you blow it in Cleveland, you're finished. Don't even start." The heartland, for bands like Zeppelin, was a testing ground.</p> <p>In this chapter, Detroit is singled out as a case study. Lessons will explore Detroit from a number of angles. The protagonists are diverse: John Lee Hooker, Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder, Berry Gordy, the Stooges, the MC5. In the age before the Internet, cities like Detroit could establish a regional identity that had its own logics. Artists could be stars in their region and almost unknown elsewhere, because radio and press were more regionalized. Bob Seger broke out as a major regional act well before he extended that reach with "Night Moves" and other national and international hits. Everything you needed was there at home, and every act that seemed to matter would come through.</p> <p>A destination for African Americans coming north during the Great Migration, Detroit had a rich black culture that informed its Blues, R&B, and Soul offerings. And the quality of that music affected the white performers, from Mitch Ryder to Iggy Pop. The lessons coming in the second phase of this project will look at years in which a rich cross-cultural dialogue took place through music, with Motown Records, "The Sound of Young America," serving as a kind of emblem of what was possible. But they also look at the current status of the so-called "Rust Belt." So many years later, with the American auto industry largely gone, Detroit suffers. The city's music, whether that of the White Stripes or Eminem, has carried on, but never as it did in the golden age of the city's musical life.</p>
video:
Kick Out the Jams
<p>In the history of popular music, some cities play a more significant role than others. New York and Los Angeles, by virtue of size, location, and proximity to the music industry, figure larger than anyplace else. In the midst of the British Invasion, London achieved a similar status. Nashville, too, carved out a special place, due to the fact that Country music's writers, performers, and most significant institutions settled there. New Orleans and Memphis, of course, are places with deep history that loom large. But out there in middle America are cities of real significance to the Rock and Roll story. Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit are among them. Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin recounted the band's manager, Peter Grant, saying, ""If you blow it in Cleveland, you're finished. Don't even start." The heartland, for bands like Zeppelin, was a testing ground.</p> <p>In this chapter, Detroit is singled out as a case study. Lessons will explore Detroit from a number of angles. The protagonists are diverse: John Lee Hooker, Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder, Berry Gordy, the Stooges, the MC5. In the age before the Internet, cities like Detroit could establish a regional identity that had its own logics. Artists could be stars in their region and almost unknown elsewhere, because radio and press were more regionalized. Bob Seger broke out as a major regional act well before he extended that reach with "Night Moves" and other national and international hits. Everything you needed was there at home, and every act that seemed to matter would come through.</p> <p>A destination for African Americans coming north during the Great Migration, Detroit had a rich black culture that informed its Blues, R&B, and Soul offerings. And the quality of that music affected the white performers, from Mitch Ryder to Iggy Pop. The lessons coming in the second phase of this project will look at years in which a rich cross-cultural dialogue took place through music, with Motown Records, "The Sound of Young America," serving as a kind of emblem of what was possible. But they also look at the current status of the so-called "Rust Belt." So many years later, with the American auto industry largely gone, Detroit suffers. The city's music, whether that of the White Stripes or Eminem, has carried on, but never as it did in the golden age of the city's musical life.</p>
Print Journalism
article:
The Stooges: The Apotheosis Of Every Parental Nightmare
THE BIGGEST TREND on the rock circuit this year is decadence. Go to any concert, and you'll be amazed at the sudden change in American youth, who are now as far from last year's organic coveralls and bushy hanks of hair as they are from the madras shirts and slacks of 1963; teenagers of both sexes are piling on clots of make-up and swaddling themselves in flashily indeterminate glad rags. Boys with rouge and glitter on their eyelids, girls with the stark white faces and rinsed-out blonde hair of the Marilyn Monroe look they picked up from the drag queens...
article:
Detroit ’77: Seger’s Open For Business
DETROIT– Pontiac Stadium is bigger than the Houston Astrodome. When they have football games here, they seat 80,000. When the Who played this joint, they sold between 76-78,000 tickets. Aerosmith, with the aid of Ted Nugent and Foghat, did 74,000. Bob Seger didn't sell out Pontiac Stadium, but he did move 65,000 tickets, forget seats, it's festival seating, in other words squat and bear it. Even if this place is, as the scoreboard kept reminding us, "The world's largest enclosed structure," with "The world's biggest sound system." I've seen Bob Seger open for "heavies" at Cobo Hall, I've seen him headline...