Music of Detroit
, Michigan, is a major center in the United States for the creation and performance of music, and is best known for three developments: Motown, early punk rock, and techno.
The Metro Detroit area has a musical history spanning the past century, beginning with the revival of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1914. The major genres represented in Detroit's music include classical, blues, jazz, gospel, R&B, rock, pop, punk, soul, electronic music, and hip-hop. The greater Detroit area has been the birthplace and/or primary venue for numerous platinum-selling artists, whose total album sales, according to one estimate, had surpassed 40 million units by 2000. The success of Detroit-based rappers quadrupled that figure in the first decade of the 2000s.
Historical background
The Detroit area's diverse population includes residents of European, Middle Eastern, Latino, Asian and African descent, with each group adding its musical traditions.The African-American population in particular contributed greatly to the musical legacy of Detroit in almost all genres. During the 1930s and 1940s, the near-east side neighborhoods known as Black Bottom and Paradise Valley became a major entertainment district, drawing nationally known blues singers, big bands, and jazz artists – such as Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstine, Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie.
During the 1940s, many of the same jazz acts also performed nearby at Orchestra Hall, which had been renamed the Paradise Theatre in honor of the Paradise Valley district. Eventually urban renewal projects during the late 1950s and early 1960s demolished Black Bottom and replaced it with a freeway and the neighborhood centered on Lafayette Park,. As Black Bottom was disappearing, the nascent Motown label was beginning to build an eventual empire on West Grand Boulevard. From the 1960s on, the nightclubs and music venues in Detroit could be found dispersed throughout the city and catering to all genres; from jazz at Baker's Keyboard Lounge on the northern border of the city, to rock and roll at the Grande Ballroom on the west side.
Blues
The genesis of blues music in Detroit occurred as a result of the first wave of the Great Migration of African Americans from the Deep South. In the 1920s, Detroit was home to a number of pianists who performed in the clubs of Black Bottom and played in the boogie-woogie style, such as Speckled Red, Charlie Spand, William Ezell, and most prominently, Big Maceo Merriweather. As Detroit had no established recording scene at the time, all of these players eventually migrated to Chicago to record for various labels. Spand reminisced about his time in Detroit while playing on the 1929 Blind Blake single, "Hastings Street".During the 1920s, Detroit was also host to most of the notable singers of the classic female blues, including "The Queen of the Blues" Mamie Smith, "The Mother of the Blues" Ma Rainey, "The Empress of the Blues" Bessie Smith, "The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues" Ida Cox, "The Queen of the Moaners" Clara Smith, "The Famous Moanin' Mama" Sara Martin, and Ethel Waters. Most of these performers visited Detroit on tour as part of the Theatre Owners Booking Association circuit, playing primarily at the Koppin Theatre on the southern edge of Paradise Valley. The Koppin was the premier venue for Detroit's black musical community throughout the 1920s. It ceased operation in 1931, a casualty of the Great Depression. The decade of the 1930s saw a dearth of blues music in Detroit, which did not see a resurgence until the second wave of the Great Migration hit during the 1940s, bringing musicians such as John Lee Hooker to Detroit to work in the factories of the Arsenal of Democracy.
These artists brought with them a style of blues music rooted in the Mississippi Delta region. Though not strictly a Delta blues musician, Hooker was born in the epicenter of the tradition, in Clarksdale, and migrated to Detroit in 1943. He scored an early hit with his first single, "Boogie Chillen", and began a long career that made him the most prominent and successful of the Detroit blues players of the post-war period, as well as the most-recorded, with over 500 tracks to his credit. Teaming up with Hooker in the late 1940s was the guitarist and harmonica player Eddie "Guitar" Burns, who played on several Hooker tracks and performed regularly on the Detroit blues scene. Another sideman of Hooker was Eddie Kirkland, who played second guitar for him in Detroit and on tour from 1949 to 1962, and later went on to a long solo career.
Other notable musicians on the 1950s blues scene were the singers Alberta Adams and singer/guitarists Doctor Ross, Baby Boy Warren, Johnnie Bassett, Sylvester Cotton, Andrew Dunham, Calvin Frazier, Mr. Bo, John Brim and Louisiana Red; percussionist Washboard Willie; harmonica players Big John Wrencher, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Little Sonny, and Grace Brim ; and pianists Joe Weaver and Boogie Woogie Red. Also of note were singer Johnnie Mae Matthews and singer/guitarist Bobo Jenkins, both of whom started their own labels, Northern Records and Big Star Records, respectively.
It was the emergence of local record labels in Detroit in the 1940s and 1950s which helped the blues scene to flourish, compared to the 1920s, when blues artists generally emigrated to Chicago to record their music. Some small labels, including Staff, Holiday, Modern, and Prize Records, only existed for a brief time, while other labels experienced greater success. The most prominent of the Detroit-based labels from this era was Fortune Records, and its subsidiary labels Hi-Q, Strate 8 and Blue Star, which ran from 1948 to 1970. Fortune released hundreds of recordings in many genres, including tracks by Hooker, Kirkland, Jenkins, Dr. Ross and Maceo Merriweather.
Another important Detroit label from the period was Sensation Records, started by John Kaplan and Bernard Besman. In 1948, Besman recorded Hooker's "Boogie Chillen" and ran the artistic side of the label until its demise in 1952. Local entrepreneur Joe Von Battle was another key figure on the blues scene; in the back of his record shop on Hastings Street he recorded a number of blues acts that appeared on his JVB and Von record labels.
The entertainment districts of Hastings Street and Paradise Valley were razed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the victims of urban renewal programs. This loss of music venues, along with the rise of Motown in Detroit and the popularity of rock and roll, led to the eventual demise of the Detroit blues scene in the late 1960s. Many Detroit-based musicians pursued their careers on tour elsewhere in the world, leaving only a few noteworthy artists to carry on the tradition. Among them were The Butler Twins, Clarence and Curtis, who emigrated to Detroit from Alabama in 1961, joining a long list of blues forebears who came to work in the automotive industry. Another transplant was the former classic female blues singer, Sippie Wallace, who had moved to Detroit in 1929, but did not resume her blues singing career until 1966.
In the wake of the 1967 Detroit riot the local blues scene nearly died out, being salvaged only through the help of Mississippi Delta native Uncle Jessie White, pianist and harmonica player, who hosted weekend-long blues jams at his house for the next four years. In 1973, the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival put on a "Music of Detroit" showcase, featuring a number of the older generation of blues artists, such as John Lee Hooker, Dr. Ross, Baby Boy Warren, Mr. Bo, Johnnie Mae Matthews, Eddie Burns, Bobo Jenkins, and Boogie Woogie Red. Shortly thereafter, the Chicago bluesman Willie D. Warren moved to Detroit, and spent the rest of his life performing on the blues scene in and around the city. Another transplant from Chicago in the 1970s was Johnny "Yard Dog" Jones, who played in Detroit for the next four decades. Jones became part of a strong tradition of Detroit harp players, including Harmonica Shah, who also came on the scene in the 1970s.
In the late 1980s, one of the most prominent Detroit blues players was Jim McCarty. After successful stints with the Buddy Miles Express and the rock bands Cactus and The Rockets, McCarty joined the Detroit Blues Band, with whom he cut two records in the 1990s, after which he formed his own blues band, Mystery Train. Another artist to appear in the late 1980s was the blues singer and Detroit native Thornetta Davis, who cut her first solo album in 1996. Davis has won numerous local awards as a blues artist and vocalist, and continued to perform locally and nationally.
The late 1990s saw the emergence of The White Stripes, led by guitarist and Detroit native Jack White. Although ostensibly a garage rock band, a significant amount of their material consisted of blues cover songs, and the band is considered a proponent of the punk blues and blues rock genres.
In March 2016, blues singer and guitarist Laith Al-Saadi was chosen to be a contestant on the musical competition series The Voice, and after impressing the judges with a version of The Box Tops' song "The Letter", Blake Shelton and Adam Levine both turned their chairs for his performance. Al-Saadi gained nationwide recognition after he won a spot in the finale.
Country
Detroit also has a small community of country music artists. Some metro Detroit country artists that had minor to major success and/or critical acclaim include: Whitey Morgan and the 78's, Jana Kramer, Pete Anderson, Doop and the Inside Outlaws, The War and Treaty, Julianne, Bill Kirchen, Josh Gracin, Redhill, Dan Schafer, Blanche, and The Orbitsuns.Gospel
Detroit has produced some of the most famous gospel singers in past decades. In the 1940s, Oliver Green formed The Detroiters, who became one of the most popular Gospel groups of their era. In the 1950s, Laura Lee and a young Della Reese began their long and distinguished careers coming out of the Meditations Singers, indisputably the premier Detroit-based, female gospel group of that era. Theirs was the first Motor City act to introduce instrumental backing to traditional a cappella vocals. Della joined the ranks of the gospel elite in Detroit, while Mattie Moss Clark is believed to be the first to introduce three part harmony into gospel choral music.In the 1960s, the Reverend CL Franklin found success with his recorded sermons on Chess Record's gospel label and with an album of spirituals recorded at his New Bethel Baptist Church included the debut of his young daughter, Grammy Award winner Aretha Franklin.
In the 1980s, the Winans dynasty produced Grammy winners Cece and BeBe Winans. Other notable gospel acts include J Moss, Bill Moss, Jr., The Clark Sisters, Rance Allen Group, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Thomas Whitfield, Byron Cage and Fred Hammond.