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Detroit's Music Heritage
Overview
In the early 1900s, large
numbers of southerners flocked to Detroit for good-paying jobs in the booming automotive
industry. Due to segregation and
restrictions on buying and renting property in the City, most of these
migrants settled in a neighborhood that became known as Black Bottom, or Paradise Valley. It is here
that Detroit's music legacy began, as Jazz and Blues greats
forged the basis for future generations of musicians in Detroit, nationally, and around the world.
Jazz
 Detroit's Jazz heyday was in the 1920s, when the biggest
names in music played ballrooms and clubs on legendary Hastings Street in Paradise Valley. Jazz greats like
Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Count Basie performed
regularly at the majestic Graystone Ballroom, where Detroit's own McKinney's Cotton Pickers and the Jean Goldkette Orchestra
perfected the Big Band Jazz style.
While neither Paradise Valley nor the Graystone exist today, their legacies live
on in the spirit of Detroit's modern-day Jazz artists and in the highly
acclaimed Detroit International Jazz Festival held at Hart Plaza each Labor Day weekend.
Detroit Blues
 Like many other Paradise Valley residents, John Lee Hooker moved north from the
Mississippi Delta in the 1940s. Hooker
brought with him not only a desire for factory work, but also the foundations
of the Delta Blues. He, along with other
Detroit bluesmen such as Baby Boy Warren, Calvin Frazier,
and Bobo Jenkins transformed traditional Delta Blues with electric amplified
instruments and the infusion of a more eclectic assortment of instruments
such as the bass and piano. They
worked in factories during the day and at night performed at classic Hastings
Street clubs such as the Flame Show Bar, Three Star Bar, and Forest Club. Hooker went
on to become internationally famous and perhaps the greatest Blues performer
of all time with his unique brand of foot-stomping boogie. Despite their significant influence, Detroit's other bluesmen were less prolific due to the lack
of record labels in Detroit at the time.
Sadly, Hastings
Street is
no longer and is now buried beneath the Chrysler Freeway (I-75). However, the sounds of that era are
captured in the extensive recordings of John Lee Hooker and the rarer
performances of the other Detroit
bluesmen.
Detroit Soul & the Motown Sound
 Detroit's brand of Soul emerged in the late 1950s and early
1960s from Gospel and R&B performers such as Aretha Franklin, known as
the "Queen of Soul" and generally regarded as one of the greatest
vocalists of all time. Local
songwriter and record producer Berry Gordy, Jr. built on Aretha's early Detroit success, growing his rag tag Motown label from a
startup business to what became by the mid-70s the largest independent record
company in the world. The "Motown
Sound" was the springboard that launched the careers of dozens of famous
musicians. Visit the Motown Historical Museum for more!
Rock & Roll
 While Motown generated hit after hit of the more
innocent variety, an underground "garage band" movement was forming
in Detroit in the late 1960s.
The MC5 pioneered this movement, combining fast-paced, aggressive
guitar work with gritty and occasionally political lyrics. This new Detroit sound is credited with having inspired the punk rock
genre a decade later. Detroit greats such as Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels,
Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, and Ted
Nugent also emerged during this era.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the legendary Grande Ballroom fostered
this Detroit talent and hosted the biggest names in rock and
roll.
Techno
 In the early 1980s, three
high school friends in the Detroit suburb of Belleville experimented by mixing
disco, dance, and house music. Juan
Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson, or the "Holy Trinity" as
they became known, along with Eddie Fowlkes, are considered the founders of
Techno, the altogether new sound that emerged from this musical fusion. Techno began taking hold in the Detroit and Chicago club scenes in the late
1980s and exploded into a worldwide phenomenon when European DJs discovered
the unique combination of driving beats and digital effects. Techno is alive and well in Detroit today
and is celebrated each year during Fuse-in (formerly the Detroit Electronic
Music Festival) held at Hart Plaza
each Memorial Day Weekend.
More Information
Click on the links below to
find related pages and other information on Detroit Music:
Detroit
Music Main Page
Museums
Nightspots
Riverfront
United Sound
Systems Studio
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