This is the first-ever historical study across all musical genres in any American metropolis. Detroit in the 1940s-60s was not just "the capital of the twentieth century" for industry and the war effort, but also for the quantity and extremely high quality of its musicians, from jazz to classical to ethnic. The author, a Detroiter from 1943, begins with a reflection of his early life with his family and others, then weaves through the music traffic of all the sectors of a dynamic and volatile city. Looking first at the crucial role of the public schools in fostering talent, Motor City Music surveys the neighborhoods of older European immigrants and of the later huge waves of black and white southerners who migrated to Detroit to serve the auto and defense industries. Jazz stars, polka band leaders, Jewish violinists, and figures like Lily Tomlin emerge in the spotlight. Shaping institutions, from the Ford Motor Company and the United Auto Workers through radio stations and Motown, all deployed music to bring together a city rent by relentless segregation, policing, and spasms of violence. The voices of Detroit's poets, writers, and artists round out the chorus.

Detroit is famous for its cars and its music. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Motor City fans experienced a golden age of rock and roll. Rock was the defiant voice of the boomer generation. The 1960s and the 1970s were turbulent decades. Blacks and women asserted themselves, breaking down the establishment. Rock music, and the spirit and events that defined it, advanced these interests. The war in Vietnam brought tension and national conflict. Drugs and a sexual revolution, made possible by the introduction of the birth control pill, added to the volatile mix. Woodstock, May Day protests, and the resignation of Pres. Richard Nixon were just a few of the upheavals that made these decades two of the most important in the nation's history. Motor City Rock and Roll: The 1960s and 1970s features 200 images, capturing local musicians who started in Detroit and then traveled the world, as well as world-famous acts who came to the city to perform. Intimate stories of musicians, bands, and other members of the rock community make this history a must for dedicated fans.

Acid Detroit tells the story of Motor City through its revolutionary music past and present, in order to find the seeds of radical transformation among its ruins. Acid Detroit is an exhilarating, technicolour view of Detroit’s musical and social history from the 1960s to the present day. Redefining the counterculture as a time of Acid Communism, Acid Detroit diverges from most books on the Sixties, which centre on California, to show that Detroit was an unequalled hotbed of radical activism, urban unrest and sonic innovation. Considering Detroit's unique mix of people and cultures and enduring sonic legacies, it covers everything from incendiary garage rock, to European-influenced techno and experimental hip-hop crews, intertwining the artist’s lives and works with the city’s rise and decline, from its establishment as an industrial powerhouse to the high point of Motor City, into its decline and tentative rebirth. A mind-expanding tour through time and space that explores the lost possibilities, histories and hidden potentials of the city, Acid Detroit reveals a history of resilience and transformation hidden in the shadows of the abandoned factories and warehouses of the Motor City.

Back before there were iPods and smartphones, before the consolidation that homogenized and depersonalized radio, broadcasting was about intimate relationships between the announcers and their listeners. The DJs kept us company, answered our phone calls and dispensed advice and wisdom along with the music that became the soundtrack of our lives.Every market had it's unique broadcast identity. Stations fought for market share. The music was carefully selected to reflect the brand. And air talent was at the center of it all.Within the pages of Motor City Music, we learn the Keener story along with every WKNR Music Guide ever published and key headlines from every year that WKNR was on the air. For those who grew up in the 60s, it's a time capsule of memories, from an era when every season was Keener season.

Fictional account of the automobile industry and Detroit in the early 1950s.

Willie Bledsoe, only in his twenties, is totally burned out. After leaving behind a snug berth at Tuskegee Institute to join the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Detroit to try to change the world, Willie quickly grows disenchanted and returns home to Alabama to try to come to grips about his time in the cultural whirlwind. But the surprise return of his Vietnam veteran brother in the spring of 1967 gives him a chance to drive a load of stolen guns back up to the Motor City, which would give him enough money to jump-start his dream of moving to New York. There, on the opening day of the 1968 baseball season—postponed two days in deference to the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr.—Willie learns some terrifying news: the Detroit police are still investigating the last unsolved murder from the bloody, apocalyptic race riot of the previous summer, and a Detroit cop named Frank Doyle will not rest until the case is solved. And Willie is his prime suspect. Bill Morris' rich and thrilling new novel sets Doyle's hunt against the tumultuous history of one of America's most fascinating cities, as Doyle and Willie struggle with disillusionment, revenge, and forgiveness—and the realization that justice is rarely attainable, and rarely just.

The richness of Detroit’s music history has by now been well established. We know all about Motown, the MC5, and Iggy and the Stooges. We also know about the important part the Motor City has played in the history of jazz. But there are stories about the music of Detroit that remain untold. One of the lesser known but nonetheless fascinating histories is contained within Detroit’s country music roots. At last, Craig Maki and Keith Cady bring to light Detroit’s most important country and western and bluegrass stars, such as Chief Redbird, the York Brothers, and Roy Hall. Beyond the individuals, Maki and Cady also map out the labels, radio programs, and performance venues that sustained Detroit’s vibrant country and bluegrass music scene. In the process, Detroit Country Music examines how and why the city’s growth in the early twentieth century, particularly the southern migration tied to the auto industry, led to this vibrant roots music scene. This is the first book—the first resource of any kind—to tell the story of Detroit’s contributions to country music. Craig Maki and Keith Cady have spent two decades collecting music and images, and visiting veteran musicians to amass more than seventy interviews about country music in Detroit. Just as astounding as the book’s revelations are the photographs, most of which have never been published before. Detroit Country Musicwill be essential reading for music historians, record collectors, roots music fans, and Detroit music aficionados.