For All The Bad Mama Jamas

Born in Detroit’s Black Bottom neighborhood in 1952, Carl Carlton spent his childhood in a city that was on the verge of a new musical revolution.  When Motown was founded in 1959, the signature “Motown sound” soon became a model for what everyone aspired to sound like.  Carl Carlton began singing and recording in the Read More

Smooth Soul Vibrations

Eric and the Vikings added soulful flavor to the Detroit music scene via Soulhawk records in the late 1960s and 1970s.  The Soulhawk label was owned and operated by Richard “Popcorn” Wylie, who had been influential with Motown from the beginning and now operated as a producer, songwriter, and supporter of Northern Soul.  Members Eryke Read More

We Love The Contours

Originally formed in Detroit in 1958, The Contours started out as a quartet consisting of lead singer Billy Gordon, Billy Hogg, Joe Billingslea and Sylvester Potts.  Their original name was The Blenders, but after the addition of guitarist Huey Davis and Hubert Johnson (cousin of Jackie Wilson), they became The Contours and auditioned with Berry Read More

Having Big Fun on the Dance Floor with Inner City

Throwback Thursday on our site honors the originators and innovators who paved the way for other contemporary Detroit artists to explore their sound and vision, and thanks to true visionaries like Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson, Detroit has a signature techno sound that has reverberated throughout the music world.  Kevin Saunderson met his Read More

The Just Brothers Give Us Northern Soul

Jimmy and Frank Bryant were two brothers from Detroit who worked as session musicians and created a dance-floor hit so groovy, it has been sampled over the years by the likes of British DJ hit-maker Norman Cook (known by most as Fatboy Slim) to create an iconic Northern Soul sound that people for decades have Read More

Freda Payne : Detroit Gold

Freda Payne was born in Detroit in 1942 with Motown soul in her genes — both Freda and her sister, former Supreme Scherrie Payne, were blessed with the gift of vocal prowess.  Freda Payne attended the Detroit Institute of Musical Arts when she was younger and grew up with the influence of female jazz vocalists.  Read More

Back To The 80s With Angry Red Planet

In the 1980s, in Michigan and elsewhere, the punk and hardcore music scenes were developing heavily thanks to a relentless group of bands who were forming and playing in any venue that would host their style of music. In 1981, Angry Red Planet was formed by brothers Tim and John Pakledinaz and Vince Delisi, and Read More

Bob Seger’s First Big Hit

The raspy-voiced renegade from Lincoln Park, Bob Seger, has a thousand tracks we could feature for Throwback Thursday on Detroit Sounds Like This, but we’ve chosen the first track off of his debut album for not only putting Bob Seger’s name on the map, but also for it’s energy, authenticity, and organ riffs.  The Bob Read More

A Psychedelic Classic by Tommy James and the Shondells

The 1968 sweeping psychedelic opus we’re going back to for this week’s Throwback Thursday is ‘Crimson and Clover,’ from a Michigan band who started off their careers singing snappy bubblegum hits which transitioned to influential psychedelic soul when the band took creative control over the sound of their music.  Tommy James and the Shondells are Read More

The Reflections’ Blue-Eyed Soul

There are multiple musical groups that write and perform under the name, “The Reflections,” but there is only one of those groups with Detroit roots and a catchy hit from 1964 that remains the group’s signature number when they perform to this day.  “(Just Like) Romeo & Juliet” was penned by songwriters Bob Hamilton and Read More

The Woolies Hit With A Bo Diddley Classic

In 1967, East Lansing natives The Woolies recorded a cover of the classic Bo Diddley tune, “Who Do You Love?”  This would prove to be the group’s biggest hit, and with many covers of “Who Do You Love?” out there by bands like George Thorogood and the Destroyers and Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Woolies’ version Read More

The Heavy Metal Horror Show : Halloween

When the Motor City Metal record label released Don’t Metal With Evil by Detroit band Halloween in 1985, the glam and hair metal genres were just on the verge of exploding larger than too much hairspray near an open flame.  Halloween had every quintessential element to make you love their 80s metal schtick…they had the Read More

Juan Atkins/Model 500 “No UFOs,” Original Detroit Techno

To say that Juan Atkins is an innovator in electronic music is like saying Beethoven wrote epic symphonies — it’s a hackneyed statement that becomes clearly obvious once you listen. Juan Atkins was the pioneer in an influential group of like-minded musicians (including also Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May) who dealt with the surrounding artifacts Read More

Edwin Starr’s “War” Tops The 1970 Billboard Chart

The song “War” has been through quite a battle itself — after the original Motown recording of the song by The Temptations was deemed too controversial for the group to release as a single (even after fans were writing to Motown asking for that very thing), the song was re-recorded at Hitsville USA Studio A Read More

Martha and the Vandellas – Dancing In The Street First Charts Today In 1964

Martha Reeves wore duel hats when she started at Motown records, being their secretary and also recording demos with other artists on the label. When she and her two friends Rosalind Ashford and Annette Sterling were asked to sing back-up on Marvin Gaye’s ‘Stubborn Kind of Fellow’ in 1961, the trio sang with such verve Read More

The Gories on “BandIn” Detroit

For our second edition of Throwback Thursday, we are focusing on not just a track, but an entire performance from the too often under-appreciated garage rock goodness of The Gories. Mick Collins, Peg O’Neill and Dan Kroha formed The Gories in 1986, their formula being raw and minimal, rejecting the overwrought pop & rock that Read More

Question Mark and The Mysterians “96 Tears”

? and the Mysterians had their first great success as a band when their song, “96 Tears,” was recorded in March of 1966 at Art Schiell’s recording studio in Bay City, located in the back of his house.  “96 Tears” was recorded on the back porch of Shiell’s studio and became the first mainstream hit Read More