If I asked you what music has come from Michigan I would expect the answer Motown. That would be right of course, but Michigan was a hotbed of music in the late 60s and early 70s. The Grapefruit record label has produced a 3 CD collection of this music, it amounts to 66 tracks of almost 4 hours of sounds to rock your soul. There are tracks from Tamla Motown, and Holland-Dozier-Holland’s own label Invictus, plus countless rockers, garage bands, punks and even some psychedelic soul.
I was amazed at the content. Alice Cooper is present as is The Stooges, Iggy Pop, MC5, Grand Funk Railroad, Frijid Pink, The Supremes, The Temptations, Freda Pain, Rodriguez, Parliament and, of course, Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels. And that only just scratches the surface.
Disk 1 starts with the classic Garage band ? And The Mysterians doing their worldwide smash 96 Tears, followed by Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels and Jenny Takes A Ride, then a whole selection of acts that I admit to not hearing before except for Tommy James and The Shondells with I’m Alive.
The Stooges open Disk 2 with 1969 a dirty rocking number that could be seen as a proto-punk track. It doesn’t sound as though it has aged at all. Then comes MC5 and Teenage Lust. The CD continues with some rockers like Brownsville Station, and the afore mentioned Alice Cooper and Grand Funk Railroad. It ends with Iggy Pop and The Stooges punking it out on I Got A Right.
The compilation is named after the The Motor City is Burning a song by John Lee Hooker, which is included on disk 3, written after the Detroit Riot of 1967. This riot was the result of a police raid on an unlicensed, after-hours bar. It evolved into one of the worst riots in US history. The rest of disk 3 is mixture of Motown from The Temptation, The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, and R. Dean Taylor all mixed in with P-funk, some Blues and R&B.
To cap it off there is a 48 page book jam packed with illustrations and information about the tracks.
If you need an introduction to the music of Michigan, go no further. If you are already familiar with the music the compilation will help relive those times.
You can hear some tracks from the collection in The Groove Yard visit 155
For a full track listing and other information go to the Cherry Red Records website.