When Detroit is brought up in the context of music, the first thought that springs to mind of many people is the Motown sound; the soul of Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, and the Supremes.

The second thing that comes to mind (and the first for many hard rock fans) is the sound of Detroit rock, a largely aggressive and energetic heartland style of rock that had influence over the mainstream in the late 60's to mid 70's. It also gave rise to a fertile punk movement.

At its heart, Detroit rock was basic, hard rocking, working class, and sweaty. It could be gritty and dirty, or piledriving and boogieing.

It was the music that also accompanied the rapid and painful decline of Detroit as a sophisticated middle class city, 4th largest in the nation in 1960, to a hollowed out shell of its former self, its population nearly halved. It extended to the industrial city of Flint (profiled by Michael Moore in Roger and Me) and Ann Arbor, a campus with a thriving rock scene supported by students of the University of Michigan. In Detroit, the most famed venue was The Grande Ballroom.

The Grande Ballroom today

Detroit rock literally bubbled up from garages, as befits the Motor City; the mid 60's saw a sizeable number of rough punky garage bands crop up in the region. The Amboy Dukes (featuring Ted Nugent) and ? and the Mysterians scored national hits in the mid to late 60's with psychedelic garage classics. Other 60's Detroit bands borrowed some soul from Motown, including Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and the Rationals who incorporated it into tough, 50's influenced hard rock. Bob Seger came to represent the blue collar Detroit everyman; a midwestern Bruce Springsteen in many ways. Working his way up from a garage band in the 60's to stardom in the 70's, he represented a glimmer of hope to a generation who no longer had the employment options their parents did.

In fact, as Detroit the city approached crisis in the early to mid 70's, the rock scene reached its zenith. Names from the era, besides Seger, included the solo Ted Nugent, the radical MC5, the massively influential Stooges, the massively successful Grand Funk Railroad, the theatrical Alice Cooper, the hard rock Brownsville Station; all are names that still enjoy currency.