Detroit, Michigan: Motown + the Funk Brothers + Stooges + Eminem city

Motown + the Funk Brothers

Motown Records was founded by Berry Gordy in 1959 at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, Detroit (the building Gordy nicknamed Hitsville U.S.A.). The label's house session unit, the Funk Brothers, played on the majority of Motown hits from 1959 through 1972 and is among the most-credited session units in music history. James Jamerson was the Funk Brothers' bassist; his counter-melodic + busy + harmonically advanced bass lines on Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Smokey Robinson + the Miracles, and many more define the modern soul + R&B bass tradition. The 2002 documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown brought the Funk Brothers to wider public recognition.

Motown moved its primary operations to Los Angeles in 1972, but the catalog tracked at Hitsville U.S.A. between 1959 and 1972 is one of the most commercially successful + culturally influential body of work in popular music.

Detroit techno + electronic music

Detroit is the birthplace of techno music. The Belleville Three (Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May) developed the genre in the early 1980s; the Detroit techno scene of the late 1980s + 1990s established the template for global electronic dance music. Detroit's industrial-decline backdrop (the auto-industry collapse of the late 1970s and 1980s) was the social context for techno's machine-music aesthetic.

Stooges + MC5 + the Detroit rock lineage

The MC5 (formed 1964) + the Stooges (formed 1967, Iggy Pop the frontman) defined Detroit's proto-punk + heavy-rock contribution. Both bands played the Grande Ballroom on Grand River Avenue, the canonical late-1960s Detroit rock venue. The Detroit rock lineage extends to Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper (band), the White Stripes (Jack White + Meg White, 1997), and Eminem's hip-hop crossover.

Detroit fun facts

1. James Jamerson's Fender Precision Bass nicknamed The Funk Machine was stolen days before his 1983 death; the bass has never been recovered. The Funk Brothers' bassist's most-used instrument is one of the most-mythologized lost instruments in music history.
2. Hitsville U.S.A. is now the Motown Museum, open to the public. The original recording studio + control room are preserved + visitors can stand where most of the Motown catalog was tracked.
3. Detroit has the highest historical production output of any single recording-studio building in popular music; estimates run to ~190 number-one hits + thousands of charting records tracked at Hitsville between 1959 and 1972.
4. The Belleville Three (Atkins, Saunderson, May) attended the same Belleville, Michigan, high school + developed Detroit techno from there. The genre's Detroit-suburb origin is documented in extensive electronic-music historiography.
5. The Detroit-Berlin techno bridge of the late 1980s + 1990s (Underground Resistance + Tresor records cross-pollination) is one of the most-documented international music-genre transmissions.
6. Eminem's 8 Mile (2002 film) + the actual 8 Mile Road (the boundary between Detroit + its northern suburbs) are inseparable in modern Detroit-music geography; the road is a hip-hop-history landmark.

Related on CYS

Native CYS musicians. James Jamerson (Motown / Funk Brothers historical).

Native bands. Profiles for the Stooges, the MC5, the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, the White Stripes, Eminem + D12 pending as bands roster expands.

Related locations. Los Angeles (where Motown relocated in 1972).