Detroit’s Most Famous Pop Music Sites
Over the past 60 years, Detroit’s popular music has been heard around the world thanks to the huge success of a handful of labels, bands, and solo artists. Though many of its great venues and places of significance have since been lost or abandoned, there is still plenty for fans of Motown, Eminem, Jack White and more to visit, from concert halls and clubs to studios and houses.
1. Motown Museum
Building, Museum
2. Motown Mansion
Building
The success of Motown was such that Berry Gordy was able to move into this amazing estate in the historic Boston-Edison District in the late 1960s. He lived there with Diana Ross, lead singer of The Supremes, in the years before he relocated the business to L.A. The Motown Mansion, as it is still known, was built in 1917 in an Italian Renaissance style.
3. Saint Andrew’s Hall
Music Venue
5. Cobo Arena
Music Venue
Though Cobo Arena (more famously known as Cobo Hall) stopped hosting concerts in 2009, its legacy for putting on some of the greatest shows in Detroit history remains. Kiss recorded part of their seminal live album Alive! there in 1975, as did local Bob Seger with the live album Live Bullet. Aretha Franklin played a momentous homecoming show there too, famously attended by Martin Luther King Jr.
6. The Grande Ballroom
Music Venue
Although it’s been closed for more than 40 years, you can still visit the remains of the Grande Ballroom, which was a focal point of Detroit’s counterculture in the late 1960s. In its peak years, it played host to heavyweights such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Cream, and The Who.
7. Jack White’s childhood home
Building
One of the city’s favorite musical sons (even after he moved to Nashville), John Anthony Gillis, a.k.a. Jack White, famously grew up in southwest Detroit as the youngest of 10 children. His childhood home on Howard Street has become a site to visit for music fans since being featured in Jim Jarmusch’s 2013 vampire film Only Lovers Left Alive. The house itself is at 4828 Howard St.
8. The Majestic
Music Venue
9. The Gold Dollar
Music Venue
Another staple of the garage rock scene was the Gold Dollar, which has been abandoned since 2001 but still stands at 3129 Cass Ave. Third Man Records recently released a limited edition vinyl of a White Stripes gig celebrating the release of their third album, White Blood Cells, recorded there shortly before it closed.
10. Rustbelt Studios
Building
Located in Royal Oak, a wide range of artists have recorded at Rustbelt Studios since it opened in the 1990s, but it’s primarily associated with Michigan’s Kid Rock. Founder and producer Al Sutton had worked with Rock on the majority of his albums since featuring him on a Detroit Rust City compilation in 1996. The studio is located at 118 E 7th St.
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