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Author Visit: The Birth of the Detroit Sound: 1940-1964

Mon, Sep 27
07:00 PM - 08:30 PM
Friends Auditorium

Featured Programs, Adult, Teen, Youth

Want to learn more about the history of Detroit rock ‘n’ roll? Join us on Monday, September 27 at 7:00 pm in the Friends Auditorium for an evening of music, historic photos, commentary and nostalgia as S.R. Boland, author of The Birth of the Detroit Sound: 1940-1964 (Arcadia Publishing), and Detroit News music/radio/pop culture writer Susan Whitall, author of Women of Motown (Avon), discuss Detroit’s important role in the formative years of rock ’n roll.

From the 1940s through the early 1960s, Detroit contributed its own distinctive regional character to the emerging rock ‘n’ roll music form and became a hub of industry activity. Detroit built its reputation upon a wealth of superb singers and musicians. Great talents like John Lee Hooker, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters, Jackie Wilson, Jack Scott, Andre Williams, and Nolan Strong all sprang from Detroit. Many record labels, including Fortune and Fox, also thrived in metro Detroit area in the days before Motown Records was a gleam in Berry Gordy’s eye.

S.R. Boland is a Detroit music historian and promoter who has done music publicity for Jack Scott, Nathaniel Mayer, and Gino Washington. He also was a prime catalyst in the late, great Nathaniel Mayer’s successful comeback and co-authored the liner notes for Mayer’s definitive anthology CD. He is an authority on the Fortune Records label, Detroit’s first key independent postwar record company, and plays drums in the local vintage-rock band, the Party Stompers.
Susan Whitall was one of a handful of women on staff at the brash, irreverent Creem Magazine in the mid-1970s, the rock journal immortalized in Cameron Crowe’s film "Almost Famous." In the late '70s she became one of the first women to edit a national rock magazine when she took over the top editor's job. In addition to writing Women of Motown, she has produced numerous feature articles, and liner notes for albums, including the booklet essay in the "Chrome Collection" Spinners box set. She is currently working on a biography of the gifted but tragic Detroit rhythm and blues legend Little Willie John.

Registration preferred. Fill out the form below or call the adult reference desk at 248-246-3727.

80 of 100 places available.
50 of 50 places available on the waitlist.

The registration is closed

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