This is a lot of Detroit history packed into one evening. A partnership with the Detroit Sound Conservancy, Music in the Archives: A Celebration of Detroit’s Aural History features performances by “Detroit’s Soul Ambassador” Melvin Davis and Motown Funk Brother Dennis Coffey, which would be, like, enough Detroit history on its own. Even better, the icons will be performing on the stage of the Blue Bird Inn, the historic west-side jazz club where icons like Miles Davis and John Coltrane played that was recently purchased and is undergoing renovations, thanks to the Detroit Sound Conservancy. (While the club is undergoing construction, the stage has now become a mobile pop-up, even getting sent to the 2017 Biennale Internationale Design Festival in Saint-Etienne, France.) Thursday's performances are a celebration of the recent oral-history interviews the artists donated to the Walter P. Reuther archives.
Doors at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 23; performances at 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor & Urban Affairs, 5401 Cass Ave., Detroit; 313-577-4024; reuther.wayne.edu. Free admission.
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Leyland "Lee" DeVito grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, where he read Metro Times religiously due to teenaged-induced boredom. He became a contributing writer for Metro Times in 2009, and Editor in Chief in 2016. In addition to writing, he also supplies occasional illustrations. His writing has been published...
