(Note: one of the CPF members said they'd like to see photos I took the day after Michael Jackson died. Text below is rewritten from a post I made at the Detroit Free Press message forum, accompanying those photos. You may experience slow loading of images, due to volume.)

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As it happened, I was awake late on June 25, 2009, the night that news broke about the pervert's death. So it was late the next day before I got out to the national-landmark home of MoTown Records.

By then the fans of the musical Michael Jackson had convened on the average-sized front lawn of an average home on an average part of residential West Grand Boulevard. It was a hell of a place to start a worldwide phenomenon.



Here, the single most fabulous studio band in recording history plied their trade: the awe-inspiring Funk Brothers who made Detroit Soul a glistening, palpable reality. Here was a basement recording studio which spawned a record empire and sent Berry Gordy to Hollywood and MoTown itself into an early pastiche of itself.

Here was where the Jackson 5 dominated the charts and cute little M.J. was clearly the star of his family. Here was where Detroit was king of the popular music of this planet, back when Detroit had an economy and Jackson was still black.



It was a strange scene for me, the only white person anywhere near this property, watching the locals come to terms with the death of their controversial home-town son.



By about 3:30 p.m., the crowd was mostly reverential and quiet, and there were scores of cards and flowers lining the front of the building. I arrived just as the local Fox-TV remote-truck was pulling in, but there were no other media vehicles in sight. There was a single police car, a discreet half-block away, a white driver and a black cop riding passenger.

Clearly they were not needed. Two cops soaking up gravy-pay, watching Detroit say goodbye to its own. I wandered into the crowd. Read the plaque on the front lawn, and looked at the building itself. Then I saw him, the TV-2 camera guy.



Non-professionals are perfectly free to try this at home. Their equipment costs less than a broadcast-quality camera like this guy's. Then he landed on the lawn again and dashed into the crowd. Instinctively, I dashed right after him.

So then I saw him. Make that them.



I didn't get their names, although local media did identify these two Jackson imitators. One male, one female, and a hell of a challenge to tell which was which, or who was better at imitating the Gloved One.

I think this was the guy, wearing a black-striped golf glove but otherwise doing a bang-up job in front of the shop. The added attraction at the left was someone completely down in his groove, communing with an unseen force. I couldn't have asked for a better symptom of the entire day.

Note the white glove makes it difficult to see the "V" symbol he is flashing.



I wandered out to talk to the two cops. Nope---no trouble. And because I dared interrupt their paid nap, I answered questions from the black cop, who seriously questioned me over what I thought of Jackson being accused of molesting all those little boys.

Me, I don't go to memorials to trash the dead. I was at this one to record the survivors. I told him I only knew what I read, that nothing had ever been proved. We both knew that he knew I was full of shit --- but I did find out there'd been no trouble thus far on their watch. I considered my reticence a small price to pay for a fact.

Back at the main building, this time up on a very small front porch where a wheelchair-ramp goes into the main door.



The image above is untouched save for sizing and cropping of the original. I just happened to be in that exact position, and the two white fingers in this photo just made this performer's "V" symbol look EXACTLY like what Berry Gordy did to Detroit, by moving MoTown to Los Angeles.

Here's another useful photo site, by Robert Dennis, the former Mastering Supervisor for MoTown Records.

http://www.recordingeq.com/2006motown/06motown24.html

Very cool Quiller - thanks for sharing.... :) :) :) :)

Awesome photos and commentary, Quiller.  Great stuff! 

There was a lot more going on that day in that area, but the section they renamed Berry Gordy Boulevard (in front of the two buildings) was jammed with traffic. I mistakenly said the studio was in the basement. Bob Dennis (last link, above) notes it was an addition to the buildings, out back.

Quiller, I'm sure you've probably seen this documentary about the "Funk Brothers", but "Standing In The Shadows Of Motown" is a fantastic look at the "inner workings" of Motown before Barry Gordy moved the operation to L.A. in 1972.

I highly recommend this documentary to anybody who has an interest in the history of Motown. 

Quote from: AmericanFlyer on November 29, 2010, 06:26:00 PM
Quiller, I'm sure you've probably seen this documentary about the "Funk Brothers", but "Standing In The Shadows Of Motown" is a fantastic look at the "inner workings" of Motown before Barry Gordy moved the operation to L.A. in 1972.

I highly recommend this documentary to anybody who has an interest in the history of Motown.

Bought it in pre-release. It is a splendid effort.

Good job Q, and excellent commentary.
But for me, this would be like going to watch Pelosi speak in the Bay area.
My only interest would be to film the freak show that is her constituency.

Quote from: Solar on November 30, 2010, 12:29:05 PM
Good job Q, and excellent commentary.
But for me, this would be like going to watch Pelosi speak in the Bay area.
My only interest would be to film the freak show that is her constituency.

San Francisco was still interesting in 1973, although the manic 1960s energy was long gone and instead it fell to soul-less political vampires and steely-eyed cut-throat communists whose barbarity would make Edward Teach blush.

Just west of the Motown Museum, West Grand Boulevard was completely barricaded at one bridge crossing, evidently laid idle a long time before. I do not underestimate the drawing-power of this historic musical site. The State of Michigan surely did not, erecting that plaque/monument. It's so typical of Detroit to tear down what people treasured, or block access to it in some way.

As for the freak show, I caught him in that one photo, too cool for school, gettin'-it on his very own groove.