10.85 Miles

10.85 Miles

That's the distance from Motown Studios to Roscoe's Recording. I "mapquested" it. 2648 W. Grand Blvd. to 16209 Mack Ave,Detroit City. The city where my Italian immigrant great grand parents ended up in, after the long boat trip. The city where my parents were born, the city where I was born. In 1959 Berry Gordy bought the house on the Boulevard. Who would have ever thought that from this industrial town would rise a musical wave that still resonates today. The distant waves of Motown are still ringing in places like Manchester, England and Stockholm, Sweden. But back here in Detroit the force that started that wave is nearly dead. Left over is a used shell of a city, longing for her people to come back. She cries like a church on Monday, to borrow a lyric from Gregg Alexander, another native son. Her people who were scattered by the violence of racism. By the cold hearted economic realities of this town built on the back of automobiles. I only live about 3 miles from Detroit. But it is detached from those of us who have fled to the suburbs. We are voyeurs now. Watching her crumble. When I go to Detroit I feel like a refugee going back home. A place that looks so familiar but will never be the same. But maybe "the same" wasn't so great after all. Maybe one day Detroit will be what she always should have been. A place where people of all colors and persuasions can build a community that is as vibrant as that city back in 1959 when Berry Gordy bought that house and turned it into a studio. The Huron, Ottawa and Potawatomi lived together before the Europeans came to this land the French called "le detroit". It is in this spirit that some day the tribes of today will come back together.

So what does all of this have to do with MSL? I dunno, but driving to Roscoe's Recording on Saturday got me thinking about Detroit. As I walked up the creaky old stairs of what was once Fiddler's Music and got up to the third floor oasis known as Roscoe's recording I couldn't help but feel a bit nostalgic for the old city. As I looked across Mack Ave to Grosse Pointe Park. I imagined it was not too much different than other borders around the world. Just across the street from each other are two totally different worlds. It was in this setting that we began recording our new full length CD. The atmosphere of the place seemed to relax us all as we laid down bed tracks for six songs in only six hours. As I sat in the control room surrounded by my band mates (these people that I have known for less than a year but I feel like I've known all my life) I can only describe the feeling I had as magical as the first strains of "Life Is Rhythm" hit my ears. What ever happens after we release this CD I can only hope that it captures even just a touch of the magic of Motown, a hint of the soul of this town buried under so many years of neglect. We are off to a promising start. The band is headed in the right direction even though I don't think any of us can give that direction a name.

From Wikipedia the definition of Soul music reads like this:

"Soul music is a combination of rhythm and blues and gospel which began in the late 1950s in the United States. Rhythm and blues (a term coined by music writer and record producer Jerry Wexler) is itself a combination of blues and jazz, and arose in the 1940s as small groups, often playing saxophones, built upon the blues tradition. Soul music is differentiated by its use of gospel-music devices, its greater emphasis on vocalists, and its merging of religious and secular themes."

I don't know about all that. My definition of soul music is just music that touches me. Genres are for fools, if music touches you in your heart, call it what you want, I call it soul music, and MSL is all about "soul music".

A name for the new album is still to be born, but if it goes as things usually do with this band, it will present itself in a mysterious way.

Praise Jeebus!

Jamando