Detroit: In search of... soul in the Motor City

Heard it through the grapevine

Heard it through the grapevine

Detroit. What did I know about the Motor City? Questions to friends were answered with disbelief that I'd willingly spend a week in such a dubious metropolis, purely to see five guys in matching lamé suits singing "It's a Shame". Most, indeed, thought it a great shame. I was travelling across the Atlantic to see a life-long hero – Stevie Wonder – perform at Detroit's Tricentennial concert and while I was in town I was keen to see what was left of the Motown legacy. I turned to the internet instead, only to learn that the Detroit Visitors Bureau had closed down in 1998 owing to "lack of business". This didn't fill me with confidence. I replaced the image of the cobwebby tourist office with thoughts of Marvin Gaye and a shiny Model T Ford parked outside a bar spilling out soul music. This was my Detroit: the Detroit of www.rose-tinted-spectacles.com.

Yester-Me, Yester-You, YesterDay

Last year, Detroit celebrated the Tricentennial of its discovery by French slave-owner Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac. The city had reason to celebrate: despite its turbulent past, it had come through and survived. Back on its 200th birthday, Detroit had been the manufacturing hub of the US – Henry Ford made the Model T there and business was booming. However, the Great Depression damaged the Motor City's confidence and prosperity. The Second World War was to bring Detroit back on its feet – car factories turned to making military equipment and war work attracted African-Americans from the South. With them they brought a culture so vibrant and influential that the city's music scene, which had been blossoming since the early days of blues, was to become legendary. But with racial integration came racial tensions, climaxing in the violent riots of 1943 and 1967. Again, the city was left wounded. Another car industry slump in the 1970s prompted many (especially whites) to move out to the suburbs, an exodus which produced the sprawling city that exists today. In its heyday, the population stood at more than two million. Now, this figure has dropped to below a million.

Uptight (Everything's Alright)

Never forget this is the city that produced individuals such as John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, Della Reese and Stevie Wonder. In an effort to appreciate how Detroit's musical history has shaped the city, I took a taxi to the Museum of African-American History in the heart of Detroit's "Cultural Center" (a collection of museums and galleries off Warren Avenue). It was here that I witnessed my first ever sight of a visitor dancing in a museum – and I mean really getting down. Audio booths playing every type of African-American music and their antecedents mark the end of the exhibition which, among its acquisitions, boasts original manuscripts by Malcolm X, Martin Luther King's cell door and a life-size slave ship chamber. Was it gangsta rap, African tribal chants or Diana Ross that had him on his feet? I'll never know.

Music Talk

Talking of Ms Ross, the Motown Museum on West Grand Boulevard should be next on any serious soul fan's itinerary. Berry Gordy's home, dubbed Hitsville USA in 1959 when he ran Motown Record Corporation on its ground floor, has been converted into an excellent, intimate museum. Back then, Gordy (who started the label with an $800 family loan) would play the latest Motown single to his artists and ask them whether they'd buy the record or a sandwich if caught hungry. Their answer determined whose single would and make it to the press. He was a shrewd businessman, keen to detach Motown music from the tag of "race records" or "conscience music" – labels that failed to attract the masses. Gordy succeeded. Hitsville USA was where Marvin Gaye, the Four Tops, Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves and a 10-year-old Steveland Morris (aka Stevie Wonder) all began their careers. Stage outfits, platinum records and the untouched studio make for a unique experience.

What's Going On?

At first glance, it seems, not a lot. "Ghost town" was the first phrase that sprang to mind when I found yet another guidebook-recommended restaurant boarded up. I had the impression that whatever was going on, I didn't know about it. It would have been easy, but naive, to conclude that the divide between me and this unreachable music scene was racial. The divide, in fact, was inside information and transport.

Armed with a copy of the Detroit Free Press, which has an invaluable listings section, I hailed a cab and got to know downtown Detroit. Fishbone's, a lively late-night bar and restaurant on the corner of Brush and Monroe, was the first stop. New Orleans jazz blares through the speakers of this Cajun-themed hang-out, which serves alligator, gumbo and jambalaya. The next day, I nursed a hangover at the Motown Café on East Jefferson, where families enjoy obscene-sized breakfasts after a morning in church. Afraid that another cab ride might lead me to yet more food, I jumped on the People Mover, Detroit's overfunded and underused monorail system. It took me – and its other passenger – on a circular tour of Detroit's bleakest spots, but it was worth the trip just to see the extraordinary mosaic and sculpture works by Michigan artists that have been commissioned at each of the 13 stations.

Dancing in the Street

I'd seen dancing in a museum and I fully expected to see it in the street, just as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas had told me. I followed the sound of live music down to Hart Plaza – Detroit's outdoor arts and entertainment centre – and stumbled across Ribs 'n' Soul night. Here, lines of people snaked round the plaza waiting for their order of ribs, corn and biscuits while live soul music, the lyrics of which were signed for any deaf audience members, was performed on a central stage. Around the perimeter, chess tournaments were played on rickety picnic tables by old men. Nearby, kids escaped the heat by sitting, fully clothed, in the plaza's huge fountain. And enveloping this entire scene was the most fantastic smell – my search for soul in the Motor City was over.

Hart Plaza holds Ribs 'n' Soul night on weekends throughout the summer as well as other annual events: International Freedom Festival (June); Afro-American Music Festival (July); Electronic Music and Techno Festival (May); Montreux-Detroit Jazz Festival (September); ice skating (winter).

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Flights to Detroit with Northwest Airlines (0870 556 1000; www.nwa.com) cost from £252 in April. If you have a big budget and a gambling habit stay at the Atheneum Suite Hotel (001 313 962 2323) in Greektown – casino central – where Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin have stayed. Doubles start from $195 (£135) in April. Shorecrest Motor Inn (001 313 568 3000) on East Jefferson is a cheap alternative with doubles from $69 and it is only five minutes' walk from Hart Plaza.