As my wife, Karen, is way too fond of replying whenever anyone inquires about my past, “He was a rock critic … in Detroit … in the ’80s! Anything you think he did — he did it!”
That would be funnier if it weren’t close to the truth. The ’80s, for those too young to know, were a wild ride on many levels. However, I can say my 11 years as rock and pop music critic for The Detroit News from 1979 to 1991 — longer than anyone else had held the position at the time — were the most joy-filled of my career.
And why not? I got to cover Detroit rock ’n’ roll royalty, Bob Seger and Ted Nugent, at the peak of their creative prowess. A young woman from Rochester Hills, Madonna Ciccone, was just beginning to soar. The local music scene was ablaze with emerging talents bound for national attention, like The Romantics, Was (Not Was), Art in America, Adrenalin/DC Drive, The Rockets, Stewart Francke, Detroit Energy Asylum (with Carolyn Striho), Marshall Crenshaw, Dave Edwards and the Look, and so many more.
Oh, and it’s the ancestral home of Motown Records. I had landed in pop music Mecca.
I was blessed to have an editor, Clifford Ridley, who believed in the power of live reviews. And since every concert tour worth its encores had to play Detroit, it was not uncommon to cover three to four shows a week — well over 150 reviews each year. (And I can still hear!) My deadline was 1 a.m., which didn’t help my dating life: “Honey, I’d love to take you to Prince, but you’ll have to find your own way home.” Pine Knob Music Theatre even kept a cot for me in its office trailer so I could catch a wink between filing my reviews and making the long drive back from Clarkston.
Many nights when I wasn’t racing against time (“Deadline in 45 minutes,” I would tell myself. “Be brilliant!”), I was in a metro Detroit club — Bookies, Traxx, Harpos, The Ritz, wherever — watching local bands perform. I learned my predecessor at the News was known by his byline alone: He only took the job to get in at the paper and almost never covered made-in-Detroit music. I was appalled … and enthused.
For a guy who grew up in tiny Spring Lake, Michigan, metro Detroit was a giant jukebox. I maintained a regular column covering local musicians, many of whom remain friends to this day.
But of course, I had a nemesis: Free Press critic Gary Graff, a dear friend today who still covers music for outlets nationwide, was my sworn enemy. I know my editor pitted us against each other: “Great review Graff has in today — why didn’t you cover that?” The long-defunct WDTX-FM even tried to put us together for a Siskel-and-Ebert-type record review show. It lasted about a month.
But oh! The concert reviews! Being a Black rock critic — one of the few in America at that time — provided a unique perspective. It led to the McFarlin Law of Expected Gratification: If you blow your paycheck to see your favorite band live, they cannot be bad. If the critic writes otherwise, he’s an idiot!
Or, at the very least, uninformed. If I wrote a negative review on, say, Metallica, I would get letters (yes, an age before email) saying, “Clearly your heritage doesn’t allow you to appreciate this music.” Once, Aretha Franklin gave a lackluster performance at Cobo Arena and I said so (leading to her brother-manager Cecil Franklin picketing the News building, demanding my termination). The letters then read, “You poor fool: You’ve been covering rock ’n’ roll so long, you can’t relate to R&B.”
It was never the music — it was me!
Still, I remember spending pleasant days at the lake with Seger and his manager, Punch Andrews, and listening to the Like a Rock album demo as Bob sat across from me, watching every movement on my face. I recall Nugent playfully smooshing a handful of sushi in my face at a backstage soiree, spawning my love of raw fish. To this day, I can’t devour a California roll without thinking about The Nuge. (Thanks, Ted.)
I cherish the memory of interviewing Stevie Wonder in a penthouse suite at the Westin Hotel Renaissance Center, followed by him performing a 20-minute concert for an audience of one. (I think he knew I was still there.) I delighted in trying on new eyeglass frames with the late Duke Fakir, the two of us laughing and poking fun at each other’s selections. There was no friction or suspicion. I think the Motor City musical community understood I loved music and tried to write about it as honestly as I could. We were all for Detroit.
And that community helped get me inducted into the in 2023. Rock on.
Want to read more about Detroit’s music history? Click here for our A-Z guide to Detroit’s music scene.
This story originally appeared in the January 2025 issue of vlog. To read more, pick up a copy of vlog Detroit at a local retail outlet. Our will be available on Jan. 6.
|
|
|
