Metro Times 06/05/2024

Photo by Doug Coombe

Fri 6/07

PARTYUP 3

PRINCE ERA BIRTHDAY DANCE PARTY FEAT. DJKAGE

WSG. NEPHEW FROM DETROIT CASH PRIZE FOR BEST PRINCE INSPIRED OUTFIT! Doors@9p/$5cover

Sat 6/08

BANGERZ & JAMZ

MONTHLY DANCE PARTY! W/ DJ AIMZ & DJ EM

MIXING 90’S & 00’S Doors@9p/$5cover

Sun 6/09

PATIO BAR OPEN 3-9PM

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AUDRA KUBAT!

Mon 6/10

FREE POOL ALL DAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ASHLEY DRESDEN!

Tues 6/11

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALEX POGO!

Coming Up:

6/14 Bluhm/LVRS/Tambourina

6/15 Marigold Thieves/Icarus Fell/ Empire 13

6/20 Noviless/Valid/Nolan the Ninja/ Curtis Roach

6/21 Asphalt Flowers/Ficus 6/22 HOWDY FEST 3

6/27 WDET COMEDY SHOWCASE (wdet.org/events)

6/28 The Cult of SpaceSkull/ Cult of Nasty/Cherry Drop

6/29 Hero Jr./Electric Huldra/ Good Man’s Brother

7/05 Ragtribe Pres:Reggae feat. King Tappa/Dj36ixty5/HWT Book Your Parties: theoldmiamibarevents@gmail.com

Old Miami T-shirts & Hoodies Available

NEWS & VIEWS

Feedback

After we published last week’s Pride Guide, we received news regarding Motor City Pride.

Detroit’s annual LGBTQ+ Pride festival is taking over Hart Plaza this weekend from June 8-9,. This year’s Motor City Pride will feature performances across four stages, showcasing emerging LGBTQ+ musicians, drag queens, and other entertainers.

Highlights include Detroit DJs Problematic Black Hottie and Raedy Lex, RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 star JAX, rapper Daisha McBride, and R&B and pop singer Kyle Dion, among many others.

“Motor City Pride’s entertainment lineup

is hitting all the right notes this year!” the festival’s entertainment director Darius Wheeler said in a news release. “Attendees are in for an unforgettable experience.”

Throughout the event, nearly 200 vendors will also offer a mix of art, goods, and information about local services and programs for the LGBTQ+ community. Additionally, Motor City Pride will provide a family area with games, coloring, and other activities for all ages.

The upcoming festival will also feature the annual Pride march, which begins at noon on Sunday and includes participation from over 100 Michigan companies and nonprofit organizations supporting equality.

More information can be found at motorcitypride.org. —Layla McMurtrie

The LOVE Building welcomes new executive director

By Layla McMurtrie

Health, wealth, and love are at the forefront of Kwaku Osei’s vision for leading the LOVE Building.

The nonprofit organization nestled in Detroit’s Core City neighborhood recently announced Osei is its new executive director, carrying forward the work of founding executive director and former Allied Media Projects executive director Jeanette Lee.

Now just three months into his position, Osei says it has been lovely to join a group of people who are driven and intentional about doing their best for the betterment of the community.

Allied Media Projects (AMP) has made a significant investment of over $4 million in the LOVE Building, which serves as the home for six organizations, including AMP, Detroit Community Technology Project, Detroit Disability Power, Detroit Justice Center, and Detroit Narrative Agency. This collaborative hub spans five floors, each dedicated to fostering

social justice, community creativity, and health initiatives. By design, the building prioritizes accessibility and inclusivity, and is gearing up to launch its public programming in the coming months.

Osei, who describes himself as an “economic freedom fighter,” brings a unique perspective to the space with a background in community economic development.

While originally from Virginia, he has primarily lived in Detroit since 2013, first moving to the city for a fellowship with Venture for America. He says when he visited Detroit for the first time just two years earlier in 2011, he was “shocked” at how empty it was. By the time he relocated, however, the city was already on its way up.

Since then, Osei has had plenty of experience in Detroit, working on various projects with Dan Gilbert and engaging in many other community initiatives. In the past decade, he founded Farmacy Food, a preventa-

tive healthcare startup focused on making health and wellness radically accessible and affordable, as well as Cooperative Capital, a financing initiative that enables residents to pool their money for collective investments in their neighborhoods.

Additionally, Osei currently serves on the boards of the Economic Development Corporation of the City of Detroit, Fair Food Network, the Detroit Community Wealth Fund, Detroit Afrikan Music Institute, and Bridging Communities, Inc.

He plans to use these Detroit experiences in his new role at the LOVE Building, while finding ways to make money through positive, impactful avenues.

“I find myself in an organization that’s almost the ideal vehicle to be able to implement a number of those things and I’m just super elated because we get to give it a go,” Osei says. “There’s no guarantee, but based on everything that I’ve learned

over these last eight years, and then everything I know in the past, I have confidence in our ability to really shift paradigms, and to really demonstrate what’s possible through this type of experimentation. I think I want the results to show for themselves, but I’m extremely excited.”

In his position as executive director, Osei will help actualize the organization’s core missions through strategic coordination, fundraising efforts, and connecting with the community.

“Other than us just being the home to six great organizations, I’m really trying to increasingly evolve this into a space that becomes a container, really a lab, for experimentation, that will really support us to not only push the boundaries on the community rooted economic development, but a lot of the initiatives and a lot of the programming that you’re going to see come out of this building is going to be based around health, wealth and love,” Osei says. “That’s all about

Now led by Kwaku Osei, the Core City nonprofit organization will begin public programming throughout the coming months.

COURTESY OF THE LOVE BUILDING

really pushing the boundary for what community rooted economic development as well as community control and ownership looks like in this city. I think that once we’ve demonstrated it in this city, we will be creating a precedent or a model that a lot of cities are very interested in following.”

While his startup company Farmacy Food is no longer operating, Cooperative Capital continues to thrive. Osei is optimistic about potential collaborations between Cooperative Capital and the LOVE Building for programming initiatives surrounding economic development.

When it comes to his leadership style, Osei feels that it’s important to emphasize his focus on economics, as he hopes to help afford other people the opportunity to become financially free, as he considers himself to be.

“I think that should more folks be in that position, they would also then be able to dedicate their time, attention, and energy towards the things that are most important to them,” Osei says. “We are at a level of development in the world where there’s truly more than enough for everyone… It’s obscene amounts of wealth and from a development perspective,

the fact that there’s a tremendous amount of people struggling, it just is no longer a necessity. So, a lot of what you will see coming out of this space is going to be things around both wealth and love. There’s going to be emphasis on wealth because I think that once people are put in a position where they’re no longer struggling on a week to week basis, it affords them to then be able to experiment in ways that I got to experiment and even when those experiments don’t work, you get to learn something.”

Former executive director Jeanette Lee describes Osei’s leadership as a “rare” combination of “visionary” and “collective.”

“Kwaku brings a wealth of relationships and experiences within the community development sector of Detroit to this role,” Lee said in a news release. “I am thrilled to be transitioning this next phase of growth of the LOVE Building to him and am confident that he will facilitate a most beautiful iteration.”

While Osei says he didn’t know much about Lee before starting his position, he reminisces on the time he got to spend with her soaking up knowledge to prepare for taking over

the role.

“She’s a champion. I feel very, very, very fortunate,” Osei says. “She had basically dedicated her adult life until now to this organization, and we got five weeks together, and they were some of the richest five weeks.”

In the coming months, the LOVE Building will start to grow its public programming for the surrounding community ahead of a public grand opening the week of Labor Day from Sept. 3-6.

While plans for a plant-based eatery in the space have shifted, the organization is still exploring food possibilities for its white box restaurant space. Following the official opening, a detailed event calendar for the rest of the year will be released, Osei says.

“Allied Media Projects has a tradition of pushing the boundaries and breaking barriers down and I’m excited that I get to join an organization that has that history and tradition baked into it,” Osei says. “I get to add my little piece on to it at this point in its chapter, in its evolution, and a lot of that is going to be around economic empowerment, a lot of that is going to be around really supporting social

Hamtramck City Council passes resolution demanding boycott of Israel

The Hamtramck City Council last Tuesday became the first city outside of California to approve a resolution endorsing a movement that advocates for boycotts and divestment to end support for Israel over its brutal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza.

The only all-Muslim city council in the country unanimously approved the measure in support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

The idea is to send a strong message of support to Palestinians and “to end the genocide” in Gaza, council members said at the meeting.

The cities of Hayward and Richmond in California passed similar resolutions in January and May, respectively. But those cities targeted specific companies to boycott, while Hamtramck’s resolution went further in support of the entire BDS movement.

Among those in support of the BDS resolution was Matthew J. Clark, a Jewish attorney and longtime member of the Jewish Voice

for Peace, the largest progressive Jewish, anti-Zionist organization in the world.

“Supporting the Palestinian people right now is of course not antisemitic,” Clark told the council.

“I am a Jewish person, and I stand with the Palestinian people against the genocide going on. I oppose genocide because I’m Jewish — because my people have suffered from the Holocaust, a horrific genocide. For that reason, I say ‘never again’ to anybody, especially the Palestinian people.”

Mayor Amer Ghalib said the time has come for the government to listen to its people.

“Most American people are against the war, but our government of course does not listen to the concerns of the people,” Ghalib said. “It seems like we are ruled by a minority in this country, and that’s a problem. The voice of the people is not being heard.”

Launched in 2005, the BDS movement targets businesses and institutions accused of contributing to

justice advocates to be well resourced and coordinated in a way that I think will allow for a more tremendous and positive impact. I’m just geeked because it’s me with a bunch of other really, really, really beautiful, motivated and driven people that get to do this work together.”

In essence, the new executive director aims to prioritize actions over words, emphasizing that the impact of both his leadership and the organization’s efforts will be visible to all as they unfold.

“I don’t take for granted the privilege that I get to basically spend my time and get paid to just put on for the community and to empower others. It’s the richest thing that I think one can be employed to do and I don’t take the responsibility lightly,” Osei says. “I want to intertwine a number of the worlds that exist in this city so that we all recognize that we all come from different backgrounds, we’re all different peoples, but we are all connected and in a lot of ways we desire a lot of similar things. We could do this together, and if we do it together in this way, then we can all get there. It can be beautiful for us all.”

—Layla McMurtrie

are accused of starving civilians, willfully “causing great suffering, or serious injury,” willfully killing and intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.

violations of Palestinian rights as a protest to Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories.

In 2016, then-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder passed an anti-BDS measure that bars the state from hiring businesses that boycott individuals or public entities of a foreign nation. The legislation, however, does not prevent cities from passing their own BDS resolutions.

On the local level, pro-Palestinian activists set up an encampment at Wayne State University to pressure the school to end investment in Israel-connected companies. Police resorted to force to break up a similar encampment at the University of Michigan.

Since the war began in October, Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,500 people.

On May 20, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court sought arrest warrants for leaders of Hamas and Israel, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for alleged war crimes. Netanyahu and his defense minister

In Hamtramck, more than half of the population is believed to be Muslim. In January 2022, Hamtramck became the first city in the U.S. to have an all-Muslim city council.

Hamtramck also became one of the first city councils in the nation to call for a ceasefire in October. In December, the council renamed a stretch of Holbrook Street to “Palestine Avenue” as a demonstration of solidarity with residents of Gaza.

But the council has come under fire for its anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. In June 2023, the council unanimously banned the Pride flag from being flown on public property.

Ghalib and other Hamtramck leaders also began meeting with Republicans, despite the GOP’s opposition to Muslims in the past.

Hamtramck officials were also among the leaders of a movement to vote “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary election in February because of President Joe Biden’s support of Israel.

—Steve Neavling

Black-owned Sports Rap Radio launches

A landmark event in Black history — no, scratch that, American history — took place in our city Monday morning. And you can listen in.

Sports Rap Radio, the nation’s first sports-talk radio station completely owned by and featuring African American talent, launched at 7 a.m. June 3 on AM 1270, WXYT. And for a city that’s 79% Black to have Black on-air hosts discussing pro leagues like the NBA and NFL that are 70% and 53% Black respectively, that sounds like a concept whose time is long, long overdue.

Sports Rap Radio is the grand vision of Rob Parker, who, despite his New York roots and national media profile as co-host of The Odd Couple on Fox Sports Radio and work for ESPN, FS1, and other outlets, is deeply embedded in the Motor City. He was the first Black sports columnist at the Detroit Free Press, worked for The Detroit News, Channels 4 and 7, and in 1994 was the first on-air voice hired for then-sports WDFN-AM. He even founded a barber shop, Sporty Cutz on West Seven Mile Road.

But Sports Rap Radio is clearly Parker’s passion now. “I’ve had this idea for a while,” he says. “It’s important to the city and the culture. Four years ago, the sports station in town had NO Black hosts in a city that’s 80% Black. That had to change.” (And it has, with the addition of Rico Beard on 97.1 FM, The Ticket.)

“We’re hoping everybody will get behind us,” Parker adds. “The response so far has been just tremendous. You

wouldn’t believe how many people have asked, ‘What do we need to do?’ I tell them, ‘We’re going to need everything,’ but it’s shaping up and we’ll be ready to go.”

Delayed from its initial May 16 debut (“The broadcast studio wasn’t quite right,” Parker explains), Sports Rap Radio is made available through a two-year lease with Audacy, WXYT’s owner, and replaces Audacy’s syndicated BETQL Network. Parker is joined by three other co-owners, his longtime friend Dave Kenney, and two people whose names may resonate with Detroit sports fans: B. J. Armstrong, Brother Rice grad and three-time NBA champion, who’ll also handle the station’s midday shift; and Maurice “Moe” Ways, former Detroit Country Day star and University of Michigan wide receiver who says Parker has been a mentor since his high school days.

“He’s one of the few men I’ve met who really takes mentorship personally,” says Ways, whose NFL dreams were derailed by a torn Achilles but now works in finance for the Walt Disney Company with an emphasis on ESPN. “I shadowed him as my senior project at Country Day when he was on 97.1 The Ticket, and Rob and I just stayed in touch. Anytime we were in the same city, Detroit, New York or L.A., we would grab lunch or dinner and just talk.”

Ways adds, “He gave me a call last year and said, ‘I have this idea, me and B.J. and Dave, and I want you to be the last member of the team. Every

conversation we’ve had, every question I’ve asked, it’s all been intentional. I’ve been trying to figure out how I can impact your career and your life, and I think this is one way to do it.’ You can only imagine how in awe I was to have him even consider me for a venture like this. Rob is my guy, 100 grand.”

According to the mission statement on its website, sportsrapradiodetroit. com, “We will entertain and inform. We will chronicle the best and the worst of Motown’s hometown teams.

… We will give you both young and fresh and experienced voices, talking with you, not at you. This will be that barbershop convo that made you fall in love with sports from the very beginning.”

As it stands now, the on-air lineup for Sports Rap Radio will sound like this:

• 7-10 a.m.: A variety of hosts will appear on the What Up Doe Morning Show, Parker says. A permanent morning-drive show will be in place by September.

• 10 a.m.-noon: B.J. Armstrong

• Noon-3 p.m.: The Bad Boys, U-M alum and Fox Sports Radio host Martin Weiss and veteran sports journalist J. R. Gamble

• 3-7 p.m.: Detroit native Montezz Allen and none other than Lindsey Hunter, member of the 2004 NBA Champion Detroit Pistons team, in a show called The Pitbulls

“I’ve done radio in Detroit before, and Rob thought I was good at it,” says Hunter, previously head basketball coach at Mississippi Valley State Uni-

versity. “When he came up with the opportunity I was excited about it. I was like, ‘Man, this could be a big thing.’”

From 7-10 p.m. the station will carry The Odd Couple, Parker’s nationally syndicated Fox Sports Radio series with co-host Chris Broussard.

In the overnights, Parker says the station will carry podcasts combined with old-school rap music. Yes, there will be rap music on Sports Rap Radio; there’ll even be a house DJ, “DJ Whutever.”

Podcasters can purchase one-hour blocks of airtime between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. The podcasts must deal with Black life, not necessarily sports, and must be clean. “We decide if the podcast fits our station’s structure,” says Parker. For more information, contact the station’s website.

Sports Rap Radio also will carry the occasional Tigers, Red Wings, or Pistons game from 97.1 The Ticket if there are schedule conflicts. A key, of course, will be whether it can attract and maintain advertisers, but Parker already has an eye toward expansion. “You know, we could become a network in the top 20, 25 Black markets,” he advances.

“And that could open up jobs for brothers and sisters around the country.”

Moe Ways sees mo’ ways for media domination, too. “No matter where you are in the country, you’ll have Sports Rap Radio,” he predicts. “That’s the goal, and I believe it will happen, man. And I love the fact that once it happens, we can always say we started at home, in Detroit. No matter how big we get, how far we go, the story always starts in Detroit.”

—Jim McFarlin

A billboard advertises Detroit’s new Sports Rap Radio.

COURTESY PHOTO

In addition, five scholarships will be awarded by the “Turkey Stearnes Foundation Juneteenth Multidisciplinary Art Contest.” For more information, email bugsydiva8@gmail.com.

That was just the setup pitch; let’s take things a step further. Why don’t the Tigers install in Comerica Park a statue of Turkey Stearnes, just like the one for Josh Gibson in Washington, just like all the other statues in the Comerica outfield?

Stearnes qualifies in many ways. He was an elite Detroit athlete who raised his family here. He migrated here from the South (Tennessee), like many Motor City residents of his generation. He worked at the Rouge plant.

But he’s even more authentic Detroit than that. As a retiree, he often rode the Linwood bus from the West Side to Tigers games at Tiger Stadium and sat in the lower-deck bleachers with his friends.

Lapointe

Might the Tigers consider a statue for a star of the Detroit Stars?

By Joe Lapointe

The story in The Washington Post last week said Negro Leagues statistics are now officially recognized by Major League Baseball. It was illustrated with a photograph of a bronze statue of Josh Gibson that stands outside Nationals Park in D.C.

That’s appropriate. Gibson played in that city with the Homestead Grays. According to MLB’s much-debated decision, Gibson now leads Ty Cobb for first place in career batting average (.372 – .367), and he leads Babe Ruth atop the career OPS list (on-base plus slugging) by a margin of 1.177 – 1.164.

All well and good, I thought. Because they were persons of color, men like Gibson were banned from the “major” leagues of baseball from 1887 until Jackie Robinson re-integrated the sport in 1947. In a way, this statistical recognition is in the pure spirit of reparations — not of money but of respect.

But I wondered about the local angle: Where would this numerical earthquake leave Norman “Turkey” Stearnes, an outfielder for the Detroit Stars a century ago? Stearnes was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 2000. Turns out, Stearnes fares very well in the new lists. Under “Career OPS,” Stearnes is ninth, behind Jimmie Foxx (1.037 / 1.003). Under “Career Batting Average,” Stearnes ranks sixth, behind Jud Wilson (.350 / .348).

And in “Career Slugging Percentage,” Stearnes places fifth, behind Mule Suttles (.6179 / .6165). They are in rare company. In this category, the only three ahead of them are Ruth, Ted Williams, and Lou Gehrig. (Full disclosure: I’m very much biased in favor of Turkey Stearnes.)

I met him 45 years ago in Kentucky at a reunion that included several stars of the major Negro Leagues, which existed from 1920–1948. Stearnes’ daughter Joyce Thompson, gives me far too much credit for getting her father elected to Cooperstown in 2000.

Although my Detroit Free Press stories about Stearnes helped elevate his profile, I firmly believe he’s in the Hall because former Tigers announcer Ernie Harwell was on the Veterans Committee the year Stearnes was inducted, and Harwell was one of baseball’s most respected citizens.

Harwell had a quiet way of doing good deeds. I had the good fortune to meet and interview Stearnes in what turned out to be the last weeks of his life. Decades passed. Now, I am a new member — volunteer and unpaid — of the board of directors of the Turkey Stearnes Foundation.

Here’s the pitch: The foundation is sponsoring a baseball event at Historic Hamtramck Stadium at noon on Wednesday, June 19, that will include the third annual “Juneteenth Celebration” and the “Turkey Stearnes Home Run Derby.”

“I know a lot of boys there, and we discuss things and argue without fighting,” Stearnes told me in July of 1979. “We have a lot of fun.”

Stearnes was 78 years old at the time. I’d just turned 28. I didn’t know he had only weeks to live. He looked good. The secret to longevity, he told me, was, “You’ve got to take care of yourself good. Be careful what you eat, what you drink, where you go, and what you do when you go to those places.”

In those weeks, the Tigers were gracious to Stearnes. When I asked, they allowed us to take Stearnes to home plate at Tiger Stadium for a photograph. He took his left-handed batting stance in full dress clothing, including a natty hat, looking out toward the field and the bleachers beyond.

His hands were large and strong, and I remember how his muscle memory snapped back in a flash when he cocked the bat behind his head, eyes bright, fixed on an imaginary pitcher. The photographer was John Collier.

If not quite ghostly, there is something spiritual about the image. A statue of Stearnes — perhaps in this pose and in these clothes — would be an ideal fit for the Comerica outfield as the 25-yearold ballpark undergoes a much-needed renovation. The statue theme is one of the park’s better features.

The ramp behind the left-center field fence already includes statues of Detroit legends like Cobb, Al Kaline, Hank Greenberg, Willie Horton, Hal Newhouser, and Charlie Gehringer. This row of heroes is the park’s center of spiritual energy.

Why not extend the idea to the empty ramp behind the other fence in rightcenter? It is still without statues. In addition to a statue of Stearnes, put one next to him of Mark “the Bird” Fidrych. One is a Hall-of-Famer who played in Detroit (Stearnes) and the other is one of the most famous and beloved Detroit athletes ever (Fidrych).

The 50th anniversary of the Bird’s sensational 1976 season will come in two years. What better time to further immortalize Turkey and The Bird? Statues such as these would encourage parents and grandparents to pass on baseball lore and its historical and cultural context to future MLB customers.

The Tigers did Stearnes a good deed two decades ago when they dedicated a plaque to him on the outside wall of Comerica after his Cooperstown induction. It’s at Brush and Adams, across the street from football’s Ford Field.

That’s fine. But why leave the face of Stearnes only just outside, looking in? No doubt unintended, there is a symbolism to leaving him on the other side of the wall. Plus, there’s an additional historical and racial undercurrent here that might not be known to Scott Harris, their young president of baseball operations.

But longtime Detroiters certainly will recall that the Tigers were the secondlast team to integrate (1958) and that, for many decades, some Black Detroiters felt uncomfortable at Tiger Stadium unless they sat in the bleachers.

That attitude gradually dissipated over several changes in ownership and management; such institutional racism no longer exists. Unfortunately, neither does Black Bottom, the former African American neighborhood that now boasts buildings like Comerica Park.

Had he lived, I would like to have asked Stearnes about those streets and those days: Detroit in the war plants as the Arsenal of Democracy; the deadly rioting of 1943; and all those stories I heard at that long-ago reunion in Kentucky that Turkey was eccentric.

Ray Sheppard — a teammate on the Stars — described Stearnes to me as a guy who sometimes talked to his bats and didn’t like to share them.

“He was a peculiar guy,” Sheppard said. “He was a loner. He didn’t run with anybody or fool around or drink. You couldn’t use his bat or glove. Sometimes he didn’t want a locker by you.”

At the same event, Hall of Famer Judy Johnson told me of Stearnes, “I believe sometimes he carried that bat to bed with him.”

On the airplane back to Detroit, Stearnes sat in the window seat and seemed amazed at his surroundings.

“Lord, we’re above the clouds,” he said. “What man can do.”

He closed his eyes and began to sing song fragments. “Long ago,” he softly sang. “Long ago.”

Just as he seemed to drift off to sleep, he began a tune I recognized. In that it was the Fourth of July, the choice was appropriate.

“My country ’tis of thee,” he sang, “sweet land of liberty …”

Negro Leagues legend Norman “Turkey” Stearnes shows off his batting stance at Detroit’s historic Tiger Stadium in the summer of 1979. COURTESY OF JOHN COLLIER/DETROIT FREE PRESS

The Futurist

Remembering the funky, out-of-this-world life of Detroit’s Amp Fiddler

By Odell Waller

Back in the day, orbiting above the Detroit skies, the Motown Satellite showered the city in soul music. Everyone in the Motor City bopped to the beat of Young America. But eventually, the Motown Satellite sailed off to another solar system, leaving hundreds of wannabe soul children in its wake. After years of dutifully imitating the doo-wop and dance routines of their harmonious idols inside the garages and basements of their parents’ homes, hoping that someday they would join the satellite’s roster of singing sensations, the soul children now found themselves without a launch pad. So, they built their own. For them, building a career was a labor of love. And to one soul child, it was more than love — it was a religion.

He went by many titles: pianist, composer, arranger, singer, songwriter, rapper, teacher, mentor, techno-brat, and futurist. First and foremost, he was an artist in every sense of the word. What constitutes an artist is originality, and Joseph Anthony Fiddler was truly an original. Music was his passion, a fusion of funk, jazz, techno, reggae, Afro pop, soul, rock, rap, and gospel. An arch-futurist who avoided the weepy ballads and the feel-good anthems of R&B, he created new music, new sounds. But his greatest creation was himself — Amp Fiddler.

His wonderfully funky career came to an end on Dec. 18 at age 65. This year, he was the recipient posthumously of both the Grammy for Best Alternative Jazz Album and the NAACP Image Award.

Young Amp — a childhood nickname — grew up on Fleming Street in Conant Gardens, a neighborhood of Detroit. Born into a musical clan, Amp heard his dad, Cleophas Fiddler, a lineman for Uniroyal, sing the songs from his youth growing up on the Caribbean Isle

of St. Thomas, Amp’s first sampling of reggae. He listened to classical records on the family phonograph, purchased by his mom Christine from the J.L. Hudson department store, where she worked. His older brothers Charles and Thomas (Bubz) had not yet begun their musical ascent as saxophonist and bassist. At the age of 9, Amp had already mastered a couple of Motown compositions on the family baby grand piano. Christine was Amp’s source of

Mystic were also musically inclined, and it was Mystic who opened her little brother’s ears to musical possibilities around him.

“When I knew her back then, she wasn’t Mystic. I knew her as Sandra,” Parker says. “Sandra was an adventuress; a civil rights and peace activist, Fleming Street’s very own full-blown Black love child. She wore the regalia of the hippie culture — love beads, fringe vest, mini skirt, and go-go boots.

strength and she, in her wisdom, succeeded in implanting a strong belief in himself and offered to pay for her son’s piano lessons.

“Motown was alive and kickin.’

Motown music was everywhere,” recalls neighbor and fellow musician Bill Parker. “All we listened to was soul music. After Motown left, Black music continued to grow bigger than ever. We were the only two Black families in Conant Gardens that were Catholic. I think that’s why me and Amp clicked, because we had the same religion.”

In addition to Amp’s brothers, he also had two older sisters. Debra and

She read tarot cards, dipped candles, studied Eastern philosophy, and could quote both Gandhi and Chairman Mao. Sandra’s greatest achievement was bringing rock ’n’ roll music into the neighborhood. [She] owned an extensive and eclectic record collection which she shared with me and Amp — Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, the Beatles, Taj Mahal, you name it. After a steady diet of soul music, hearing rock for the first time blew our young minds.”

Then there was Mr. Chick, who lived next door to the Fiddlers. On warm summer evenings sitting in a weathered chaise on his front porch, Mr. Chick would strum on his Gibson guitar. A

sideman once for the blues legend John Lee Hooker, he accompanied the singer on stage at the Apex bar on Hasting Street. On those summer nights, Amp and Bill sat on the porch railing, soaking up the music. Mr. Chick entertained his young visitors with renditions of Robert Johnson’s “Me and the Devil Blues,” Muddy Waters’s “Delta Blues,” and Hooker’s own “Boogie Chillen,” to name a few.

Just as Mystic had opened their minds to the future, Mr. Chick opened their minds to the past. A nascent guitarist himself, Parker pestered Mr. Chick on finger placement, whereas Amp questioned the sideman on musicianship and received one of the best pieces of advice given to the young pianist. “Check your ego at the door,” Mr. Chick told him. Later, Amp turned Mr. Chick’s words into a mantra.

“We started a band in middle school with Amp on piano, his brother Bubz on bass, me on guitar, and Mikey down the street on drums,” Parker says. “We practiced in the Fiddlers’ living room ‘cause the baby grand weighed a ton and brother, nobody was lugging that thing around.”

It takes money to run a band, however — to buy equipment like effect pedals, guitar and piano strings. “Every time we needed a piece of equipment like a bass pedal or something, Amp and me would pull a Butch and Sundance,” Parker says. “Downtown, Grinnell’s music store sold everything, from pianos to sheet music and every musical instrument between. Downstairs, I was swiping effect pedals and upstairs Amp was five-fingering chromatics. Hendrix used effect pedals. Hendrix is my hero, to me, Hendrix was Black Elvis. To achieve the sound Hendrix achieved, I had to use the pedals Hendrix used. See, I never stole nothing I didn’t need. Makes sense, doesn’t it? What didn’t make sense was the harmonicas Amp swiped. No one remembers hearing or seeing Amp ever

RIP Amp Fiddler, 1958–2023.

DOUG COOMBE

Amp Fiddler in his home studio, 2007.

DOUG COOMBE

play harp. Never played one in concert or on any of his CDs. Anyway, our little light-finger larceny ended abruptly when we got busted swiping records at Federal’s Department Store.”

Tall and lanky like his Dad, the teenage Amp, a rocker in elephant-leg bell bottoms and five-inch platform shoes (making the teen even taller), was like most boys his age awkward, especially toward the opposite sex. The girls who were attracted to Amp had to hit on him first, mistaking his shyness for stoicism.

Amp loved the music more than he loved the ladies. That love deepened each time he attended a rock concert.

“Most shows we would sneak in,” Parker says. From Aerosmith to Frank Zappa, Amp saw the hottest rock bands of the period. His favorite was Sly and the Family Stone. Amp enjoyed the band’s tight-knit musicianship, the funky quality of their arrangements, and the topicality of lyrics on tracks like “Don’t Call me Nigger Whitey,” “Everyday People,” and “Life.” The teenaged Amp marveled at Sly Stone’s stage presence, envying his sartorial splendor of gold lamé jumpsuits and the Afro mushrooming beneath a large-brim rhinestoned Stetson.

A new breed of hero appeared on the musical horizon — keyboardists like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Jan Hammer, and Rick Wakeman of the progressive rock band Yes. The sight of Wakeman on stage surrounded by Moog synthesizers greatly impressed Amp; the electronic sounds of the synthesizers changed the young musician’s life forever.

After the shows, whether it was a school night or not, Amp would return home and practice on the Fender Rhodes electric keyboard Christine bought him into the wee hours, sometimes till sunup. But no matter how late Amp practiced, he never missed a day of school. He attended Osborn High School where he excelled in music, as well as athletics (he played point guard on the Osborn Knights varsity basketball team) and art (Amp aped the drawings of R. Crumb and Gilbert Shelton). His drawing abilities came in handy later when sketching his stage wardrobe. Unlike his contemporaries, he enjoyed every bit of school ever since he was an altar boy at Holy Ghost. Amp relished education, but his father died before Amp graduated high school.

After Osborn, Amp did stints at both Wayne and Oakland Community College. Then, onto Oakland University, where he majored in composition and music theory.

It isn’t clear whether Amp met pianist Harold McKinney on Oakland’s campus, where Mr. Kinney taught music, or

in the neighborhood where they both lived. But the important thing is that they met. McKinney was founder of the Detroit Jazz Heritage performance lab workshop held in Detroit’s SereNgeti Ballroom, where he tutored countless young musical hopefuls.

With Amp, it was different. McKinney, who had observed Amp’s piano playing on campus, took the student under his wing for personal lessons instead of lumping Amp in with the rest of the pupils at SereNgeti. Both teacher and student immediately clicked, sharing a love of classical music and trumpeter Miles Davis. Apart from Amp’s musicianship, which McKinney thought exceptional, he also found the student’s self-assuredness, as well as the unwavering self-determination instilled by Christine, to be exemplary. Under McKinney’s tutelage, Amp found a kind and knowledgeable mentor, a title Amp would one day wear in the future.

By the mid-’70s, disco music had practically killed the doo-wop quartets.

hired and toured a year with the group before he jettisoned to R.J.’s Latest Arrival, this time a homegrown rhythm and blues band, but Amp spent less time with R.J. than he did with Enchantment. Amp might have checked his ego at the door, but in private, it rankled him playing soul music when he wanted to play rock ’n’ roll. In a 2003 Red Bull interview Amp spoke of those early years, saying, “I’d been involved in doo-wop and I didn’t like that… because before that, I was listening to Janis Joplin and Hendrix, the Beatles, rock ’n’ roll, Motown.”

Soon, he found himself on a plane heading to Europe with the band Was (Not Was) as a sideman. It would be Amp’s first visit to Europe, but not his last. All the dough he made touring he spent on electric keyboards and drum machines, making a plethora of mixtapes and new sounds and passing out demos to anyone and everyone who could help him professionally. George Clinton, mastermind behind the funk bands Parliament and Funkadelic, was never far off in Amp’s thoughts. Many of the demos Amp made, he made with Clinton in mind, partly because he was a fan of Clinton’s music and the fact that the funkmeister was accessible, living in Detroit in the post-Motown years.

Everyone in the music industry, from the Rolling Stones, Elton John, and even Marvin Gaye, betrayed their roots and jumped aboard the S.S. Disco. Which isn’t to say that there weren’t any doo-wop groups around — there were, like the Enchantment and the Floaters. Both were of Detroit, and both had No. 1 singles on Billboard’s top ten. Amp landed his first gig with the Enchantments thanks to his childhood friend Garry Green, brother of Bobby Green, who was an original member of the group. “Bobby told me they needed a new keyboardist because the old one had left,” Garry says. “So naturally, I told my boy Amp to audition. I knew he could do it and Amp knew he could.” Bobby continues, “I did know Amp. I knew Amp as my younger brother’s running buddy. That’s all I knew about him. I didn’t know he could play keyboards.” On the day of the audition, Emmanuel, the lead vocalist and the de facto leader of Enchantment, hired Amp on the spot.

Amp left college soon after he was

“Parliament-Funkadelic stuck in the back of my mind,” Amp said in the same interview. “I had just started to play a little keyboards. I think we have to keep our vision as far as who and where we want to be in our future … We have to say it to become it. And beyond that, you’ve got to say: ‘I am that and it’s gonna happen.’ Whatever you say is what is. At that time, I said, ‘One day, I will play in that band.’”

Amp met Clinton’s chauffeur Adrian in 1984, when Clinton resided on the top floor of the then slightly shabby Book Cadillac Hotel, where he recorded music. Adrian passed Amp’s demos to Clinton, who immediately rang Amp up and offered the young musician a spot behind the keyboards vacated by Bernie Worrell. Amp would have to quickly learn P-Funk’s catalog, a daunting task.

Fortunately, he could read music, but Clinton and most of the band could not. While some of Amp’s bandmates took umbrage to his musical education, Clinton took pride in it.

“See, that’s where I painted myself in a corner,” Parker says. “I couldn’t read music, and neither could my heroes Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. They played by ear. So, I followed the mythos of playing by ear, thinking that’s all the education needed. But Amp — Amp was smart. He built his career based on education.”

Now, for a second time, Amp found

Amp Fiddler performing in 2018.

DOUG COOMBE

himself a mentor, this time in the psychedelic guise of Clinton, who taught Amp about arranging, management, touring, and marketing. Amp also witnessed Clinton’s mercurial side. Clinton had his Rasputin moments when those pitch-black, sleep-deprived eyes bore right into you. Clinton, like Prince, didn’t tolerate fuckup and he instilled real fear in his musicians.

In 1989, Amp took a leave of absence from P-Funk for a recording contract, a reward he felt he deserved for his servitude. He enjoyed recording and jamming on stage with the other funkateers, but he felt trapped creatively and artistically aboard the P-Funk mothership. Having learned as much as he could from Clinton and P-Funk, Amp wanted to fly on his own wings, do his own thing.

Under the name of Mr. Fiddler, Amp and brother Bubz (by now a talented bass player in his own right) recorded With Respect on Elektra Records. Released in 1990, the album was a critical and commercial failure.

In reality, With Respect was a brilliant show-offy piece of record-making. Possibly, on this LP, Amp didn’t leave his ego at the door. His artistry was on full display, showcasing his musical hubris to dare replicate the sounds of Cab and Duke perfectly, while still keeping it funky. The critics were right when they said the album didn’t flow — it wasn’t supposed to. With Respect was Amp shouting at the world to notice him, the new virtuoso on the block.

If the lack of sales bothered Amp, he didn’t show it. Perhaps he was content with the $10,000 Elektra advanced him, in addition to the promotional keyboard, synthesizers, and drum machine. Amp used the advance to build a recording studio in the home he shared with Bubz, which he later christened Camp Amp.

As much as Amp enjoyed collaborating with Bubz, his next collaboration would be one of his greatest. Dorian Anthony Fiddler was born from the collaboration between Amp and Stacy Willoughby, Dorian’s mother. From the absolute beginning, Dorian was the light of Amp’s life. Amp used a variety of music to lullaby his infant son to sleep — sometimes classical, other times jazz, with a smattering of rock in between. Music was a constant in the child’s life, and Amp, the proud Papa, took young Dorian everywhere. Early on, Amp mentored the boy, which gave Amp immense pleasure, but what made him even happier was watching Dorian’s musical progress as if Amp were learning all over again through the eyes of his son.

Dorian showed a keen interest in drums and percussion and by high

“Amp stood on the steps in front of me and said he would like to be introduced to her as well. He said it with a big grin. So, I went up the steps, hoping he wouldn’t be there when I returned. I wasn’t interested. I was trying to give myself a break from the last relationship. I didn’t want to be bothered, but I said OK, if the brother is still there when I get back, I’ll give the brother a word. He was there in the same spot with the same grin.”

school, he was a master at it. He even began mentoring his fellow bandmates. Both father and son wanted to please the other and nothing pleased them more than to perform together, which they did twice, once at Campus Martius and again at the Auto Show. Both times, Dorian accompanied his Dad on drums. Similarly, Erin Davis, son of Miles Davis, played drums on stage with his famous father.

But fatherhood agreed with Amp, much more than Willoughby ever did. Shortly after Dorian’s birth, Amp fell out of love with his mother, and eventually, Willoughby quietly packed a bag and split. To Amp, Stacy’s betrayal was simply fuel for his artistic fire. Meanwhile, Dorian was too young to remember his Mom’s leave. All he knew was Amp. Dorian worshiped his Dad for his musical brilliance and for Amp’s avant-garde style of dress.

Draped in tailor-made jumpsuits of his own design, Amp cut a striking figure, which landed him a cover photo on Hour magazine as one of the city’s best-dressed men. His clothes, like his music, were eclectic and defined him.

His style could also be seen, unintentionally, as a calling card for others in the industry — like the time in New York when a pair of the singer Maxwell’s handlers recognized Amp crossing the street by the apparel he wore at a show the night before. Although Amp hadn’t performed at the show, the handlers assumed correctly that Amp was indeed a musician. They asked him what instrument he played. Keyboards, he told them. The handlers gleefully told him that Maxwell, at that moment, was in search of a keyboardist, which is how Amp got the gig of keyboardist on the singer’s first LP.

Impressed by Amp’s artistry, Maxwell later invited Amp to play on his followup record. In L.A., singer Raphael Saadiq met Amp inside the Sunset Studios during a chance encounter. “I walked in and saw this tall brother in leather pants with an exploding Afro and an Egyptian Pharaoh-type of goatee walking out of the studio,” Saadiq

20 June 5-11, 2024 | metrotimes.com

says. “Everything about that cat spelled musician. I had to meet the brother.”

In 2004, Amp played keyboards on Saadiq’s sophomore LP, Ray Ray, on the singer’s Pookie Entertainment record label.

Garry Green, a clotheshorse himself, often accompanied Amp to New York on fashion excursions. “Amp was on a first-name basis with every Blackowned haberdashery in Harlem,” he says. “We did our shopping in Harlem at small mom-and-pop boutiques. Amp would go to one boutique and buy a shirt, buy a pair of shoes at another one, and pants at yet another boutique. Amp bought clothes in unmatchable colors. When Amp put it all on, it came together, everything coordinated. The more unconventional the clothing, the better he looked. Now, that’s artistry.”

Whenever Amp went on these shopping excursions, tours, or recording sessions, Dorian remained on Revere Street, under the supervision of his Aunt Deb and Uncle Bubz.

Throughout the ’90s and into the new millennium, Amp worked with a parade of the most innovative artists and DJs in the business: Seal, Moodymann, Jamiroquai, the Brand New Heavies, Fishbone, Sly & Robbie, Theo Parrish, Seal, Corinne Bailey Rae, Basement Jaxx, Scuba, Carl Craig, Will Sessions, and neo-soul singer Meshell Ndegeocello. Then, there was the high school student who was led to Amp’s front door Pied Piper-style by the music emanating loudly from the basement window of Amp’s studio.

The student’s name was James Dewitt Yancey. Across the street from Amp’s Revere Street residence sat Pershing High School, where James attended. After school, on his way home, he would hear Amp’s music and sometimes, James peeped Amp emerging from a tour bus, dropping the musician at his doorstep. This intrigued the young Pershing student, for James had yearnings of being a musician, specifically a rapper. He painstakingly made mixtapes on a cassette recorder in the basement of his mother’s home. Amp

listened enthusiastically to the young student’s demo and invited James to Camp Amp.

Much has been written about Amp’s mentoring and grooming of the young artist, who would come to be known as the acclaimed producer J Dilla, such as Amp teaching Dilla the use of the Akai MPC60 sampling machine. Dilla formed the influential Detroit group Slum Village, and later, Amp hooked up the nascent producer with rapper QTip, a member of A Tribe Called Quest, at Lollapalooza, where the P-Funk All Stars performed on the same bill as Tribe. Dilla went on to produce Tribe and Q-Tip’s solo LP, but not before penning several cuts for his mentor’s 2004 Waltz of a Ghetto Fly. (To learn more of the superstar rapper-producer’s musical journey, see Dan Charnas’s excellent 2022 biography Dilla Time.)

Ghetto Fly is a cool breeze of a LP, funky yet not P-Funky, with hints of Sly and the Family Stone, particularly when Amp’s voice goes into a raspy, reedy, growl à la Sly. Amp explained the album’s title in a 2004 NPR interview. “When I was kid, I used to see older guys walking down the street with a stride,” he said. “They were waltzing a certain way — neighborhood style, to get respect.” The Ghetto Fly title is a nod to Super Fly and Black exploitation flicks of the ’70s, and the LP was a commercial success, perhaps a bigger success in the U.K. than in the U.S. No longer a member of P-Funk, Amp became his own frontman. “Now I’m doing my own thing and it’s a beautiful world,” Amp said in the same NPR interview.

The discovery of Dilla made Amp a kingmaker in Detroit’s underground music scene. Now, everyone wanted to work with him, and he wanted to work with everyone. Amp performed at Campus Martius, promoting his third LP, the well-received Afro Strut. After the promotion, the musician moseyed over to the afterglow, at the Jazz Café inside the Music Hall. “I was there as a favor to Monica Blair, so I was introducing her to Eric Roberson,” Tombi Stewart remembers. “Going up the steps, my mother said that I should introduce myself to her. Amp stood on the steps in front of me and said he would like to be introduced to her as well. He said it with a big grin. So, I went up the steps, hoping he wouldn’t be there when I returned. I wasn’t interested. I was trying to give myself a break from the last relationship. I didn’t want to be bothered, but I said OK, if the brother is still there when I get back, I’ll give the brother a word. He was there in the same spot with the same grin. Now, I didn’t know who he was, and he didn’t know me, but I think he liked the fact

that I had as many friends as he did. People knew us. We wondered why we hadn’t met before, so we got to know each other.”

They talked for hours. She told him little stuff like her being a pianist. He said he liked old movies, comedies mostly. They spoke of heartache and break-up before the conversation turned to music, his and her likes and dislikes. Amp ended the conversation by asking for her email address.

“Most people ask for a phone number, something conventional, but Amp wasn’t conventional,” she says. When she told him, Amp didn’t put the address in his phone. “I’ll remember it,” she remembers him telling her.

“I doubted that he would remember it. And I wouldn’t have cared if he didn’t,” Stewart says of their meet cute. Amp emailed her the next day. He was hosting the Roy Ayers show at MOCAD later and asked if she would like to attend as his guest.

“I didn’t go,” Stewart says “It was my father’s birthday. We emailed a lot. Exchanged cell numbers. We enjoyed talking on the phone. The more we talked on the phone, the more both of us realized how much we were alike, not in a shallow sense of having the same common interests. I saw him in me, a kindred spirit. Maybe he saw me in him, I dunno... But I still wouldn’t go out with him.”

Stewart eventually caught one of Amp’s shows, attending alone. “It was magical. Amp’s energy on stage was electrifying and magnetic,” she says. “He had everyone out of their chairs and on their feet. He was having fun as much as the audience and the audience could sense it. There was a lot of good will between them and Amp.”

It wasn’t long before Stewart became a regular at Camp Amp. Both Bubz and Dorian welcomed her with open arms. It had been a long time since a woman inhabited the Revere residence with any frequency, and her presence dissolved their My Three Sons aura. Amp appreciated Stewart. He valued her understanding of music and creativity, especially nurturing creativity. And she scribbled out lyrics. Stewart helped pen some of the lyrics on “Black House (Paint the White House Black)” and on the album Inspiration Information, a joint effort of Amp and Sly & Robbie, the prolific Jamaican power producers. Mystic even supplied lyrics on the LP and sang background. A family affair indeed.

Released in 2008, Inspiration Information was a smash groove with both critics and audiences alike. But by the following year, Amp’s career would come to a crashing halt. On May 1, 2009, Dorian Fiddler died at age 18 of

diabetic complications. Amp was beside himself with grief, as inconsolable as any father would be. His family gave as much support as they could give him and yet, it wasn’t enough to break him from his grieving. He cried. He blamed himself.

J Dilla’s death in 2006 had rocked him like an earthquake, but now felt like a tremor compared to Dorian. Although he had abandoned Catholicism years ago, the oppressive weight of Catholic guilt still hung over Amp like a shroud. In his guilt, Amp thought because music came easy to him, his son’s death was somehow the result of Amp’s success. It blocked him creatively. The music stopped. These were the dark times.

Stewart says, “I knew he needed the time to grieve, no matter how long, and I gave him the space to do it in.” Gradually, the musician crawled from under his shroud of guilt. He padded through the house quietly, in a haze. Whenever someone, family member or friend, asked him how he’s doing, Amp quoted the weather, fair but cloudy. Again, his family circled around their younger sibling, but to no avail.

George Michalski tuned and restored pianos. He loved the sound the piano made, the tinkling of ivory keys. Bespectacled and gray-haired, Michalski

was hired by Amp to refurbish his baby grand, by now a family heirloom. Amp watched the old man fine-tuning and restoring the piano, lovingly and patiently, and noticed the pride and inner peace the restoration gave Michalski. Amp wanted what the old man had — inner peace. He made a deal with the piano tuner: Teach him the ways of piano tuning and restoring, and every piano Amp restored he would donate to a church, assisted living facility, school, or to underprivileged young ones.

Michalski agreed, surprised by the musician’s knack for learning. In no time, Amp fine-tuned as perfectly as Michalski taught him. Each piano he tuned restored Amp’s spirit. Together, Michalski and Amp donated over ten pianos, and in these acts of goodness, Amp found his joy. The music flowed again.

Someone else beside Michalski was responsible for Amp’s recovery: 6-yearold Chaka, son of songstress-songwriter Neco Redd, who later put a shine in Amp’s eyes.

Redd opened for Amp as part of the group Platinum Pied Pipers in 2004 at Saint Andrew’s Hall. “Until the show, I didn’t know who Amp was. I never heard of Amp Fiddler,” says Redd. “After the show, Amp and I met briefly. He said he liked my voice and before

I could thank him, he was whisked off somewhere. In those days, he was always being whisked somewhere.”

Platinum band member Maestro phoned Redd the next day, telling her Amp wanted her to go on an upcoming tour with her as backup singer. She jumped at this chance and instructed Maestro to pass on her number to Amp as he had requested.

“That was in March 2004,” she says. “It wasn’t until June that I received a second call from Maestro. He said Amp had lost my number. I gave it to him again.”

Maestro told her Amp would call her that day.

“You hear this all the time in the business, the ‘I’m-gonna-call-you back line,’” she says. “Another trick of the trade is for the record producers to gush about how talented you are, what a great singer you are, and if you want the record, lose some weight. So, when Maestro said that Amp would call that day, I didn’t believe him. I worked in a salon as a nail tech and was up to elbows in tweezed eyebrows and didn’t have time for the run around. But Maestro insisted I answer the phone when Amp called.”

Later in the afternoon, Amp telephoned the singer. She answered and Amp pranked her, disguising his voice

The community came together for a memorial to Amp Fiddler on Feb. 3 at Fellowship Chapel.

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in a silly Monty Pythonesque twitter, for Amp had been a long-standing fan of the flying circus. Then he got around to business and invited Redd on his European tour.

“He pulled a Big Red on me, like in the movie Five Heartbeats,” she says. “‘I like your voice. I like your showmanship. Let’s make a deal,’ that kinda thing.”

Amp asked if she had a passport. Redd said she hadn’t. The tour was starting in a week and she knew it would be weeks before she would be granted one. Amp told her that she could have one expedited in less than a week, something he learned from George Clinton.

By late September, Amp, Redd, and the band started the first leg of what was supposed to be a seventeendate tour. It turned into thirty days. First stop was Germany, where they played Berlin, then Heidelberg, and Mannheim.

In Mannheim, the grumbling began.

“It was about my weight,” Redd confesses. “True, in the beginning I missed a few notes, which naturally didn’t endear me to my bandmates. But mainly, it was my weight. The band didn’t believe I had the stamina to keep up.”

By the time the band reached London, things had come to a head. The musicians’ mutiny became personal. Now, the band ridiculed the singer on how she spent her wages.

“They said I was blowing my money,” she says. “I wasn’t blowing my money. I was buying gifts for my Mama, for family members, for everybody but me. I didn’t buy myself any, not one gift. The way I figured it, the tour was my gift.”

Amp got wind of the backstage brouhaha and lit into the gossipy musicians in a fury that would have made George Clinton proud. First, Amp told the entire band and engineers to shut the fuck up. It was nobody’s business how Redd spent her money, and he told them, as far as her weight was concerned, he didn’t see a problem. All he saw was a beautiful young lady with a beautiful voice.

Amp’s diatribe might have silenced the musicians, but it did little to alter their avoidance of the singer. Offstage, Redd was ostracized by the band. Her bandmates would pair up between shows for lunch, dinner, or for a little sightseeing, leaving Redd behind to her own devices. Even Amp was nowhere to be found during those off hours.

“I was sitting alone at a café when Amp stepped in,” she recalls. “He asked me why I was by myself. I told him why.”

“‘Not today,’” she remembered him telling her. “‘Get up. I wanna show you the sights.’”

Strolling through the streets of London, Amp told Redd of his times in Europe and how he was ostracized by the Funkadelics for the mistakes he made musically on stage.

Redd apologized for her onstage mishaps like hitting wrong notes and forgetting song lyrics. Sometimes, he forgot the songs he was supposed to sing.

“Have fun with it,” he told her. “The audience doesn’t know you messed up if you’re having fun.”

On Mayfair Street, Amp confessed to his being different; how he had always been different. As a child he preferred classical over soul music. Growing up, he wore hippie garb, like his influential sister Mystic. The neighborhood kids cursed him for the clothes he wore. Half a fag, they called him mostly. But thanks to his mother, he could be himself without fear or doubt of who he was, which enabled him to be exactly who he was.

“Neco,” he said as they crossed Binney Street. “You got this. You got this.”

“On every show, Amp gave the band thirteen minutes of solo time onstage,” she says. “I would dread those thirteen minutes. I struggled with this one song, my solo song, every night until I got to Ireland. I hit this one note. I didn’t sing off. Everybody in the band gasped in relief. I had finally got it. I remember Amp grinning at me the entire night and I knew he had taken me under his wing. He had my back. Amp was very patient with me. He nurtured me. He’s a nurturer, not a shouter, as some producers can be. Those stories he told me about himself gave me the confidence to be myself. Amp opened me up musically.”

Amp’s genius was his ability to see a person’s musical possibilities before they could. Like Svengali, Amp could draw them from their inhibitions to a level of excellence, knowing instantly a singer or musician’s weaknesses, as well as their strengths. Amp was a keen observer and with very few words corrected any problems they may have had.

“Amp was bigger than a movie star to me,” Redd says. “He was like the Dalai Lama, and the Europeans treated him as such. Everywhere we played they treated us like royalty. We ate like kings. Everything was lush. The tour bus we traveled on, the clubs we played in, the hotels, everything.”

To show how big Amp’s tour was in Europe, jazz legend Roy Ayers opened for Amp in Paris. It irked some in Ayers’s camp that he was an opener since Ayers was a bigger name in the U.S. than Amp. But in Europe, Amp was the headliner, not Ray.

Overseas, Amp might have been King, but back home he watched his

son die. The piano tuner, Michalski, only partly brought Amp out of his funk. Amp received the calm he needed from the older man to accept what had happened to Dorian and in turn absolve himself of blame. But something was needed to break through the sadness. He wasn’t sure what, though.

Then, Amp found it in Redd’s son. By this time, she was a regular on Revere Street and brought Chaka along on those visits. They became close friends, Amp and Redd, almost like family, watching basketball together on TV while Bubz barbecued in the backyard. Sometimes, the two would collaborate in the basement.

Stewart also became fast friends with Redd, but not as fast as Amp and Chaka. He took a shine to the six-yearold immediately. Bubz too. The two brothers held sleepovers for the boy, picked him up from school, and drove him to his football games, where they rooted him to victory. The brothers even cooked young Chaka Sunday dinners.

To some, Amp could be a closed book. Secretive. To Chaka, he wasn’t like that. He was as open to him as he was with Dorian. Amp often told Chaka’s mom how much her son reminded him of his son. “Chaka filled the void Dorian left,” Redd says.

Amp welcomed the extended family, especially since he was losing his own. He had lost his dad, then his mother, who had died in the early 2000s in her birth state of Virginia. Mystic died in New York after her parents. Amp was there with Mystic when she died. Crushed by his sister’s death, Amp sat in Central Park afterward, remembering her kindness and guidance. Dorian followed his aunt, and his Uncle Bubz followed him. Amp regretted not collaborating more with his older brother. Charles died a year later, and Deb after that. With grace, Amp endured the deaths of his siblings, burying his grief in the music.

He managed to produce four albums: Motor City Booty in 2016, Kindred Live and Amp Dog Knights 2017, and The One in 2018. Then, in 2020, Amp received the Heineken Independent Achiever Award, the Soul Tracks Reader Choice Award for the Male Vocalist of the Year, and the Kresge Artist Fellows grant.

Yet the albums and awards did little to assuage the cancer ravaging his body, a fact he had known since his 2016 diagnosis. Stewart knew, naturally. Redd and Garry Green knew also. Why Amp kept the disease secret is ripe for speculation. Maybe because it was his secret to keep. Amp was in and out of the hospital for most of ’21 and ’22, playing the occasional show when he

could do so.

In 2023, Amp performed three concerts. The first one was held at the DIA, the second one at the DSO, and the third, at the Dequindre Cut in July, was his last. The back-to-back shows meant rehearsals during the day and playing at night, which left Amp little time to rest between shows.

“Those concerts were three of the best I have ever seen,” Stewart recalls. “Amp was gaunt. He had lost weight, but his performance, his stamina and voice were that of a younger man. It was amazing, even Amp said so.”

Amp’s doctors, Jeffery Mensah and Sheba Roy, found Amp amazing as well. Dr. Roy wept the night she caught Amp’s show at the DSO, overwhelmed by the musician’s endurance. A year before, Amp restored Dr. Mensah’s Steinway.

Stewart accompanied Amp to Henry Ford a few days after the Dequindre Cut show. Overnight, Stewart became Amp’s Florence Nightingale, his bodyguard, the keeper of the proverbial flame. “I was there by his side unconditionally,” Stewart says. “I was there advocating for the correct medical treatment, helping Amp to make the proper medical decisions. I didn’t know anything about caretaking. Yet, somehow, everything came together.” Slender and beautiful, Stewart seemed more comfortable on a fashion runway than as someone’s caretaker, but Stewart proved to be more than capable of the job.

The only time Stewart would leave Amp’s hospital bed was when Amp sent her on an errand. Then, either Redd or Garry would fill in until Stewart returned. Stewart turned Amp’s hospital room into a sanctuary of calmness and clarity, soothing the musician with courage, positivity, and most of all love, even with him slowly slipping away in front of her eyes.

Around Christmas, Amp was no longer in his hospital room, but inside the belly of a shimmering gold satellite, the size of a mothership, which at first, he thought he was on, except the music he heard was all wrong. It wasn’t P-Funk he heard echoing through the cavernous corridor. Bubz, he said to himself, recognizing the sound of a thumping bass guitar.

Amp stepped inside a glittering ballroom, and with great delight he saw his family, all dressed in white, Bubz on bass, accompanied by Dorian on drums, and Charles on alto sax. Deb and Mystic sang back up. Amp looked at his parents beaming from the sidelines. Now, Amp found himself draped in white, the color of lamb’s wool. Grinning, Amp slipped behind the baby grand and joined in.

WHAT’S GOING ON

Select events happening in metro Detroit this week. Be sure to check venue website before events for latest information. Add your event to our online calendar: metrotimes. com/AddEvent.

MUSIC

Wednesday, June 5

Live/Concert

Alien Ant Farm, Kaleido 7 p.m.; District 142, 142 Maple St., Wyandotte; $20-$30.

Candlelight Open Air: A Tribute to Beyoncé 7 p.m.; The War Memorial, 32 Lake Shore Drive, Grosse Pointe Farms; $30.

Candlelight Open Air: Tribute to Nirvana 9:15 p.m.; The War Memorial, 32 Lake Shore Drive, Grosse Pointe Farms; $30.

Chris Brown, Ayra Starr, Maeta 7:30 p.m.; Little Caesars Arena, 2645 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $59.50-$299.50.

Lalah Hathaway, Mike Phillips

7:30 p.m.; The Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre, 2600 E. Atwater St., Detroit; $210-$810.

Michael Marcagi 7 p.m.; El Club, 4114 W. Vernor Hwy., Detroit; $27.20.

Tribunal, Mares of Thrace, Theandric, Morbid Cunt 7 p.m.; Outer Limits Lounge, 5507 Caniff St., Detroit; $15.

Violent Vira, Alexis Monroe, Max Diaz 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $20-$60.

Thursday, June 6

Live/Concert

Andy Frasco & The U.N., Dogs in a Pile 7 p.m.; Saint Andrew’s Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $23.

Boeckner (Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs) 7 p.m.; El Club, 4114 W. Vernor Hwy., Detroit; $33.99.

Bone Thugs-N-Harmony 8 p.m.; Sound Board, 2901 Grand River Ave., Detroit; $45-$59.

Come Back to Earth 7 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $15-$20.

Jacob Collier, Emily King 6 p.m.; The Fillmore, 2115 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $43-$67.50.

Jana Kramer 7 p.m.; Royal Oak Music Theatre, 318 W. Fourth St., Royal Oak; $29.50-$35.

Ska Thursdays: Killer Diller, the Write-Ups 8 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.

Smoking Popes 7 p.m.; Small’s, 10339 Conant St., Hamtramck; $24.

T-Pain’s Mansion In Wiscansin Party 6:30 pm; Caesars Palace Windsor - Augustus Ballroom, 377 E. Riverside Dr., Windsor; $38-$93.

Karaoke/Open Mic

Drag Queen Karaoke! | Woodward Avenue Brewers | NO COVER 8 p.m.; Woodward Avenue Brewers, 22646 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; no cover.

Friday, June 7

Live/Concert

Archspire, Aborted, Carcosa, Alluvial 6 p.m.; Majestic Theatre, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $25-$44.50.

Jerry’s Tone (Jerry Garcia Band Tribute), DJ Ryan Gimbert 9 p.m.; Bowlero Lanes & Lounge, 4209 Coolidge Hwy., Royal Oak; no cover.

Raputa (J Geils Tribute), the Detroit Doors 8 p.m.; The Token Lounge, 28949 Joy Rd., Westland; $10-$90.

Slow Joy, Summerbruise, The Casper Fight Scene, LoudFoxCult 6:30 p.m.; Pike Room, 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac; $15.

Superdot, St Thomas Boys Academy, Ska’t Ya Covered, Suburban Delinquents 7 p.m.; Small’s, 10339 Conant St., Hamtramck.

Tep No, Jyarsch 9 p.m.; The Alley Deck, 4120 Woodward, Detroit; $15.

Twist of Country - Faster Horses Night 8 p.m.; Diamondback Music Hall, 49345 S. Interstate 94 Service Dr., Belleville; $10.

DJ/Dance

Hot Italo Nights (18+) 9:30 p.m.; The Shelter, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit; $12. Gucci Mane Vs. Jeezy 10 p.m.; El Club, 4114 W. Vernor Hwy., Detroit; $13.60.

Saturday, June 8

Live/Concert

Boney James 8 p.m.; The Music Hall, 350 Madison Ave., Detroit; $40-$60.

Chandler Park Sounds of Summer with Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians, Lulu Fall, Ultimate Ovation, and Brandon Waddles 2 p.m.; Chandler Park, 12801 Chandler Park Dr., Detroit; no cover.

24 June 5-11, 2024 | metrotimes.com

Greylotus, Sarah Longfield, Annex Void, Beneath This Facade 6 p.m.; Sanctuary Detroit, 2932 Caniff St., Hamtramck; $15.

Luis R Conriquez: Super Jaripero de Verano en Pontiac 3 p.m.; Aaron Perry Park, 353-403 Edison st,, Pontiac; $70-$400.

Konrad Lee’s Madhouse Eclective 8:30 p.m.; Batch Brewing Co., 1400 Porter St., Detroit; $15.

Magic Bag Presents: MEGA 80s 7 p.m.; Magic Bag, 22920 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $20.

Of Montreal, Godcaster 8 p.m.; Magic Stick, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; $25-$30.

Parker McCollum, Corey Kent 7:30 p.m.; Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill, 14900 Metropolitan Pkwy., Sterling Heights; $32.50-$84.50.

Tribute to MC5 with The Paybacks, Mike Skill with Ricky Ratt, Scott Morgan, The Broken Arrow Blues Band, Tino G & Dumpster Machine, Kenny Olson, Johnny Bee, and more 8 p.m.; Blind Pig, 208 S. First St., Ann Arbor; $15.

Ursda Day, Michigan left, The Tree Monitors, Living Ai 7 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $15. DJ/Dance

Erykah Badu Vs. Jill Scott Night 10 p.m.; El Club, 4114 W. Vernor Hwy., Detroit; $27.20.

Sunday, June 9

Live/Concert

25th Season Chamber Music at the Scarab Club Celebration and Fundraiser 3-5 p.m.; Scarab Club, 217 Farnsworth St., Detroit; $15-$50.

Cloud Nothings 7:30 p.m.; The Loving Touch, 22634 Woodward Ave., Ferndale; $21.

Harmolodics 8 p.m.; Garden Bowl Lounge, 4120 Woodward Ave., Detroit; no cover.

Hauser: Rebel With A Cello 7:30 p.m.; Fisher Theatre, 3011 W Grand Blvd., Detroit; $59.50-$146.50.

Kim Gordon 8:30 p.m.; El Club, 4114 W. Vernor Hwy., Detroit; $42.85.

Maggie Rogers, The Japanese House 7:30 p.m.; Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill, 14900 Metropolitan Pkwy., Sterling Heights; $35.50-$99.50.

The Australian Pink Floyd Show

8 p.m.; The Music Hall, 350 Madison Ave., Detroit; $55-$75.

Monday, June 10 Live/Concert

The Curtis Mayfield Tribute performed by Level Rizon, Deniece Edwards & Terry Thomas 7 p.m.; Aretha’s Jazz Cafe, 350 Madison St., Detroit; $35.

DJ/Dance

Adult Skate Night 8:30-11 p.m.; Lexus Velodrome, 601 Mack Ave., Detroit; $5.

Tuesday, June 11 Live/Concert

Ignite, Middle Out, Come Out Fighting 7 p.m.; Small’s, 10339 Conant St., Hamtramck; $15.

Inayah 8:30 pm; El Club, 4114 W. Vernor Hwy., Detroit; $36.71.

Samantha Cooper & Elisabeth Pixley-Fink 6:30-7:30 p.m.; Alpino, 1426 Bagley St, Detroit; $10. DJ/Dance

B.Y.O.R Bring Your Own Records Night 9 pm-midnight; The Old Miami, 3930 Cass Ave., Detroit; no cover.

THEATER

Performance

Detroit Repertory Theatre Between Riverside and Crazy; $25 in advance, $30 general admission; Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 3 p.m., 8 p.m.; and Sundays, 2 p.m.

Plowshares Theatre The House That Will Not Stand; $15 -$49; Thursday, 7:309:30 p.m.; Friday, June 7, 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Saturday, 8-10 p.m.; and Sunday 9, 2-4 p.m.

Theatre NOVA Death of a Driver; $28; Thursday, 8 p.m.; Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 8 p.m.; and Sunday, 2 p.m.

They Say The Murder Mystery Company Presents A Dance with Death; $59; Friday 7, 7-9:30 p.m.

Musical

Meadow Brook Theatre Ella, First Day of Song; $46; Wednesday, 8 p.m.; Thursday, 8 p.m.; Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; and Sunday, 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

Tipping Point Theatre From Broadway to Obscurity; $35; Saturday, 2-3:45 p.m. and 8-9:45 p.m.

COMEDY

Go Comedy! Improv Theater Go Comedy! All-Star Showdown; $20; Fri-

days, Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

Stand-up

Five15 Media, Mojo and More Side Piece Comedy Show (LGBTQ Stand-Up Comedy Night); $10 advance, $15 at the door; Tuesday, 8-9:30 p.m.

Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle J.D. Witherspoon, Steve Kaz, Tanner Oliver; $25; Thursday, 7:30-9 p.m.; Friday, 7:158:45 p.m.; and Saturday, 7-8:30 p.m. and 9:30-11 p.m.

The Shelter Chloe Troast; $25; Saturday, 6 p.m.

The Independent Comedy Club

INDIEx: A PowerPoint-guided comedy show The Independent Comedy Clubs brings you a night of hot topic presentations from some of the Midwest’s funniest comedians. With this interactive and new comedic experience, you will see PowerPoint presentations on topic, like: “Why Sharks Aren’t Real”, “Does Size Really Matter”, and “Fat Earth Theory: A Synopsis.” What ever the presentations may contain, they are sure to have “facts”, laughs, and a whole lot of chaos. Hosted by Scott Sviland; $5 advance, $10 at door; Friday, 9-10:30 p.m.

Continuing this week

Blind Pig Blind Pig Comedy FREE Mondays, 8 p.m.

The Independent Comedy Club at Planet Ant Tonight vs Everybody: Open Mic Comedy; $5 suggested donation; 9-10:30 p.m.

The Congregation Detroit Comedy at the Congregation; $15 advance, $20 at the door; Friday, 7:30-8:45 p.m.

DANCE

Dance lessons

The Commons Ballroom Dance Lessons in the community laundry mat; $5; Friday, 6-7 p.m.

AUDITIONS

Casting call

Ridgedale Playhouse Auditions for Unnecessary Farce; Sunday, 6:30 p.m. registration; auditions at 7 p.m. Rehearsals to start mid to late July; show dates weekends Sept. 13-29. Register: (forms. gle/B3DJ1SDF4Lcfv7cG6).

FILM

Screening

Longway Planetarium Through the Looking Glass: A Discussion of the Art of

Microscopy; $8; Friday, 6-7 p.m.

ARTS

Art exhibition

College for Creative Studies Mighty Real/Queer Detroit: I’ll Be Your Mirror; no cover; Friday, 4-7 p.m.

Pewabic Society, Inc. Pewabic House and Garden Show; no cover; Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; and Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

Continuing this week

Cranbrook Art Museum Constellations & Affinities: Selections from the Cranbrook Collection; Museum admission free on Thursdays, WednesdaysSundays, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Habatat Galleries 52nd Annual International Glass Show (Glass52); through Aug. 30.

Janice Charach Gallery 5th Annual Michigan Regional Glass Exhibition; through June 26.

Stamelos Gallery Center, UM-Dearborn Piece by Piece: Recent Work from Regional Fiber Artists through Aug. 18. University of Michigan Museum of Art Unsettling Histories: Legacies of Slavery and Colonialism

WELLNESS

Self-care

Girls Street Smarts Safety Awareness Program Tailored specifically for pre-teen and teen girls, this five-week course on Saturdays in June, held at Ambrose Academy, offers a unique safety aware program. Developed to equip young women with the essential skill they need to navigate the complexities of the world. Saturday, 4:30-5:45 p.m.; Ambrose Academy Wing Chun Do, 28239 Plymouth Rd., Livonia; $99; ambroseacademy.com.

Benefit

BasBlue National Cancer Survivors Day Celebration; Thursday, 4-5:30 p.m.

Fundraiser

Detroit Zoo Corewell Health Children’s Walk for Miracles at the Detroit Zoo. A special discounted day for families to enjoy a day at the zoo, all while helping local children and families. Superheroes of all ages are invited to participate in the fundraising event at the Detroit Zoo, Saturday. The walk begins at 8 a.m., and walkers may stay and enjoy the zoo all day. All proceeds benefit Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals programming

at Corewell Health Children’s and stay in Southeast Michigan to fund exceptional programs and services, vital pediatric equipment, and scholarships for families struggling to afford care.

Saint John’s Resort Living and Learning Enrichment Center Hosts 3rd Annual Hopes and Dreams Gala; $225; Friday, 7-11 p.m.

Volunteering

Grace Gospel Fellowship Grace Centers of Hope Hosts 3rd Annual “Picking Up Pontiac” Volunteer Initiative. Volunteer shifts are available from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, June 6; Friday, June 7; and Saturday, June 8; and from 12:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, June 9, with Grace Gospel Fellowship Church offering a lunch beginning at 12:30 p.m. Volunteers will make a tangible difference in the beautification of Pontiac.

Continuing this week

Scott Goodwin Law Scott Goodwin Law/WMUZ Law Day Do you have a legal question you need help with? Stop by the Scott Goodwin Law/WMUZ Law Day event. Lawyers will be on hand to help answer your questions free of charge. We’ll be able to help with a wide range of legal matters, including personal injury cases, family law matters, estate planning, bankruptcy, contracts, real estate transactions, and more. Law Day is an event the whole family can enjoy. We’ll be doing giveaways for bikes, tickets, books, and more, with games for kids and free food. No cover; Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

LITERARY EVENT

Books

The War Memorial Silent Book Club Meet throughout the main floor of the Alger Center at The War Memorial. Bring your own book and enjoy socializing with other book lovers… or not! You can continue to read on your own if that’s what you would like to do. The choice is up to you! Coffee, tea, and popcorn will be provided. Wine will be available for purchase. Please register at warmemorial. org/eventcalendar11/silent-book-club-atthe-war-memorial-1; no cover; Tuesday, 6-8 p.m.

CAR CULTURE

Car show

M1 Concourse Cars & Coffee: General Motors Vehicles; no cover; Saturday, 8-11 a.m.

Macomb Lodge Elk’s #2292 Drivin’

2292 Charity Car Show; Sunday, June, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. (awards 2 p.m.). Early registration $20 per car, registration day of the Car Show is $25 per car. Event proceeds will benefit Healing Choices a 501(c)3 and Macomb Elks 2292, a 501(c)8 charitable organization. If you are interested in showing off, your car please email webmaster2292@gmail.com to request a registration form. Sunday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Packard Proving Grounds Historic Site Cars ‘R’ Stars. This event is perfect for car enthusiasts of all ages. Enjoy a car show and swap meet featuring all makes, models, and years. DJ will keep the atmosphere lively, and food will be available on-site. Cars can enter the competition for $25 or join the show only for $20. Admission is $10 for adults and free for kids under 12. Register at packardprovinggrounds.org/cars-r-stars. Sunday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m.

ISSUES & LEARNING

Live

Cathedral Theatre at the Masonic Temple Ancient Aliens Live Saturday, 7 p.m.

Q&A/Panel

Detroit Historical Museum In the Neighborhood Everyday Life on Hastings Street Take a walk back in time to Detroit’s first Jewish enclave, 1880-1930, where tradition and innovation rubbed shoulders in surprising ways. Museum admission charge; Mondays-Sundays, 10 a.m.

MISC.

Festival

Hungarian American Cultural Center Gulyás Festival; $10; Saturday, 1-11:30 p.m.

SHOPPING

Marketplace

Shed 5 Flea Join us on the second Sunday of June, July, and August for a day of summer fun, fresh air, and phenomenal shopping. Sunday June 9, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Eastern Market - Shed 5; shed5flea.com.

SPORTS Baseball

Comerica Park Detroit Tigers vs. Washington Nationals; Friday, 6:40 p.m.; Saturday, 4:10 p.m.; and Sunday, 1:40 p.m..; Tuesday, 6:40 p.m.

FOOD

The poetry in Benny Ciccarelli’s Italian sausages

By Tom Perkins

Available at the Royal Oak Farmers Market

16 E. Eleven Mile Rd., Royal Oak 734-846-0882

Saturdays, 7 a.m.-1 p.m.

$7

Folks — it’s grillin’ season in metro Detroit, which means one can almost hear the sound of Italian sausage sizzlin’ in the background. For the most part, Italian sausages are one of those dishes people purchase at the meat counter at Whole Foods or Kroger, or prepackaged. The broad public view seems to be that Italian sausages are created more or less equal, and there’s not a ton of range in quality. It’s the same view people have of hot dogs.

But it’s flawed thinking. A whole nother echelon of Italian sausage exists,

and perhaps the best of them can only be found on a grill on Saturdays at the Royal Oak Farmers’ Market. There aren’t a ton on hand, and when they’re gone, you missed your opportunity til the next week.

The sausages aren’t made by a company, but an old, affable Italian man, Benny Ciccarelli, who learned the craft many decades ago while growing up on a farm in Italy. In a simple dish like an Italian sausage, excellence is achieved in subtle ways. Benny knows those subtleties.

Before elaborating, a bit about Benny: He learned to butcher pigs at around 14 years old after he stopped going to school to help on his family’s farm and vineyard in Italy. Aside from sausage, he’s a skilled winemaker. Though he developed butchering skills at a young age, he decided to join the military, and not long after getting out of the service, left for the U.S. He bounced among jobs in construction and at Ford, and moved back to Italy for a minute before retiring in 2005.

During this time, he never gave up on his passion and would make sausages for friends. But the leap into full-time butchery or sausage making seemed unrealistic because he had three kids and needed to bring home the bacon. Butchering didn’t seem lucrative.

It was not until his daughter opened Redford’s Mama Rita bakery and started producing breads several years ago that Benny, with time on his hands, got a business license and started making sausage for sale. He teamed up with decorated Royal Oak restaurateur Seymour Schwartz, who helps run the grill at the market’s south end.

The sausages are fantastic. Why? As Benny explains, they are stuffed with the correct pork butt meat to fat ratio, and he uses the good fat, not the bad. Glorious pig fat is what generates flavor, so if the package is too lean then it’s bland, but if there’s too much fat then the texture is off and it drips on the grill, causing flames to leap and burning the sausage.

There’s a broad underappreciation

of texture in American cuisine, but certainly not in Italian. Benny cuts the meat to just the right with a knife that has to be razor sharp or it will stress the meat and ruin the texture.

“Every little thing like this helps you succeed in what you want in the sausage,” Benny says.

Finally, he doesn’t add herbs as many do with Italian sausage. Only salt, black pepper, and a little garlic, though not so much that it overpowers the rest of the flavor. He also adds red wine, which is really what puts his sausage over the top. It adds depth and complexity, and the wine’s tannins work with the meat’s protein to unleash flavor. It’s a no brainer for a guy who knows how to make wine and sausage.

Benny doesn’t add mustard or grilled onions and peppers, as is common, because it obscures the meat’s flavor. Instead he usually eats his sausages with a small, simple salad. He’s right — who needs condiments when your sausage is poetic?

Not all Italian sausages are created equal.

TOM PERKINS

CULTURE

Arts spotlight

The renovated Hart Plaza fountain was the star of Movement Music Fest

The Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain at Detroit’s Hart Plaza has always been the heart of Movement Music Festival, a central place for revelers to meet up, pose for photos, and rest between sets. That’s despite the fact that for much of the past decade, the fountain has been largely out of order.

That all changed this year thanks to a renovation that brought the fountain back to its former glory — and then some. Funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act, the $6.7 million project saw repairs to the fountain’s plumbing, as well as the installation of new color-changing LED lighting. It was part of a $9 million upgrade to Hart Plaza.

The restored fountain dazzled throughout the Memorial Day weekend

By Lee DeVito

festival, creating a stunning rainbow in the sunshine, pulsating along with the beat of the techno music at night, and cooling festivalgoers down with its mist. It added a whole new level of enjoyment to the festival, which often uses the fountain for visual shorthand of the event, as production company Paxahau did this year.

“This moment has been a long time coming,” the city of Detroit’s construction and demolition executive director LaJuan Counts said in a statement.

“The prospect of giving this iconic space a much-needed facelift and restoring the fountain to its former glory fills us with immense pride. This fountain is truly one of a kind, and reviving it is no small feat. We are deeply honored that Mayor Duggan has placed his trust in us to undertake this

significant responsibility.”

The futuristic fountain was designed by Japanese American architect Isamu Noguchi and opened in 1981. It was named after Horace Elgin Dodge, cofounder of the Dodge Brothers automobile company.

The fountain sits alongside other works of public art in Hart Plaza like “Transcending,” a 63-foot tall steel arch sculpture by David Barr and Sergio de Giusti that serves as a monument to labor unions (and gives the inspiration for the name of Movement Music Festival’s “Stargate” stage). Together they — along with the nearby RenCen — contribute to the retrofuturistic vibe of downtown Detroit.

Hart Plaza is named for Philip A. Hart, a Democratic Senator who is known as the “Conscience of the Sen-

ate” for his work on civil rights and the environment.

The riverfront plaza is located at the site where the French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac arrived and built Fort Pontchartrain, which eventually grew into the Motor City.

The renovations to the fountain launched in October and wrapped up in April, just in time for the NFL Draft, an event that drew hundreds of thousands of football fans to Detroit. But it was during Movement Music Festival that the fountain really shined.

With other events headed for Hart Plaza including Motor City Pride, the African World Festival, and the Detroit Jazz Festival, we’re looking forward to more opportunities to enjoy the refurbished Dodge Fountain.

Detroit can have nice things.

The newly restored Dodge and Son Memorial Fountain dazzled during the Memorial Day weekend festival.

KAHN SANTORI DAVISON

CULTURE

Savage Love Quickies

By Dan Savage

: Q Is pegging only for butts, or can vaginas get pegged, too?

A: I’m not a pegging purist. When the term originated in my column — when my readers selected “pegging” as the name for a woman fucking a man in the ass with a strap-on dildo — it was gendered; pegging was something a woman did to a man. But now people use “pegging” in reference to someone of any gender fucking someone of any gender in the ass with a strap-on dildo, an evolution of use and meaning that I fully support. But I think it’s good we have a term that refers to a particular and very popular kind of ass fucking. But meaning follows use, of course, and I am not the boss of the English language, and if people start using pegging to refer to any kind of penetrative sex that involves a dildo and a dildo harness, I won’t be mounting any legal challenges.

: Q Best sex position for celebrating the NY verdict?

A: Not sure — but it should be something you can get away with doing 34 times.

: Q I’m a unicorn to a hot married couple who lives a few hours away. I came up for her birthday and a fun party. For the first time, the sex was off. The wife and I had our usual hot time, but the husband seemed to be ignoring me and focusing only on his wife. I left feeling rejected. I called and said it’s OK if he wants to fuck his wife, but why was I there then? He apologized and assured me he’s still attracted to me and wants me to come back. Should I go back?

A: Maybe the husband felt his wife should be the center of attention on her birthday … or maybe you were the center of attention the last 10 times and his wife asked to be the center of attention on her birthday. Either way, if the husband had a plan to focus things on the wife for a change, he should’ve shared that plan with you in advance. But if the sex was good every other time, I think you should give it and them another go. If you expect to be the center of attention during every threesome, you should share that expectation with them — but I don’t think that’s a realistic expectation. A one-off threesome with a

couple? You’re the very special guest star, and you should be the center of attention. A relationship with a couple that involves lots of threesomes? Everyone should get to be the center of attention once in a while.

: Q After four years together, I found out that my boyfriend cheated on me. I became suspicious because he didn’t want to have sex anymore, and he spent most of his time on his phone. At first, I learned he kissed a coworker after I found the shadow of a hickey on his neck. He uses a car-sharing service to get home, and I asked to see where he got the car, and it was the street where this woman lives. He insisted it only happened twice. Now I know it has happened 15 times in nine months. I love him dearly, and I can’t live without him. What am I supposed to do? How can I believe it just two kisses? Can I ever trust him again?

A: If you can’t live without him, you’ll have to put up with this shit. If you can’t put up with this shit, you’ll have to learn to live without him.

: Q Married 24 years, haven’t had a BJ in fifteen years.

That sucks.

P.S. Since I’m an advice columnist and you’re a straight married man — men couldn’t marry other men 24 years ago — I’m supposed to ask if you’re doing your fair share of the housework, if you have good personal hygiene practices and if you’re making sure your wife comes when you have sex. The implication: you must not be doing these things — or eating her pussy — because otherwise you would be getting regular blowjobs. But there are men out there who do everything right — their fair share of the housework, they shower and brush their teeth, they get their wives off — and they never get blowjobs. They may have married women who never liked sucking cock, or they may have married women who loved sucking cock at first but something about the act doesn’t work for them in the context of an established relationship.

P.P.S. If you want a BJ, ask the wife for one. If she won’t give you a BJ, ask the wife for permission to get a BJ elsewhere. If she won’t give you a BJ or let you get a BJ elsewhere, do what you need to do to stay married and stay sane.

P.P.P.S. Not calling it a “BJ” might help.

: Q Best soap for cleaning smelly cock?

A: Any soap will do — seriously, cocks don’t smell bad because men are using the wrong soap.

: Q My boyfriend said he wants to ask his therapist “for their approval” before we can

have a threesome. Is it a no-go?

A: Does your boyfriend have a long history of compulsive sexual behavior? Did he need years of therapy before one-on-one sex with someone he actually cared about was a possibility for him? Did your boyfriend’s ex-husband leave him for someone they had a threesome with? And did the fallout from the breakup require years of therapy to clear away? Did your boyfriend walk in on his mom getting double penetrated by his dad and his dad’s best friend when he was 10? And has your boyfriend only recently managed — with the help of his therapist — to block the mental images that were ruining sex for him and him for sex? If any of the above or something close is true, your boyfriend might have a good reason to check-in with his therapist before having his first threesome with his new boyfriend. But he could’ve and should’ve checked-in without telling you about it.

: Q Sex has become boring and routine. Best advice for spicing it up?

A: Location, location, location — meaning, if you’re having sex with the same person in the same place over and over again, you might wanna fuck that person somewhere you’ve never fucked that person before, e.g., at the office, on the roof, in the darkroom of a sex club with other couples having sex all around you. If you’re having sex with lots of different people in lots of different places and you’re bored, you may need to take a break.

: Q I can take really big sex toys, but men’s dicks are painful. Why?

A: Men come attached to dicks — typically — which can make dicks somewhat unpredictable. Toys, by way of contrast, are very predictable; toys stay where you put them, toys don’t make any sudden moves, toys don’t have their own ideas about the depth, angle or pace of penetration. If you’re someone who experiences even mild anxiety around penetration, playing with typical dick — the kind that comes attached to man — may be causing you to tense up, and tension is the enemy of painless penetration.

: Q Cis female here who has sex with trans women with [eggplant emoji] who also sleep with people with [eggplant emoji, eggplant emoji, eggplant emoji]. Should I be on PrEP?

A: Yes.

: Q What’s the most erotic thing you’ve watched IRL in a room?

A: Pass.

: Q How legit are all the ads telling me I have low T? I’m a 45-year-old male. Do all

men my age have low testosterone levels?

A: Those ads are designed to make all men feel like they’re suffering from low testosterone, which not all men do. Luckily for men, getting your testosterone levels checked is a pretty simple procedure.

: Q My partner and I enthusiastically adopted your #fuckfirst philosophy and doing so has improved our lives immeasurably! But I have noticed that on the social occasions when it’s not an option, I often find myself feeling disconnected and prone to being testy with my partner. Is this a problem? Is our relationship too dependent on sex? Would we be together if it weren’t for our incredible sex life?

A: I couldn’t tell you — but if you stay together long enough, i.e., if you’re together into advanced old age, you’ll find out.

: Q Will casual gay sex between consenting adult males ever be normalized?

A: God, I hope not — because it feels like discomfort with gay sex is the only thing keeping bachelorette parties out of bathhouses.

: Q Are friends of exes or exes of friends always off limits? What’s the best way to handle one of these sticky situations so you don’t lose a good friend?

A: Friends of exes and exes of friends are never off limits — life is too short for those kinds of baby-ass dating games. If you’re dating the ex of a friend, you owe your friend the courtesy of a call. Your friend should hear it from you and — yes —it’s gonna be awkward, but the sooner you make the call, the sooner the awkwardness ends. If you’re dating the friend of an ex, they need to make the call.

: Q If I’m having a quickie outside, what’s the best way to deal with unclean surroundings?

A: You can plant your feet — and stay on your feet — and get plowed and seeded all at the same time.

: Q How do I get my low-libido partner to fuck more often?

A: No idea — but if you figure it out and the solution is something you can bottle and sell, you’ll get rich.

Read the full column online at savage.love.

Got problems? Yes, you do! Email your question for the column to mailbox@savage. love!

Or record your question for the Savage Lovecast at savage.love/askdan!

CULTURE Free Will Astrology

By Rob Brezsny

ARIES: March 21 – April 19

What potentials should you strive to ripen as the expansive planet Jupiter glides through your astrological House of Connection, Communication, and Education in the coming months? I’ll offer my intuitions. On the downside, there may be risks of talking carelessly, forging superficial links, and learning inessential lessons. On the plus side, you will generate good luck and abundant vitality if you use language artfully, seek out the finest teachings, and connect with quality people and institutions. In the most favorable prognosis I can imagine, you will become smarter and wiser. Your knack for avoiding boredom and finding fascination will be at a peak.

TAURUS: April 20 – May 20

Since 1969, Taurus singer-songwriter Willie Nelson has played his favorite guitar in over 10,000 shows. His name for it is Trigger. Willie doesn’t

hold onto it simply for nostalgic reasons. He says it has the greatest tone he has ever heard in a guitar. Though bruised and scratched, it gets a yearly check-up and repair. Nelson regards it as an extension of himself, like a part of his body. Is there anything like Trigger in your life, Taurus? Now is a good time to give it extra care and attention. The same is true for all your valuable belongings and accessories. Give them big doses of love.

GEMINI: May 21 – June 20

June is here, so it’s more or less summer, probably be warmer this year since the world is on fire (figuratively, actually, politically, militarily and a few other ly’s that escape me). A cold drink is order.

VIRGO: August 23 – Sept. 22

Please note that during the next 12 months, I may seem a bit pushy in my dealings with you. I will encourage you to redefine and enhance your ambitions. I will exhort you to dream bigger. There may come times when you wish I wouldn’t dare you to be so bold. I will understand, then, if you refrain from regularly reading my horoscopes. Maybe you are comfortable with your current type of success and don’t want my cheerleading. But if you would welcome an ally like me — an amiable motivator and sympathetic booster — I will be glad to help you strive for new heights of accomplishment.

LIBRA: Sept. 23 – Oct. 22

oracle, I am advising you to monitor and suppress any unconscious attractions you might have for bewildering risks and seemingly interesting possibilities that are actually dead ends. Don’t flirt with decadent glamor or fake beauty, dear Sagittarius! Instead, make yourself fully available for only the best resources that will uplift and inspire you.

CAPRICORN: Dec. 22 – Jan. 19

3PM-2AM EVERY DAY

Off the coast of West Africa is an imaginary place called Null Island. A weather buoy is permanently moored there. Geographers have nicknamed it “Soul Buoy.” It’s the one location on Earth where zero degrees latitude intersects with zero degrees longitude. Since it’s at sea level, its elevation is zero, too. I regard this spot as a fun metaphor for the current state of your destiny, Gemini. You are at a triple zero point, with your innocence almost fully restored. The horizons are wide, the potentials are expansive, and you are as open and free as it’s possible for you to be.

CANCER: June 21 – July 22

When I worked as a janitor at India Joze restaurant in Santa Cruz, California, I did the best I could. But I was unskilled in the janitorial arts. I couldn’t fix broken machines and I lacked expertise about effective cleaning agents. Plus, I was lazy. Who could blame me? I wasn’t doing my life’s work. I had no love for my job. Is there an even remotely comparable situation in your life, Cancerian? Are you involved with tasks that neither thrill you nor provide you with useful education? The coming months will be an excellent time to wean yourself from these activities.

LEO: July 23 – August 22

I foresee two possible approaches for you in the coming months. Either will probably work, so it’s up to you to decide which feels most fun and interesting. In the first option, you will pursue the rewards you treasure by creating your own rules as you outfox the system’s standard way of doing things. In the second alternative, you will aim for success by mostly playing within the rules of the system except for some ethical scheming and maneuvering that outflank the system’s rules. My advice is to choose one or the other, and not try to do both.

Three months after Rachel Denning bore her fourth child, she and her husband sold everything they owned and embarked on a nomadic life. They have been roaming ever since, adding three more kids along the way. She says they have become addicted to “the personal transformation that travel extracts.” She loves how wandering free “causes you to be uncomfortable, to step out of the familiar and into the unknown. It compels you to see with new eyes and to consider things you had never been aware of. It removes preconceptions, biases, and small-mindedness.” If you were ever going to flirt with Rachel Denning’s approach, Libra, the next 12 months would be a favorable time. Could you approximate the same healing growth without globetrotting journeys? Probably. Homework: Ask your imagination to show you appealing ways to expand.

SCORPIO: Oct. 23 – Nov. 21:

Among the Europeans who first settled in South America were Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity by Portuguese and Spanish persecutions. Centuries later, some families resolved to reclaim their Jewish heritage. They led a movement called la sangre llama — a Spanish phrase meaning “the blood is calling.” I invite you to be inspired by this retrieval, Scorpio. The coming months will be an excellent time to commune with aspects of your past that have been neglected or forgotten. Your ancestors may have messages for you. Go in search of missing information about your origins.

SAGITTARIUS: Nov. 22 – Dec. 21

If you simply let the natural flow take you where it will in the coming weeks, you would become a magnet for both degenerative and creative influences. Fortunately, you are reading this oracle, which will help ensure the natural flow won’t lead you toward degenerative influences. With this timely

Capricorn politician Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is campaigning to be U.S. President. But oops: He recently confessed that a parasitic worm once ate a portion of his brain, damaging his memory and cognitive skills. “The worm is dead now,” he assured us, as if that were a good reason to vote for him. Why am I bringing this up? Like most of us, you have secrets that if revealed might wreak at least a bit of mayhem. As tempting as it might be to share them with the world — perhaps in an effort to feel free of their burden — it’s best to keep them hidden for now. Kennedy’s brain worm is in that category. Don’t be like him in the coming weeks. Keep your reputation and public image strong. Show your best facets to the world.

AQUARIUS: Jan. 20 – Feb. 18

The English and French word “amateur” comes from amatus, the past participle of the Latin word amare, which means “to love.” According to one definition, an amateur is “someone who pursues sports, studies, or other activities purely for pleasure instead of for financial gain or professional advancement.” In accordance with astrological omens, I encourage you to make this a featured theme in the coming months. On a regular basis, seek out experiences simply because they make you feel good. Engage in lots of playtime. At least part-time, specialize in fun and games.

PISCES: Feb.19 – March 20

Good news, Pisces: In the coming weeks, one of your flaws will mysteriously become less flawed. It will lose some of its power to undermine you. If you engage in focused meditation about it, you could rob it of even more of its obstructive force. More good news: You will have an enhanced capacity to distinguish between skillful pretending and earthy authenticity. No one can trick you or fool you. Can you handle even more good news? You will have a skillful knack for finding imperfect but effective solutions to problems that have no perfect solution.

Homework: What mediocre pleasure could you give up to better pursue a sublime pleasure?

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