Last night, Dream Town Media attended a live recording of the Prairie Home Companion radio show at the Fox Theater in downtown Detroit. Garrison Keillor was in awe over the beauty of the Fox; calling it the most beautiful and voluptuous movie house in the entire country. I couldn’t agree more. In all my travels, I have not been in a more beautifully ornate theater. I could sit and stare at the vermilion columns, the elephant above the stage and the blue domed sky in the auditorium for days. The PHC writers and cast were spot on with their facts and history of Detroit. Garrison took the audience for a car ride down all the major Detroit boulevards and hit the highlights of the city, Hitsville, Eastern Market, Comerica Park, Mexican Village, Ambassador Bridge, Ford’s plants, and Corktown (where the old Tiger Stadium flag pole stands alone in Centerfield). Then they sang about cars, cars and more cars. Jearlyn and Jevetta Steele along with the help of Mack Rice covered some of the popular Motown songs, “Can’t Hurry Love” and “Mustang Sally”. As you would expect from a Motor City audience, we sang along on all of them.
Proud to be sponsored by Ford Motor Company, Garrison sang a little song to the Ford engineers requesting the removal of bucket seats and the gear shift in the center council for a return to a single bench seat in the front. Leaving safety to the wind, he wants to slide over close to show his feelings to his gal. Very funny stuff.
With the help of Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman, he performed a skit about Detroit’s favorite late night food, the Coney Island, and incorporated a pretty spot on description of the standard Detroiter’s competitive attitude. The language, emotion and style of the skit were spot on. I think they needed some help with the dialect of Detroit. The diction of the cast sounded more NY then MI. It was still funny and I laughed along with the Canadian border jokes and got heartburn over thoughts of consuming 15 coney’s. Ugh.
Then the fantastic Bettye Lavette sashayed onto the stage. She is a wisp of a woman long and lean and wore a slender black pants suit. Extremely emotional and very convincing, this Detroit songstress digs deep into the story behind every song she and her band spin you up in. I was very pleased to finally see them. I have two Detroit friends in her band who are doing this town proud. Chuck Bartels smooth bass lines flowed on songs like the Who’s “Love, Reign oe’r Me” and Brett Lucas strummed some tasty licks that filled the empty spaces between Bettie’s passionate cries on George Harrison’s “Isn’t it a pity”. Her performance was too short. I will be looking forward to finding out where I can hear her in concert during my upcoming days.
