Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts tagged as “Detroit”

Detroit Museum Holds Exhibition of Forty-Four Busts of President Obama

Artist - Ted Ellis 02

Detroit’s Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is holding an exhibition called “Visions of Our 44th President“.  It features 44 contemporary African-American artists using different styles and mediums of choice, all adding to a blank bust of President Barack Obama.

Aretha Franklin To Sing National Anthem At World Series In Detroit

According to reports, the legendary singing icon and Detroit native Aretha Franklin will sing the National Anthem at Game 5 on Monday, Oct. 29, at Detroit’s Comerica Park.

The Tigers will face the San Francisco Giants in the World Series, which begins today (tonight), Wednesday, Oct. 24. 

Franklin will sing the national anthem before the start of Game 5 of the 2012 World Series Monday night (Fox, 8:07 p.m. ET), as the Detroit Tigers host the San Francisco Giants at Comerica Park.

Last year, the Queen of Soul opened Game 3 of the American League Championship Series with a soaring rendition of the song as the Tigers hosted the Texas Rangers. The home team won that game 5-2.

Also singing the anthem before games in this series are American Idol winner Phillip Phillips before Wednesday’s Game 1 in San Francisco and gospel star Marvin Winans before Saturday’s Game 3 in Detroit.

Detroit Vegan Soul Offers Animal-Free Alternatives To Classic Soul Food Cuisine In West Village

Hatch 2012 Detroit Vegan SoulKirsten Ussery (left) Erika Boyd (right) are semi-finalists in the 2012 Comerica Hatch Detroit contest. Their business would offer vegan versions of classic soul food dishes.
You might think that soul food and vegan dishes exist on opposite sides of the dietary universe. After all, soul food is a traditional African-American cuisine whose staples include chitlins and ham hocks, while vegans refrain completely from eating meat or dairy products.
Apparently, however, the two worlds can coexist. Just ask Kirsten Ussery, who plans to open a business called Detroit Vegan Soul with her partner, Erika Boyd. The two entrepreneurs are semi-finalists in this year’s Comerica Hatch Detroit contest, an annual competition which awards $50,000 and support services to one lucky business start-up chosen by a panel after considering input from online voters.

Bettye LaVette Back With New CD and Autobiography

Bettye LaVette  (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times)

WEST ORANGE, N.J. — Bettye LaVette makes no apologies for her life. Sitting cross-legged on an Art Deco chair in her living room here, sipping wine, she was animated and gritty as she talked about the decades she spent singing in clubs and cursing her “buzzard luck,” while her contemporaries, like Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross, became superstars.

“I thought I was going to die in obscurity,” said Ms. LaVette, 66. “I’m still going to die broke but not obscure.”
It has been 50 years since Ms. LaVette, then a teenage mother from a working-class Detroit home, recorded her first single, “My Man — He’s a Lovin’ Man,” which became a hit on Atlantic Records and seemed to foretell a bright future. But she quarreled with Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records and left the label, and even though she recorded dozens of other R&B singles in the 1960s, including the minor hit “Let Me Down Easy,” her career never took off. She survived as a club performer and appeared in “Bubbling Brown Sugar” on Broadway and on tour. Her long-delayed first album in the early 1980s didn’t sell. By the late ’90s, she was popular only among European R&B enthusiasts.

9-year-old Joshua Smith Sells Lemonade To Help Cash-Strapped Detroit

Joshua Smith, a 9-year-old boy from Detroit, Mich., has made national headlines over his ambitious efforts to help his hometown rise out of its ever-sinking debt.
He started off with a goal of selling $1000 worth of popcorn and lemonade and delivering a check of the said amount to Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s office.