VINYL KNIGHTS | HOB Records and Detroit Music
The air in Detroit didn’t just smell like gasoline and burnt rubber from the Ford plants; it smelled like ambition. In the late 1950s, the "D" in D-Town was a promise. It was a city of iron-clad contrasts: the roar of the assembly line by day and the celestial hum of church pews by night. But beneath the industrial grind, there was a rhythm waiting for a heartbeat.
At that time, the gatekeepers lived three thousand miles away. The Bhari Brothers out of California held the keys to the kingdom with Modern and Kent Records. If you wanted to hear the blues, you listened to B.B. King; if you wanted soul, you looked to Etta James. They were the giants. But in the basements of Detroit’s brick houses, a new generation of musicians was tired of looking West. They wanted to build their own kingdom right here on Woodward Avenue.
The problem wasn’t the talent—it was the press. To get a record into a listener’s hands, you needed a "godfather" in the business. Distribution was a labyrinth controlled by shadowy power brokers and pressing plants in Memphis. If you didn’t have a name, you didn’t have a voice.
Enter Carmen C. Murphy.
She was a woman who didn't know the meaning of the word "no." Already a millionaire from her cosmetics empire, she saw the music business not just as an investment, but as a calling. Alongside Jack Ellis, a radio engineer with a golden ear, she turned the "House of Beauty" into HOB Records. It was a revolution in a bottle: the first Black-owned beauty supply company that doubled as a powerhouse for gospel music. While women were getting their hair pressed upstairs, the Peppermints were harmonizing in the basement. Carmen Murphy wasn’t just selling lipstick; she was selling the soul of the city.
But if Carmen was the grace of Detroit, Mike Hanks was its fire.
In 1957, Hanks launched MAH’s Records—later D-Town—with Lee Rogers’ "Sad Affair." Mike was a man of high-octane passion and a short-fuse temperament. He was the kind of producer who could hear a hit in a rainstorm, but his volatility was a live wire. D-Town was a beacon of local pride, but it stood in the shadow of a rising titan: Berry Gordy.
Berry Gordy’s strategy was surgical. He didn't just want to make music; he wanted to own the airwaves. He watched the smaller labels like a hawk. When Golden World Records hit #1 with the Romeos’ "Just Like Romeo and Juliet," Berry didn't just applaud; he planned. He began absorbing the competition, buying up labels like Ric-Tic and D-Town, folding their talent into the "Hitsville" machine. He added his signature "symphony strings" to everything, a polished, uptown sheen that defined the Motown Sound.
Yet, whether it was a gritty D-Town track or a polished Motown anthem, the heartbeat remained the same. It belonged to one man: James Jamerson.
Jamerson was the Maestro. He didn’t need sheet music. He didn’t need instructions. He would sit in the studio, impeccably dressed, perhaps with a drink nearby, and wait for the track to begin. He’d listen once, his fingers finding the pocket of a rhythm no one else had discovered yet. When he played the bassline for Jr. Walker’s "Shot Gun," he wasn’t just playing notes—illegally syncopated and dangerously funky, he was driving the car.
I remember sitting with him in 1979, sharing a bottle of wine. He was a man of laughter and stories, a king who knew he had built the foundation of an era. He died shortly after, but that bassline? That lives forever.
Tragedy, however, was the flip side of the Detroit coin. Mike Hanks’ temper eventually caught up with him. A violent confrontation with his girlfriend’s brothers ended his life on the doorstep of his own club, marking a dark end to one of D-Town’s most vibrant chapters.
But the music was too big to stay in one city. Lee Rogers, the voice of D-Town, eventually followed the rhythm south to Memphis. In a legendary session at Hi Records, he walked into the studio with the greats—Al Jackson Jr. on drums and "Duck" Dunn on bass. Lee didn't have a single note written down. He stood at the mic, closed his eyes, and recorded "Love For A Love" in one take. Fifteen minutes of work for a lifetime of legend.
Eventually, the road led West. Berry Gordy moved the machine to Hollywood, and Lee Rogers followed the sun. It was there, among the palms and the neon of the ABC Shindig sets, that the Detroit sound fused with California dreams.
The story of the Detroit Sound isn't just a discography of hits. It’s a story of people like Carmen Murphy, who saw beauty in a basement; Mike Hanks, who fought for every note; and James Jamerson, who gave the world a pulse. It was a "Beginning of a Beginning"—a testament to the fact that while labels can be sold and studios can be closed, a true Maestro’s music never stops playing.
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