Downtown Detroit, Michigan, 1974. It’s October the first. A band of musicians are playing under the moniker of The Lyman Woodard Organization and are in the middle of their six-days-a-week residency at JJ’s Lounge within The Shelby Hotel. Their set is recorded that night as a fledgling fundraiser for a freshly minted public radio chapter but otherwise, nothing else from the night survives the graceless passage of time.
In 2014, I am listening to music with my friend and fellow musician, Matt Shaw, and I hear these recordings for the first time. A rabbit hole of connections brought me to the threshold of this jasper fable and I am glittering from the minute it starts. Not in an unfamiliar way, exactly, yet it is a different, instinctual manner. Every second of the 80 minutes of music lights up my imagination and I know that I will engage further with this sudden spasm of inspiration.
Now, here we are, ending the year 2024. It is 50 years after that night in Detroit and I am sharing what I have conspired. A novel and The Shelby Hotel is its title. 146 pages of what amounts to a work of historical fan-fiction. Universal in its niche, like life itself. There is a graciousness of living in the book that I sourced from myself, the recordings of the group, historical research, as well as conversation with those who lived in Detroit at the time, all in order to better tend to the great fires that arose in me. I was honored to have two vivacious and enlightening conversations with Dr. Prof. Leonard King, the drummer for The Lyman Woodard Organization, where he painted a picture of what life was like back then. It was he who found the recorded tapes of the group in the local NPR archives. He recovered, restored and released them on CDr via his own label, Uuquipleu Records, in 2008.
That’s the way it is right now. I hope you like this story in three parts. Order it via the button below to enjoy letting the sun hit the corners of your copy.
Enjoy the act of reading. I, for one, think it’s a good little tale.
