Michigan and Ohio, 5 places we take you
Our Detroit and Cleveland music tours cover two Great Lakes cities three hours apart: one made the Sound of Young America in a house on West Grand Boulevard, the other built a glass pyramid to rock and roll on the shore of Lake Erie.
From $2,3901 tour that go there
Detroit's music came out of its factories. Berry Gordy worked on a Lincoln-Mercury assembly line before he borrowed $800 in 1959 to start Motown, and he ran it like a car plant, with a house band, a stable of writers and quality control meetings every Friday. The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and the Temptations came off that line. The city also had jazz, the garage rock of the MC5 and the Stooges, and later techno.
Cleveland claims to be where the phrase rock and roll got going, through the disc jockey Alan Freed and his Moondog Coronation Ball of 1952. That claim brought the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame here in 1995. Our tour does both cities in five days.
1 tour
Detroit and Cleveland
Detroit, Cleveland
Five days from Hitsville U.S.A. to Lake Erie: Motown's Studio A, a jazz night at Baker's, and a full day at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
From $2,390 per person, double room
See the tourPrices per person sharing a double room; day tours per person. Flights to the start city are optional and priced on each tour.
The places
Berry Gordy bought the house at 2648 West Grand Boulevard in 1959, hung a sign reading Hitsville U.S.A. over the window, and lived upstairs while the label worked downstairs. Studio A, in the back, ran around the clock for years, and nearly every Motown hit of the 1960s was cut there. Read our Motown Museum guide before you book.
The museum tour ends in Studio A, with the original floor worn down by the musicians' feet and the echo chamber in the attic. Guides usually get the group singing My Girl. The museum has grown into the neighboring houses, so book ahead.
Tours that visit Hitsville U.S.A.
The Fox Theatre opened on Woodward Avenue in 1928 with 5,000 seats and a lobby in a style somewhere between Siamese, Byzantine and Indian. Motown held its Christmas revues here in the 1960s, and it now hosts big concerts and touring shows.
Around it, the Foxtown district has the Fillmore, the old State Theatre, and a few blocks away the Detroit Opera House. Along the riverfront, Hart Plaza fills every Labor Day weekend for the free Detroit Jazz Festival, one of the biggest in the world.
Tours that visit Foxtown and Woodward Avenue
Baker's, on Livernois Avenue in northwest Detroit, opened in 1934 and calls itself the world's oldest operating jazz club. The room is small, with a piano-key bar painted along its length, and Art Tatum, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Nat King Cole all played here.
Today it has jazz most nights from Wednesday to Sunday, soul food from the kitchen, and a crowd of regulars who come dressed for an evening out. We book a table for dinner and two sets on the second night.
Tours that visit Baker's Keyboard Lounge
I.M. Pei's glass pyramid stands on the lakefront at North Coast Harbor, three hours from Detroit by our van. Inside, six floors hold a collection that runs from Robert Johnson's contract to hip-hop, with handwritten lyrics, stage clothes, guitars and a whole wall for every year's inductees.
The exhibits change, but the Garage, where you can pick up instruments and play, is always there. We give the Rock Hall a full day, with lunch on the waterfront and time on your own; most guests use all of it.
Tours that visit Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
The Agora has been Cleveland's rock club since 1966 and moved to its current home on Euclid Avenue, a 1913 theater, in 1986. Bruce Springsteen, the Clash and U2 played early Cleveland shows at the Agora, and WMMS broadcast many of them live.
The theater holds about 1,800, with a smaller ballroom next door. We check the calendar when we plan each date and book a show if one fits the evening; if not, the Beachland Ballroom on the east side often has a good band.
Tours that visit The Agora, Cleveland
Getting around
Detroit to Cleveland is about three hours on I-75 and I-80, with a lunch stop in Toledo.
The QLine streetcar runs up Woodward; we use the van for Hitsville and Livernois.
From Cleveland Hopkins, 25 minutes from downtown.
Loading the map
Tour vanAmtrak trainRiverboatShort flight Map tiles: © Esri, HERE, Garmin © OpenStreetMap contributors. Lines join the stops in tour order in simplified form.
What is included
Best time to visit
Summer is the season on the Great Lakes, with outdoor shows and the Detroit Jazz Festival on Labor Day weekend. Winters are cold and gray, but the museums and clubs are open.
At a glance
Questions
Yes. Hitsville U.S.A. and the new buildings next door are open, and we book timed entries well ahead.
They are three hours apart, and the soul and rock collections tell one story. A week does both well.
Downtown, Midtown and the riverfront are busy and safe. We use the van for the evening in northwest Detroit.
Our September date overlaps the festival on Labor Day weekend when the calendar allows.
We give it a full day. Most guests stay five or six hours.
Nearby
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