Publications

David CLEMENTS has authored two works created from his extensive photographic collection and his intimate knowledge of Metropolitan Detroit.

Detroit’s Ethnic Halls 2024

More than 100 years ago, hundreds of thousands of immigrants came to Detroit, the melting pot of America. Migration to Detroit, Hamtramck, Highland Park, and Wayne County more than doubled population from 1910-20.   Population   Detroit Hamtramck Highland Park  Wayne Co 1910   48576       3500   4100       532,000 […]

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The Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches & Trail of Tears

My parents grew up on farms east of Muncie, Indiana where and I was born at Ball Hospital. We moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan at age 8. When I moved to Detroit age at 20, I began my annual drive “Down to Indiana” on Wednesdays, the day before the annual family Thanksgiving Dinner – usually […]

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The Marvelettes – Motown A Go Go

Deliver De Letter
De Sooner
De Better

The Marvelettes were an American girl group that achieved popularity in the early to mid-1960s.

The Marvelettes: clockwise from top left: Gladys Horton, Katherine Anderson, Georgeanna Tillman, and Wanda Young (1963).

They consisted of schoolmates Gladys Horton, Katherine Anderson, Georgeanna Tillman, Juanita Cowart (now Cowart Motley), and Georgia Dobbins, who was replaced by Wanda Young prior to the group signing their first deal. They were the first successful act of Motown Records after the Miracles and its first significantly successful female group after the release of the 1961 number-one single, “Please Mr. Postman”, one of the first number-one singles recorded by an all-female vocal group and the first by a Motown recording act.

Founded in 1960 while the group’s founding members performed together at their glee club at Inkster High School in Inkster, Michigan, they signed to Motown’s Tamla label in 1961. Some of the group’s early hits were written by band members and some of Motown’s rising singer-songwriters such as Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye, who played drums on a majority of their early recordings.

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Detroit-Area Food Distribution During Global Pandemic

Hunger is a huge problem. Individuals, businesses, churches and charities in Greater Detroit are doing their best to help stave off hunger. I began documenting Metro food distribution in October of 2020; as the months pass, the need is certainly accelerating. Detroit’s Afro American Mission on Clay Street sits quietly between two of the last […]

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Detroit: SEE-FOOD Capital of America

Small restaurants that once served a dense residential population have nearly disappeared in Detroit.  To attract attention to their wares, these small businesses had to communicate quickly with people passing by in automobiles and on foot, and chose to do so with images of food painted on walls. Here, the simple message is unmistakable and […]

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Hair Today-Gone Tomorrow in Detroit

Hair care in Detroit is a huge cash business. Beauty salons, predominantly female owned, and male-owned barbershops, take on unwanted retail space in nearly-impossible locations along major streets. The goal is to establish an independent money flow in the city’s often-difficult financial environment, and involves spending long hours on your feet. Building a regular client […]

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MultiColor Motown – Focus on Green

A subtle green-trimmed sign in front of the Paris Hotel on St. Aubin Street in Detroit reads,“Your Home Away From Home Since 1952”  Now abandoned, the hotel sits forlorn in a desolate location. Green is not the most popular  architectural color in Detroit, but Glass House Hand Car Wash survives, and makes a brilliant statement […]

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Finding Curtis Lewis

I was driving North on Schaefer Avenue, south of Fenkell Street, in Detroit. I noticed on the right a bold commercial wall, a painted advertisement — “I Make Stars” — for Bill Cason Photography. I stopped to admire it. Upon closer investigation, I noticed the signature of Curtis Lewis at the lower left of the […]

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Motown A Go Go 2019

The 2019 Motown A Go Go at Bert’s Warehouse Stage in the Eastern Market area of Detroit attracted over 300 dedicated music lovers from Great Britain’s Northern Soul Movement, in addition to a substantial Metro Detroit audience. The event spans four nights of live performances by 23 or so musical artists/acts that recorded in Detroit […]

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MultiColor Motown – Focus on Blue

Blue is not the most common color in Detroit architecture – it competes with the sky and is hard to see at night – but it’s a constant in the landscape.  Spray Services is a current business that supplies paint equipment for auto repair. Sam’s Auto Parts’ sign still stands on 8 Mile, and OK […]

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