“It’s carbon and monoxide
The ole Detroit perfume”—Paul Simon

It so happens that on May 21, 1955, 67 years before this is being written, Chuck Berry recorded “Maybellene” at Chess Studios. Willie Dixon played bass. Among the songs that Dixon wrote that you probably know from covers are:

• “I Ain’t Superstitious”
• “You Shook Me”
• “Back Door Man”
• “I Can’t Quit You Baby”
• “Hoochie Coochie Man”
• “Little Red Rooster”
• “I Just Want to Make Love to You”

Just think of the importance of those songs for many bands. Odds are Dixon, no matter how much he may have thought of them, couldn’t have imagined that impact.

“Maybellene” was based on “Ida Red,” a song released by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in 1939, a song that is considered to be of “unknown origin,” just as the character Ida Red is unknown.

Fiddlin’ Powers & Family released a recording of the song in 1924 and Dykes Magic City Trio did in 1927, which I point out only because they don’t name groups like they used to.

Back to “Maybellene.”

During the early ‘50s Berry, who was living in St. Louis at the time, worked at two car assembly plants. Back then there were St. Louis Truck Assembly, which was operated by General Motors, and St. Louis Assembly, run by Ford.

Although the song is ostensibly about the protagonist chasing a girl who had cheated on him (“Oh Maybellene, why can’t you be true?”), it is primarily about a race between vehicles: “I saw Maybellene in a Coupe DeVille/A Cadillac a-rollin’ on the open road/Nothin’ will outrun my V8 Ford.”

Detroit Iron vs. Detroit Iron.

It has the classic story arc as the Cadillac “pulled up to one hundred and four,” while “The Ford got hot and wouldn’t do no more.” Seems like Maybellene is going to get away. Then it starts to rain and “The rain water blowin’ all under my hood/I knew that was doin’ my motor good.” Or Nature helped cool down the Ford’s engine and so even though Maybellene’s Cadillac was going 110 mph and had a half-mile lead, “I caught Maybellene at the top of the hill.”

There is no indication of what happened next.

The record became Berry’s first hit.

And Ford and GM continue to race in the market.

Crosstown rivals.

Audio: Chuck Berry – “Maybelline”

Chess Records, 1955.

///

In July 1970 my friends and I saw The Who at Cobo Arena in Detroit. The James Gang opened.

If you read last week’s piece you know that back then my friends and I drank a lot.

Sometimes too much.

Like in the parking lot on the roof of what has been renamed Huntington Place. (Better a bank than a former Detroit mayor who was anything but friendly to the Black community during the ‘50s.) Cobo Arena had hosted an amazing array of bands starting with the Stones in 1965 until it was torn down in 2010. (A list of bands who performed there can be found here.)

Anyway, one of my friends got too deeply involved in pre-performance beverages. And he spent the entire show—from Joe Walsh’s opening chords to the end of “My Generation”—in a stall ejecting said liquids.

I bring up that disgusting remembrance because last week ASM Global, which describes itself as “the world’s leading producer of live entertainment,” announced that it is working with The Clorox Company in a multiyear partnership.

ASM Global will apparently use Clorox cleaning products in its “vast facility portfolio of arenas, stadiums, theaters and convention centers.”

Which raises an interesting issue regarding concert-going in 2022, whether it is at an arena or an outdoor venue, in this continuation of the coronavirus.

Certainly, the outdoor show provides, well, a lot of air. But the outdoor show also has those vertical fiberglass facilities that do nothing but become more problematic from an olfactory point of view (assuming that such a thing exists) as the day goes on, the use increases and the sun does its stuff.

Inside most stadia and theaters, things generally seem clean. (At least at the start.)

Now there is an awareness of invisible things in the air and on surfaces. Think only of the guy who has spent the last 22 months on his couch, has only gotten up to get the Uber Eats delivery and consequently has the physique to show it. He is sitting next to you at a concert and starts vigorously gyrating such that he quickly breaks into a biblical sweat that is propelled in your vicinity. . .and while you once felt disgusted, there’s now that and you wonder about the potential chemical composition of the effluence: Will I get it?

Will Clorox partnership with ASM Global make people feel better about seeing shows in its venues?

To be sure, it will have no effect on That Guy.

But were you to be in a situation that my friend had been way back when, it wouldn’t make things “better,” just probably less emotionally catastrophic.

(He, by the way, missed a hell of a show.)

///

“CSD* can affect the brain, eyes, heart, or other internal organs.”—Centers for Disease Control

And finally, this.

Although The Amboy Dukes were founded in Chicago, the band early moved to Detroit because Ted Nugent had been born and raised in Redford, which shares a border with Detroit, and then the city proper.

Albert Cobo had his name removed from a hall.

If only somehow Nugent could be removed from the history of Detroit. Never even to be thought of as the Motor City Madman. Maybe with the modifier dropped, though.

Last week at a Trump rally in Austin, Nugent said to the assembled: “So I love you people madly but I’d love you more if you went forward and just went berserk on the skulls of the Democrats and the Marxists and the communists.”

Odds are, Nugent’s third grade teacher was a Democrat (remember: he grew up in Detroit). She or he (back then it was probably a she) was, let’s say, a very caring person who made sure that if someone forgot their lunch that child wouldn’t go without, that if someone fell off the jungle gym and hurt their knee, she would be the first person on the scene to stop the tears. An unassuming, hard-working person. Just like many Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

Miss Wilbur or whatever her name was, was just doing her bit to make the world an infinitesimally better place by teaching those kids.

So, Ted, were she still alive, should someone go berserk on her skull?

*Bartonella henselae Infection, or Cat Scratch Disease. Maybe Ted can’t help himself because of an actual early impact on his cerebellum