McKinley was Proof's father. The day before I had left a message on McKinley's phone that I understood that he would be unable to speak at the meeting on the day they laid his son to rest. In conversations with fellow Motown Heritage Club founders Bob Bateman and Harold Bowles I suggested that I hold down the fort at the first meeting because I knew they would attend Proof's funeral and knew the chilling effect it would have on them. Bob insisted that he would be there anyway, but I knew it was more of a desire of his rather than something that would actually occur.

The Meeting

At 7:15 PM I called the Motown Heritage Club meeting to order for the 8 members that did attend and introduced Mr.Tom Gelardi to the group. Tom is a still-active 40 year veteran in the field with nearly a dozen gold and platinum awards lining his office in recognition of his promotional and marketing contributions to the Detroit area music scene over this period. He had three parts to his message.
1. Detroit is, and has been for decades, the most important breakout market in the national music scene.
2. Music industry success comes from teamwork rather than individual effort and talent. Although Tom didn't specifically mention this, the history of Proof and the rap group D-12 is a prime example of what he was talking about. Statistically, it's well over 10 million units sold and the successful launch of almost a dozen music careers occurring in less than a decade because of the D-12 "collective" (read "team").
3. If we want to keep Detroit a "Hit Factory" we have to get back to making music together rather than the violent fighting that can occur when we lose sight of the music.

I introduced the members to recent Developing Artist Production articles (Production Evaluation and The Production's Sales Potential) and discussed the changes in the industry over the last 40 years and what it takes to get a string of hit records today.  The purpose of the meeting was to get acquainted and find out what the members felt would be the best areas to work on though the club.  Members had good suggestions and comments during the meeting, during one-on-one in the short "intermission" we took, and on the feedback forms that the attendees submitted at the end of the meeting.  Each attending member received a free interactive study disc on basic audio theory.

Where We Go From Here

Meeting Schedule and Location: The Motown Heritage Club will be meeting the third Wednesday of each month, intially in the classroom facilities of the Recording Institute of Detroit from 7:00 - 9:00 PM.  A recording technique Q&A session will immediately follow each meeting. The next meeting will be May 17, 2006.  I expect that within a few short months we will have well over 100 members, and when we outgrow the RID facilities, co-founder Harold Bowles has arranged for larger meeting facilities.

Web Presence:  The official site for The Motown Heritage Club has been established at www.produceahit.com. The website will be updated by Tuesday evening following each meeting. Membership application survey forms, membership feedback forms and links to articles we discussed at the first meeting will be up by this coming Tuesday.

May, 2006 Meeting Topics:  We have asked members to bring copies of their past and/or current productions to the next meeting and, as a group, we are going to evaluate the products per the guidelines in the linked articles and get members' comments and suggestions. This may well be a regular reoccurring feature at future meetings. We will additionally be discussing member suggestions for club activities that were received on the meeting feedback forms.

We received written feedback on the meeting from the majority of the attending members.  When asked to rate the meeting on a 0-10 scale, all members gave it a perfect "10." All members stated that they would be attending the next meeting.  Its seems as though we are off to a good start, despite the negative backdrop for this month's meeting.

Bob Dennis