Short North Arts DistrictHow about a road trip around the USA’s Great Lakes, one that uncovers the very soundtrack and icons of your life? Tina Turner. Marvin Gaye. Henry Ford. Heinz Beans. Andy Warhol — they were all there for James Ruddy
INSTANTLY, a comforting wave of nostalgia washed over me as soon as I entered Motown’s Studio A in Detroit where many of the sounds of my childhood were recorded – from the 15-year-old Stevie Wonder’s Uptight to You Cant Hurry Love by The Supremes.
Nearby was the flimsy living room table where many would-be young stars, like Mary Wells and The Temptations, would slide their vinyl singles into envelopes to be posted to radio DJs and other yesteryear media influencers as they pursued chart success.
Hitsville USA — a very consequential house in Detroit, the very place where Motown beganThis was Hitsville USA, the unremarkable house where, in 1959, little-known songwriter Berry Gordy used the $800 he had scrounged from family and friends to start the soul music phenomenon that conquered the music world for almost half a century.
Such is the memory-jolting joy to be experienced on a tour of the Great Lakes of America’s Mid-West, where a museum or gallery filled with the work of world-renowned trailblazers can relight the smouldering fires of your youth.
From soul and rock music to art, food and transport, the innovators who followed the American Dream and brought world greatness to this vast region of over 100 million people are celebrated everywhere, providing those nerve-tingling moments of recognition to anyone, from millennials to those who, like me, grew up as far back as the Swinging Sixties.
Of course, there are countless reasons to visit this huge expanse of wild and remote beauty bursting with wildlife as well as giant cities bursting with humanity and history and lining a shoreline of the five lakes that make up the biggest body of freshwater in the world.
My week-long driving tour, starting and ending in America’s Motor City, Detroit, was a deep dive into some of the cultural signposts that marked the road of my life over several decades, from the music and comics I followed to the food I ate and even the cars I drove.
With three travelling pals in a comfortable hired Jeep Grand Waggoner SUV, we headed in a 1000-mile circle through some of those cities that border Lake Erie (Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Columbus, Detroit), stopping off to soak up the sights, sounds and tastes that created America’s very heartland.
Our in-car playlist set the scene, no better than with Paul Simon’s atmospheric road trip hit, America, in which he crosses the region with his girlfriend Kathy in an existential search for his country’s true meaning:
‘Michigan seems like a dream to me now
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I’ve gone to look for America’.
It was a perfect soundtrack as, 55 years later, I followed a version of his journey, imagining myself back in short trousers, sneaking peeks at my Superman comics during dull maths lessons at my Lincolnshire convent school – a memory triggered at the fascinating History Centre in Cleveland, where similarly distracted local high school pupil Jerry Siegel first doodled the 1938 Man of Steel, who became the best-selling comic superhero ever created.
It's only . . . .the Rock and Roll Hall of FameEven greater memories were triggered across the city, at the memorabilia treasure house, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where I immediately slid back into eye-wateringly-tight loon pants and a flimsy cheesecloth shirt whilst chilling to Carly Simon’s 1972 hit You’re so Vain or bopping hard, with a huge head of flailing hair, to Tina Turner’s Nutbush City Limits.
And so my joyous backwards journey continued in Buffalo with a tour of the exquisite Martin House, a luxury 1905 home, designed by the legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who first came to my notice when I bought a £3 vinyl copy of Simon and Garfunkel’s 1970 worldwide hit album Bridge Over Troubled Water, which features a tribute track to him on side one and started me on a lifelong interest in his creations.
Also in Buffalo there were contrasting (but equally fascinating) moments – a memorable lunch at the Anchor Bar where Buffalo wings were invented in 1964 (and crossed the globe) as well as a tour of the AKG Art Museum, where I finally got to see Convergence, Jackson Pollock’s greatest masterpiece and spotted the matchstick he buried in the paint.
Buffalo street artAnd so the icons continued, as if rolling down my life’s assembly line, Elvis’ Holy Bible and John Lennon’s first ‘real’ guitar, a 1958 Hofner Senator (both in Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame); those memorable banana and Campbell’s Soup images (the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh); Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (on a house wall in Columbus); the limousine in which President Kennedy was assassinated (Detroit’s Henry Ford Museum of Innovation).
Even the accommodation proved fascinating, from a former catholic seminary outside Detroit (St John’s Resort where the retired archbishop still has rooms) to Buffalo’s creepy but comfortable Richardson Hotel, which used to be the ‘State Asylum for the Insane’ and is said to be haunted.
And the food? Well, this was the very heart of multi-ethnic America, with choices galore and portions galactic. I don’t think I’ll be wearing those super-tight loon pants anytime soon!
German VillageInfo on the Great Lakes
The Irish have stamped their history everywhere across the Great Lakes region, driven by famine at home and drawn by hopes of wealth and a fruitful life amid the once-great ports.
We came across thriving Irish shops, pubs and other businesses from Detroit to Pittsburgh, but none more symbolic of the genre than one of the oldest bars in Downtown Buffalo, Swannie House.
Sitting on the shoreline of the Buffalo River, the 1880’s tavern began as a rumbustious boarding house and bar for sailors arriving nearby at what was once the world’s busiest port.
Trouble aplenty is recorded between the majority Irish and minority Polish inhabitants of this tough First Ward area that is seeing major regeneration after years of neglect.
Swannie regular Bobby Edwards, whose mother’s O’Hanley family hailed from Cork, recalled how the bar was a hiring centre for casual workers: “They were often looking for scoopers to go down and unload ships – if they were sober enough!”
Down the road, steel factory businessman Rick Smith III, was sporting a huge Stetson as he showed us round the old grain silo site where he has created an art centre, bar and music venue (Buffalo Philharmonic Quartet have played there).
An enthusiastic Americana singer, he toured Ireland with his guitar, playing at Taylor’s in Galway and even belted a few out in my late father’s hometown, Belmullet, in County Mayo.
Small world, indeed.
Factfile
There are stacks of holiday ideas and Great Lakes packages to choose from, including bespoke itineraries such as the icons trip. Bon Voyage have trip options to all the surrounding states as packages. Go to
Several companies will discuss bespoke packages that could include any highlight of the various regions, including the icons tour which is described here by James Ruddy.
For further information go to the overall Great Lakes USA consortium go to: https://greatlakesusa.co.uk/
Within that, itineraries are suggested through several travel companies, including American Travel, Audley Travel, Wexas and Vacation to America.
https://greatlakesusa.co.uk/book-your-trip/
Flights
There are regular direct scheduled Great Lakes USA flights to Chicago and Detroit from the UK, averaging 8 hours 40 mins, Minneapolis and from Dublin to Cleveland. There are also numerous one stop options from regional airports around the UK including via Reykjavik. Pittsburgh is also served with a direct flight from London and Buffalo via one stop options.
Pictures by James Ruddy and Great Lakes USA.
