{"id":37464,"date":"2013-09-06T11:55:58","date_gmt":"2013-09-06T18:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alleewillis.com\/blog\/?p=37464"},"modified":"2020-08-17T10:45:51","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T17:45:51","slug":"gunning-the-engine-toward-detroit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/gunning-the-engine-toward-detroit\/","title":{"rendered":"Gunning The Engine Toward Detroit!"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n

Hard to believe that after working on “The D” a solid year and a half, my ever-growing crew of 15 and I are descending upon Detroit in\u00a0less than a week t<\/em>o record the\u00a0song, video and feature length documentary.\u00a0We’ll be recording and filming groups of 50 to 1000 people at each of 40+ locations where people will be singing “The D”, dancing, and showing their Motor City spirit however they can. Nothing like this has ever seen attempted- not just the largest number of people ever on a record, but the largest number of people as the original artist <\/em>on a record. A partial list of locations participating is at the end of this email.<\/p>\n

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been recording incredible Detroit born singers, songwriters, musicians, comedians, and actors here at my studio in LA \u2013 groundbreaking Motown songwriters and producers like Lamont Dozier, Paul Riser and Mickey Stevenson, former Supremes Mary Wilson and Scherrie Payne, singers Freda Payne, Marcella Detroit, Pam and Joyce Vincent, Diane Steinberg, daughter of legendary Detroit DJ Martha Jean The Queen, comedians Lily Tomlin and Angela Shelton, and musicians like Greg Phillinganes, Ray Parker Jr., Reggie McBride and Bruce Miller – with a lot more to come. Here’s some of the action in my studio over the past week:<\/p>\n

Mary Wilson:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Lamont Dozier:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Lily Tomlin:<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Massive thanks again to all of you who donated moolah to make this truly historic song, video, documentary and collaboration with the people of Detroit possible. As the scale of this project involves tens of thousands of people and a 20 day\/ 40+ location shoot, not to mention postproduction and all else involved in finishing the project we are still actively seeking funding.\u00a0I haven’t made a big deal about this one. It’s just there for generous souls who want to be part of something truly inspirational. We are also seeking larger donor sponsors and\/or angels. You can email me back with any inquiries about that.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the following locations where we’ll be filming and recording “The D”. One of the sing-alongs at The Heidelberg Project, Saturday, September 21st at 3pm is open to the public. \u00a0A schedule will soon be published at https:\/\/www.alleewillis.com\/WeSingTheD\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Detroit Historical Society and Museum<\/div>\n
The Dossin Maritime Museum on Belle isle<\/div>\n
Detroit Yacht Club<\/span><\/div>\n
D-Hive<\/span><\/div>\n
Mumford High School<\/span><\/div>\n
Pasteur Elementary School<\/span><\/div>\n
Martin Luther King High School and marching band<\/span><\/div>\n
Wayne State University<\/span><\/div>\n
College For Creative Studies<\/span><\/div>\n
Eastern Market<\/span><\/div>\n
Temple Israel<\/span><\/div>\n
Academy of Rock<\/span><\/div>\n
Rock Ventures\/ Opportunity Detroit<\/span><\/div>\n
Radio One<\/span><\/div>\n
The Heidelberg Project<\/span><\/div>\n
Mosaic Youth Theatre<\/span><\/div>\n
The Whitney<\/span><\/div>\n
The Fisher Building<\/span><\/div>\n
Greg’s Soul In The Wall restaurant<\/span><\/div>\n
Consumer Auto Parts<\/span><\/div>\n
American Jewelry & Loan (Hard Core Pawn)<\/span><\/div>\n
U Detroit\/ Harmonie Park<\/span><\/div>\n
Henry The Hatter<\/span><\/div>\n
Lafayette Laundry<\/span><\/div>\n
African Bead Museum<\/span><\/div>\n
Lululemon at Eastern Market – largest yoga class ever in Detroit – 500 people<\/span><\/div>\n
Michigan Opera Theatre<\/span><\/div>\n
The Ford Piquette Ave. Plant<\/span><\/div>\n
Campus Martius Park<\/span><\/div>\n
The Alley project (TAP)<\/span><\/div>\n
Detroit Synergy – biking event<\/span><\/div>\n
Historic St. James Baptist Church<\/span><\/div>\n
The Greening Of Detroit<\/span><\/div>\n
Detroit Dog Rescue\/ HUSH<\/span><\/div>\n
Church of the Messiah<\/span><\/div>\n
Deep River Y Choir\/ Comerica Park<\/span><\/div>\n
Russell Industrial Center<\/span><\/div>\n
Ebenezer Baptist Church<\/span><\/div>\n
Michigan State University Community Music School<\/span><\/div>\n
Woodbridge Housing Complex<\/span><\/div>\n

Now just about all that’s left is to board the plane to Detroit!!<\/p>\n

Onward!<\/p>\n

Allee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hard to believe that after working on “The D” a solid year and a half, my ever-growing crew of 15 and I are descending upon Detroit in\u00a0less than a week to record the\u00a0song, video and feature length documentary.\u00a0We’ll be recording and filming groups of 50 to 1000 people at each of 40+ locations where people … read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3143,3102,19,413,53,131,2562,107,1365,35,87,193,2528,13,29,249,37,113,75,261],"tags":[61,3261,1417,3232,3245,3171,1837,3170,3172],"class_list":["post-37464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allee-live-performance-2","category-allees-live-performances","category-art","category-celebrity","category-creative-process","category-creativity","category-detroit","category-empowerment","category-financial","category-hollywood","category-kitsch","category-kitsch-o-the-day","category-mumford-high-school","category-music","category-party","category-people","category-self-expression","category-september","category-songwriting","category-travel","tag-allee-willis","tag-detroit","tag-freda-payne","tag-kitsch","tag-kitsch-o-the-day","tag-lamont-dozier","tag-lily-tomlin","tag-mary-wilson","tag-ray-parker-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alleewillis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}