Detroit to name street in tribute to Michael Jackson

Nearly half a century after Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 ignited their career with a successful Motown audition, the City of Detroit will officially commemorate the group's local history.

A stretch of Randolph Street in the city's theater district will be renamed Michael Jackson Avenue, announced Stephen Grady, chief of staff for Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones. A ceremony will be held on the site June 15 as part of the Detroit Music Weekend festival.

The surviving Jacksons, who will headline the fest, will also be bestowed a key to the city by Mayor Mike Duggan, said Alexis Wiley, the mayor's chief of staff.

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The Indiana group was signed to Motown in 1968, recording at the company's West Grand Boulevard studios before migrating to Los Angeles as Berry Gordy Jr. steadily moved operations there. The Jackson 5 was with Motown through 1975 — racking up hits such as "I Want You Back," "ABC" and "I'll Be There" — and was renamed the Jacksons when the group signed with Epic Records.

The street renaming was announced Thursday morning at a media event for Detroit Music Weekend, a festival to be headlined June 16 by the surviving Jacksons — Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon.

Jackie Jackson and Marlon Jackson were on hand for Thursday's press event at Music Hall.

The free festival, spearheaded by Music Hall, will run June 14-17.

Detroit Music Weekend debuted last summer with a headlining performance by Aretha Franklin, in what may have been her final hometown show. In a tearful, emotional event that week, the Queen of Soul was honored with her own street — a stretch of Madison unveiled as Aretha Franklin Way.

Festival officials had indicated that this year's event would include a Jackson 5 street renaming. But Grady said Thursday that a city ordinance prohibits ceremonial street designations for organizations or groups.

"This was a compromise that was acceptable for everyone," he said of Michael Jackson Avenue. "In honoring him, we're going to honor the entire Jackson family."

Grady pushed back on any potential public concerns about the street designation, given the legal issues that clouded Jackson's later career, including two high-profile allegations of child sexual abuse.

"No person — not you, not me, not anybody — can be defined by any one thing," Grady said. "When you look at the contributions Michael Jackson and the Jackson family have made around the world, that speaks for itself."

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Detroit Music Weekend will include performances by Grand Funk Railroad's Mark Farner, actor-musician Jeff Daniels, funk bandleader Will Sessions and country-rocker Craig Brown. Detroit techno DJs will play at the fest's newly added Paradise Valley stage.

Michael Jackson Avenue is the latest in a recent flurry of Detroit-area musical street tributes, including Aretha Franklin Way, Stevie Wonder Avenue and Glenn Frey Drive. A campaign to christen a Bob Seger Boulevard in Ann Arbor was launched last week.

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.