Remembering Russ Gibb and the Grande Ballroom
The man who helped ignite Detroit’s live rock scene, died Tuesday in Garden City after a series of medical struggles. The longtime Dearborn resident was 87…
Russ Gibb was known to local music fans as “Uncle Russ”. Russ transformed the Grande Ballroom into Detroit’s psychedelic-rock palace in 1966, a game-changing move that launched an amazing chapter in Detroit music history.
He was smart enough to get in on the rock ‘n’ roll game early, staging sock hops at area schools in the early ’60s and working as a disc jockey.
Gibb was on the air at WKNR-FM in October 1969 when a listener called to discuss rumors, then circulating on the underground, that Beatle Paul McCartney had died. Gibb gleefully took up the discussion on his show, pushing the story into the limelight and ultimately helping kick off a cottage industry of “Paul is dead” conspiracy theories based on clues from Beatles lyrics and imagery.
“My dear old friend Russ Gibb has departed this earth. He will be sorely missed. He was one of a kind,” tweeted Wayne Kramer of the MC5.
The Grande, a ballroom built in the 1920s, was a mattress warehouse when Gibb leased it in 1966. He’d been inspired by a recent trip to San Francisco, where old Detroit friend and fellow disc jockey Jim Dunbar introduced Gibb to that city’s budding counterculture epicenter, the Fillmore.
Within months, Gibb had leased the Grande, purchased a strobe light from a Californian hippie recommended by Graham, and opened the doors with an MC5 show — for “60 or 70 kids,” as Gibb recalled.
Gibb’s ballroom was hippie flower-power with a flex of Detroit muscle, and it became the scene of landmark moments, including the recording of the MC5’s influential debut album, “Kick Out the Jams,” and the launch of the Who’s “Tommy” tour.
Here is the audio from the “Paul is dead” call
Russ Gibb (center) in 2016 with MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer (left) and “Louder than Love” filmmaker Tony D’Annunzio. (Photo: Tony D’Annunzio)
Here is the who at the Grande:
