Joseph John Zainea, a longtime Detroit restaurateur and community figure who helped build and sustain the Majestic Theatre Center and the city’s historic Garden Bowl, has died.
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Shiver on the River is back at Belle Isle, giving you the opportunity to learn more at the nature center and attend the Great Lakes Museum for free so long as you have a recreation pass.
Plus, live puppet performances where you get to help tell the story, a dog show with vendors, an exhilarating day of local music and art, and a loving way to gather and remember beloved community leader Ismael Ahmed.
Vibe Credit Union in Novi
Thursday Feb. 5-8
$10
See over 200 breeds of American Kennel Club dogs in a family friendly atmosphere with plenty of vendors. Every day of the four day event goes from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Tangent Gallery
Saturday, Feb. 7
$25
Sled Season is back, packing a full season of festivities into one evening. Rock out to live music, attend a workshop, peruse local artisanal goods, hop in a photo booth and more. Some noted performers include Rose St. Germaine, Checker, Toboggan man and more from the local music scene. Get your tickets in advance!
Belle Isle Nature Center, Dossin Great Lakes Museum
Saturday, Feb. 7
Free
Explore the Belle Isle Nature Center and the Dossin Great Lakes History Museum with a range of educational and entertaining activities and attractions, such as ice carvings, a magic show and more. Entry is free, with concessions available for purchase. You do need a Michigan Recreation pass to enter Belle Isle. This eco fair goes from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Detroit Institute of Arts
Saturday, Feb. 7
Free
Haitian-American puppeteer Emmanuel Elpenord brings a charming, heartfelt double feature to the DIA. “Choose Your Own Adventures of Turtle Boy” blends action and plenty of audience participation, while “Owl Loves Angeline” incorporates Haitian folklore and human themes that connect across all cultures. This show takes place in the Rivera Court and is free with general admission. Take a look at the DIA’s exhbit “African Diaspora in the Americas” in the reinstalled Reimagine African American Art gallery on the second floor while you’re there!
Ford Performing Arts Center in Dearborn
Sunday, Feb. 8
Free
Join together in a celebration of a life lived as beloved community leader and WDET This Island Earth music host Ismael Ahmed would want you to. In his honor, the Ford Performing Arts center welcomes all those who want to share in grief and reflect on his life from 1-3 p.m. in the Guido Theater. Ish’s family asks that donations be made to the Concert of Colors in lieu of flowers or other gifts.
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One more sleep until Ryan Patrick Hooper returns! Adam Fox filling in today, with new music from Snocaps and Otto Benson, a spotlight on Weval who play this weekend at El Club, and a nod to David Bowie’s final master stroke, “Black Star” which turned 10 in January.
Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.
In The Groove with temporary host Adam Fox playlist for February 5, 2026
Listen to In the Groove with host Ryan Patrick Hooper weekdays from noon-3 p.m. ET on 101.9 WDET or stream on-demand at wdet.org.
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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Today we go on a journey from grooves that make you want to dance, to songs that make you want to sit back and listen. You’ve got LCD Soundsystem, Raúl Monsalve y los Forajidos, Khruangbin, and Michael Jackson kicking things off, with fresh sounds from Clairo, Jordan Rakei, corto.alto, Theo Croker, and Nana Adjoa keeping it interesting.
Later on, we drift into folk, indie, and singer-songwriter territory with Neko Case, Vashti Bunyan, Feist, Mitski, Elliott Smith, Fiona Apple, and Robert Johnson—a mix that’s easy to get lost in.
Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.
In The Groove with Ryan Patrick Hooper playlist for January 28, 2026
Listen to In the Groove with host Ryan Patrick Hooper weekdays from noon-3 p.m. ET on 101.9 WDET or stream on-demand at wdet.org.
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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We’re at that point in winter where we really could use a good party! January lasted a year and dropped a lot of snow on us (and significantly dropped the temps), and now the groundhog has seen its shadow, so we’re left with the long trudging march toward…March. What we need is a laid back yet kinda wild extravaganza, or perhaps, if you will, a festival! With lots of live local music and art and, frankly, positive vibes.
Cut to: Sled Season. This Saturday night at the Tangent Gallery, the twangy indie-rock quartet known as Toboggan Man is partnering with étude Productions to arrange a lineup that features classes and workshops, an interactive art installation, live performances, local artisanal and food vendors, DJs, and a stylish themed photo booth experience.
But this is MI Local, so we’re naturally focusing on the live local music, like Toboggan Man and past WDET guests like Pia The Band, Rose St Germaine, and Checker, along with TY, New Entertainment, and Lee Cleveland & the Lefthand Band.
Toboggan Man formed during the wintertime a few years ago, which played into the naming of their band (it just beat out the next contender for a name, ‘Ski Lift Fist Fight’). Listen to the show and you’ll meet this charming band and hear a couple live renditions of their songs, a charmingly scrappy blend of garage-pop stomp and alt-country clamber through a sweetly smiling indie-frayed lens.
Before we get to the interview with Toboggan Man, you’ll hear new tracks from the local artists like the Detroit electronic duo ADULT., and the power pop maestro Nick Piunti, both of whom have new albums coming out this season. We also heard a dazzling electronic-acid-jazz track from Alice Sun, new noise-rock out of Ann Arbor from Dancers, and a pair of my favorite hip-hop artists, Leaf Erikson and Noveliss.
This week also marks my second anniversary of hosting this show! Onward to year three of MI Local! Thanks for listening!
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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In this episode of Big Sonic Heaven, we kicked off February with a track from the brand new Whitelands album, “Sunlight Echoes,” the new single from AtticOmatic’s upcoming EP, “Between Two.” We heard “Melting” from Cigarettes for Breakfast’s new “Color Wheel” EP, as well as new tracks from the German duo Jahrund and Atlanta’s dreampop duo Silk Daisys.
We also celebrated The Cure’s first Grammy win in their 50-year career! They actually won two Grammys! “Songs of a Lost World” won for Best Alternative Album, and the single “Alone” won for Best Alternative Music Performance. Woohoo!
Checkout the playlist below and listen to the replay, available for the next two weeks.
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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On this week’s episode of Acoustic Café, in-studio guests Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent, aka Shovels & Rope, play songs from their latest album “Something Is Working Up Above My Head.”
Also this week, a collection of in-studio duets, all from 2016 with Billy Bragg and Joe Henry, Shawn Colvin and Steve Earle, Judy Collins and Ari Hest and more. Plus new songs from Samm Henshaw, Bonny Prince Billy, Mumford & Sons and Larkin Poe.
See the playlist below and listen to the episodes on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.
Acoustic Café Playlist for February 1, 2026
Listen to Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music every Saturday from 2-4 p.m. ET on Detroit Public Radio 101.9 WDET and streaming on-demand at wdet.org
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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This week on Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music a couple cuts from a fascinating new album from Kronos Quartet and Mahalia Jackson, featuring her amazing singing and in conversation with Studs Terkel in 1963.
Also, new Detroit tunes from Dames Brown, The Legal Matters, another Nick Piunti preview, the duo Rosetta Pebble and more!
See the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.
Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music Playlist for January 31, 2026
HOUR ONE:
Listen to Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music every Saturday from 2-4 p.m. ET on Detroit Public Radio 101.9 WDET and streaming on-demand at wdet.org
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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Meet Starlings! Or at least half of Starlings. My guests this week were Nick Chevillet (guitar/vocals), Adam Liles (guitar), and Darren Shelton, (keyboards). You can see Shelton on the far right, up top, who immediately joked that he “only has one look” when it comes to photos, otherwise, his energy is significantly mirthful, ebullient even, and certainly exuding lots of encouraging energy toward his bandmate, Liles (he’s the tallest one in the picture) just released his debut solo album “Slow Pony” this week.
During the last segment of this week’s show, I spoke with Liles about his new album, including debuting a song from it, “Heart Attack Machine.” Then Liles treated WDET listeners to a live acoustic version of another song, proper for these chilly winter nights, titled “Silver Letter.”
Liles has been in several bands over the last decade, including Pia The Band and The Indigo Curve, but he’s also been working on solo material, albeit a bit more quietly, for just as long, having released demos in the late 2010s, along with a solid single, “Ripcord.”
Chevillet shared a charming anecdote about how Liles came to join Starlings. This six-piece band grew out of a collaboration that Chevillet started, somewhat on a lark, with singer-songwriter Adam Padden. Chevillet and Padden were already well-acquainted after years of playing together in another indie-rock group, Handgrenades.
Starlings started as a bonding creative project during the quarantine days of Covid, when both Chevillet and Padden had just become new fathers and were eager to fill some of that precious quiet time when their newborns were napping; naturally, they filled it with songwriting.
Liles is a natural fit for Starlings, since Chevillet and Padden’s initial batch of songs matched his own sensibilities for propulsive mini-ballads of melodic brooding post-punk mixed with pedal-augmented guitar phrases, welded over sophisticated compositions that support and sweeten (or bitterly sweeten) the lilts of poetically heavyhearted lyrics.
Shelton had previously set up an impressive recording space Downriver, where Chevillet revealed he’s been working on a slew of new Starlings tracks for future recordings; their debut EP, “Try Hard Town,” was released last year. Liles, in turn, also admitted that while he’s eager to continue recording and performing with Starlings, he’s also got plenty of solo material that could fill a follow-up to” Slow Pony” soon.
Also on tonight’s show, I looked ahead to this weekend’s annual Ann Arbor Folk Festival, a fundraiser for that city’s musical mecca of roots music, The Ark. I featured tracks from two artists performing on Saturday at Hill Auditorium: the versatile Americana-folk-rock ensemble The Crane Wives, and Rabbitology, who weaves a heartwarmingly witchy brew of atmospheric folk that sounds like it’s building her up to be the inheritor of the torches of Kate Bush and Florence Welch.
Also on this week’s show, a track from Tony Mugg’s solo project, DUDE, a dazzlingly jazzy-indie-rock instrumental from Seth Bernard, and a swooning ballad from Annie Bacon. We even found some time to flash back to 2016’s world of local music releases, with two seemingly long-lost music projects known as Real Ghosts and The Good Things.
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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Crashing back into the work week with some throwbacks including music from Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, the Replacements and more, plus new music from Kazdoura and IDLES. We also find some cathartic release through musical therapy with selections from Nouvelle Vague covering the Clash and Rage Against The Machine covering Bruce Springsteen. And we say farewell to long time listener Banana, who was the best dog ever, with Sister Nancy’s “Ain’t No Stopping Nancy.”
Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.
In The Groove with Ryan Patrick Hooper playlist for January 26, 2026
Listen to In the Groove with host Ryan Patrick Hooper weekdays from noon-3 p.m. ET on 101.9 WDET or stream on-demand at wdet.org.
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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This week on Visions, I decide to take us all over the musical map. I celebrate classics and brand new music.
You hear from Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Bobby Hutcherson, Buddy Rich, Nancy Wilson & Cannonball Adderley, and Antônio Carlos Jobim & Frank Sinatra. There’s also a 50th album anniversary from Earl Klugh and Alice Coltrane.
I also play new music from Joel Ross, Tomeka Reid, Craig Taborn, Melissa Aldana, and Walter Smith III, recent releases from Joshua Redman and Sessa, and a new release I’m really excited about by Flea.
Finally, I play a track by Detroit’s Ian Fink to promote a brand new concert series starting here in Detroit. You can hear Ian this Sunday, Feb. 1 at 2:00 p.m., at Fort Street Presbyterian Church.
The series was started by Detroit composer, pianist, and bandleader, Michael Malis and features five of Detroit and southeast Michigan’s most exciting pianists: Ian Fink, Andy Milne, Lisa Sung, Alvin Waddles, and Brendon Davis. Learn more here.
Check out the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.
Visions Playlist for Jan. 26, 2026
* Indicates Detroit artists
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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A whole bunch of throwbacks from Sandra Wright, Harry Nilsson, Jan Hammer Group, Irma Thomas and more. Plus new music from Arctic Monkeys—the band’s first new release in four years which appears on a new benefit compilation for War Child—Jill Scott and Flea.
Spoon will be in town on June 26 at the Fillmore Detroit, co-headlining with the Beths out of New Zealand, so we will go heavy on their back catalog. Check it out!
Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.
In The Groove with Ryan Patrick Hooper playlist for January 22, 2026
Listen to In the Groove with host Ryan Patrick Hooper weekdays from noon-3 p.m. ET on 101.9 WDET or stream on-demand at wdet.org.
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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On this week’s episode of Acoustic Café, we’ll hear music from albums and artists having “Big O” birthdays this year, including classic albums from Stevie and Joni (both turning 50), Corrine Bailey Rae’s debut at 20, and lots of artists with big birthdays, from Zach Bryan at 3-0 to Buddy Guy turning 9-0!
Also this week, in-studio performances from Lou Barlow and Ben Folds (both 60), Peter Wolf and Loudon Wainwright III (both 80) and more.
See the playlist below and listen to the episodes on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.
Acoustic Café Playlist for January 25, 2026
Listen to Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music every Saturday from 2-4 p.m. ET on Detroit Public Radio 101.9 WDET and streaming on-demand at wdet.org
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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This week on Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music a new album coming next month from Nick Piunti, Detroit rocker and restaurateur. Plus Lucinda Williams’ new album, a prescient 2014 track from YUSUF/Cat Stevens and more.
Also, we celebrate 50 years of David Bowie’s “Station To Station” album at 50, and 70 years of Verve Records!
See the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.
Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music Playlist for January 24, 2026
HOUR ONE:
Listen to Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music every Saturday from 2-4 p.m. ET on Detroit Public Radio 101.9 WDET and streaming on-demand at wdet.org
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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On today’s 5-on-5 we dig into the world of Solomon Fox, a North Carolina-born singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer who has quietly become one of the defining architects of the new soul wave.
Before he ever stepped to the mic as a solo artist, Fox was helping to shape the sound of others, co-creating the gospel-infused anthem “Stand Up” for the film Harriet and earning Grammy, Oscar, and Golden Globe nominations as a producer in the process.
His story runs straight through Durham, North Carolina, where he cut his teeth in the hip hop and R&B collective Young Bull, touring and helping revive a local scene while still in high school. From there he went to Harvard, studying Religion and Music under heavyweights like Cornel West, Vijay Iyer, and Esperanza Spalding.
That mix of church-bred harmony, producer discipline, and intellectual rigor would show up in his own records, where left-of-center soul arrangements, intimate vocals, and off-kilter lyrics sit comfortably next to funk-leaning grooves. Tonight, we trace that journey in five songs.
Critics noted how Solomon leaned on stacked gospel harmonies, sparse keys and guitar, and heavy, unhurried bass lines that left plenty of space for his voice to sit front and center.
Staying with the same album, we move to another cut that shows how he threads dreams, memory, and melody together. Across that project, Fox drew on R&B, soul, and gospel to build a slick, lovesick collection of coming-of-age musical snapshots that effortlessly glide into one another, showing an artist with a high ceiling of potential. That blueprint would carry forward as he moved from Bandcamp and word-of-mouth circles into a wider digital spotlight.
By 2024, his sound had jumped from local outlets to global timelines, thanks in part to a single that lived on Instagram and TikTok as much as in playlists. Along with its companion single “You Don’t Cook,” “Weird” racked up millions of views across Instagram and TikTok, putting his off-center R&B on the radar of listeners and legends alike, including Queen Latifah, Ty Dolla Sign, and T-Pain, who lauded his work.
This would set the table for his latest work, the 13-track fully self-produced album “Sweettooth.”
“Sweettooth” is a a five-year diary about one relationship and all the back and forth that came from it. One of the clearest windows into that story is a duet that unfolds like a 2 a.m. confession, written and produced in his bedroom and built around a hypnotic beatscape and dreamy chord structure. Solomon trades verses with songstress Amaria on a track that he pares down to warm synth washes, a relaxed groove, and two voices orbiting the same bad habit.
Compared to the boundary-pushing work he has done for artists like Smino and Thundercat, “Fallin’ Back” was less about him flexing his producer toolkit and more about letting vulnerability sit in the foreground. From there, Sweettooth opens out into a full emotional map: gut-punch breakups, sugar-rush infatuations, and the slow recognition that some connections are beautiful precisely because they cannot last.
Another cut that demonstrates Fox’s understanding of the music and cultural lineage of modern soul is “Blind Date Town.” It merges influences ranging from gospel choirs to D’Angelo to the contemporary soul renaissance. The result is music that feels familiar enough to hold you, and strange enough to keep you listening.
If you dig artists who embody the spirit of new-school soul and future-funk, keep listening to The Progressive Underground every Saturday evening at 6 p.m. on WDET 101.9 FM and wdet.org. For The Progressive Underground, my name is Chris Campbell. See you next time.
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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This episode of Visions celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a collection of liberation music: sounds of grief, struggle, freedom, loss, and joy.
I chose a couple tracks off of Max Roach’s “Freedom Now Suite” to anchor the episode. I also played Terri Lyne Carrington’s rendition of Roach’s suite, “We Insist 2025!” I play music from John Coltrane, Blue Mitchell, Cecil Payne, Nina Simone, Harold McKinney, Irreversible Entanglements, and many more.
I also promote a show coming to the Detroit Institute of Arts Diego Rivera Court this Friday, Jan. 23: George Lewis and the 45th Anniversary of the Creative Arts Collective with PUBLIQuartet. Check out information about the show and purchase tickets here.
Check out the playlist below and listen to the episode on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.
Visions Playlist for Jan. 19, 2026
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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Tonight, Big Sonic Heaven featured some great brand-new tracks. We heard “Seabird,” the first single from Deary’s upcoming debut album, “Birding.” They’re a three-piece dreampop band from London, signed to Simon Raymond’s label, Bella Union.
Cigarettes for Breakfast is the project of Matt Whiteford. “The Color Wheel” EP is out in March, and we heard “Melting.”
Plus, “In the New” from singer-songwriter Kate de Rosset. She’s from North Carolina and has a brand-new album called “It Will Burn,” which was released earlier this month.
In honor of filmmaker and artist David Lynch, who passed away a year ago last week, we heard “Falling,” by Julee Cruise, the Twin Peaks theme song. Lynch co-wrote the song with Cruise.
Checkout the playlist below and listen to the replay, available for the next two weeks.
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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On this week’s episode of Acoustic Café, our in-studio guest is Rhett Miller of Old 97s. Rhett’s music has been a part of Acoustic Cafe for over 30 years, from both the band and his solo work. His tenth solo record is “A Lifetime Of Riding By Night.”
We recorded our session with Rhett live at The Leon Loft in Ann Arbor.
Also this week, another SongWriter Podcast preview, and in-studio archives from Loudon Wainwright III, Tori Amos in 1996 and more.
See the playlist below and listen to the episodes on-demand for two weeks after it airs using the media player above.
Acoustic Café Playlist for January 18, 2026
Listen to Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music every Saturday from 2-4 p.m. ET on Detroit Public Radio 101.9 WDET and streaming on-demand at wdet.org
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
The post Acoustic Café: Rhett Miller plays new solo songs and some Old 97s classics, plus archives from Loudon Wainwright III, Tori Amos and more appeared first on WDET 101.9 FM.
Each year, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered through a narrow lens. A quote. A speech. A dream, often stripped of the urgency, conflict, and radical clarity that defined his final years. This MLK Weekend edition of The Progressive Underground resists that flattening. Instead, the playlist traces King’s full moral and political arc, from spiritual grounding and collective grief to economic justice, cultural resistance, and the unfinished work he left behind.
Martin Luther King Jr. was not only a civil rights icon. He was a strategist under surveillance, a critic of capitalism and militarism, and a leader willing to lose popularity in order to tell the truth. The music selected here reflects that complexity.
Across six carefully sequenced and curated sets, this special moves through gospel-rooted endurance, protest music that forced America to confront itself, songs that examine dignity and self-worth, and contemporary voices carrying King’s questions forward. From Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, and Curtis Mayfield to Kendrick Lamar, D’Angelo, and Kamasi Washington, the playlist treats music as historical witness and moral record. It also honors Detroit’s role in shaping King’s legacy, particularly through Stevie Wonder’s campaign to make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday.
This is not a nostalgia set. It’s a listening experience designed to engage King as he actually lived and evolved, challenging, demanding, and unfinished.
Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.
1st Hour
2nd Hour
WDET’s unique music programs are dedicated to exploring the music and culture of our region and the world. Keep the music going. Please make a gift today. Give now »
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