The Michigan Theater is proud to join forces with Live Nation Entertainment
to present this series of special concerts featuring the true giants of rock & roll
and related genres. Previous year's artists include Bonnie Raitt, Carly Simon, Stephen Stills, Brian Wilson, B.B. King, Elvis Costello & the Imposters, and Joe Jackson & Todd Rundgren.

John Sebastian and Roger McGuinn, best known for the influential bands they played with in the 1960s, will perform together as part of our Legends of Rock & Roll series. John Sebastian has had a varied career as a singer, songwriter, and musician. As the leader of the folk-rock band the Lovin' Spoonful, he was responsible for a string of Top Ten hits in 1965-1967 that included the chart-toppers "Daydream" and "Summer in the City," and he returned to number one in 1976 as a solo artist with "Welcome Back." The Lovin' Spoonful was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. As the frontman of the Byrds, Roger McGuinn and his trademark 12-string Rickenbacker guitar pioneered folk-rock and, by extension, country-rock, influencing everyone from contemporaries like the Beatles to acolytes like Tom Petty and R.E.M. in the process. With a career that includes hits like “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Turn, Turn, Turn,” and “Eight Miles High,” it's easy to see why the Byrds were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

John Sebastian at All Media Guide
Roger McGuinn at All Media Guide

Presented by The Ark.

Tickets available online at Ticketmaster.com, at all Ticketmaster outlets including Macy's and Michigan Union Ticket Office. To charge by phone, call (734) 763-TKTS or (248) 645-6666.

An American original; WAR was the first and most successful musical crossover phenomenon that forever fused rock, jazz, Latin, and R&B, while transcending racial and cultural barriers with a multi- ethnic line-up; a musical melting pot and an enduring influence that has sold over 50 million records to date. Hits include "Low Rider," "Spill the Wine," "The Cisco Kid," "Why Can't We Be Friends" and "Slippin' Into Darkness." Today, WAR is a permanent part of America's pop cultural landscape. A touring act that performs 150 shows a year and whose catalog of timeless hits permeate our everyday lives.

WAR at All Media Guide

Presented by Live Nation.

Tickets available online at LiveNation.com, at all Ticketmaster outlets including Macy's and Michigan Union Ticket Office. To charge by phone, call (248) 645-6666.

Born in 1945 in Hamtramck, Mitch Ryder has made more than two dozen albums and given upward of 8,000 performances. Some of his earliest gigs were in Greenwich Village clubs, singing with a black trio in the early days of the civil rights movement, jamming with Jimi Hendrix, and attending private parties thrown by the Beatles. Who can forget Mitch’s tear-the-place-down versions of “Devil with a Blue Dress On/Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Jenny Take a Ride” or his immortal cover of Lou Reed’s “Rock & Roll,” that Reed has called the “definitive version?” Powerful vocals and memorable live appearances have been his trademark for 47 years in the music business.

The performance will celebrate Ryder’s long career and the release of a new biography, "It Was All Right: Mitch Ryder’s Life in Music," by Detroit area author and reporter James A. Mitchell, to be published in April by WSU Press. In place of an opening act, Mitch Ryder will be interviewed live on stage by noted rock journalist Gary Graff. Books will be available for sale the night of the show or in advance by calling WSU Press (800-978-7323) or online at wsupress.wayne.edu.

Mitch Ryder at All Media Guide

Presented by Live Nation.

Tickets available online at Ticketmaster, at all Ticketmaster outlets including Macy's and Michigan Union Ticket Office. To charge by phone, call (248) 645-6666.

Punk rock's poet laureate, Patti Smith ranks among the most influential female rock & rollers of all time. Ambitious, unconventional, and challenging, Smith's music is hailed as the most exciting fusion of rock and poetry since Bob Dylan's heyday. If that hybrid remained distinctly non-commercial, it isn't a statement against accessibility so much as the simple fact that Smith follows her own muse wherever it takes her - from structured rock songs to free-form experimentalism. She is a powerful concert presence, singing and chanting her lyrics in an untrained but expressive voice, whirling around the stage like an ecstatic shaman delivering incantations.

Smith is an icon to generations of female rockers. She never relied on sex appeal for her success - she is unabashedly intellectual and creatively uncompromising, and her appearance is lean, hard, and androgynous. She also never makes an issue of her gender, calling attention to herself as an artist, not a woman; she simply dresses and performs in the spirit of her aggressive, male rock role models, as if no alternative had ever occurred to her. In the process, she obliterates the expectations of what is possible for women in rock, and stretches the boundaries of how artists of any gender can express themselves. (Description by Steve Huey, All Media Guide)

Patti Smith at All Media Guide

Presented by Live Nation.

Tickets available online at Ticketmaster, at all Ticketmaster outlets including Macy's and Michigan Union Ticket Office. To charge by phone, call (248) 645-6666.

Little Richard is a true musical pioneer, whose significance remains nearly unrivaled. When the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame opened in 1986, he was honored as one of the elite charter group of inductees, along with Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.

These are the crème de la crème, the very architects of the music.

More than any performer other than Elvis, Little Richard blew the lid off the 50s, laying the foundation for rock and roll with his explosive music and charismatic persona. His frantically charged piano playing and raspy, shouted vocals defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll. He released a stunning succession of records in the late 50s, including such classics as “Tutti Frutti,” “Long Tall Sally,” “Good Golly, Miss Molly” “Rip It Up,” “Slippin’ and Slidin’,” “Lucille,” “Jenny Jenny,” "Kansas City" and “Keep a Knockin'."

His influence can be clearly witnessed in a wide variety of artists ever since, from the Beatles (Paul McCartney in particular) and the Rolling Stones to James Brown and later, Elton John and Prince. It was James Brown who credited him with first putting the funk in the rock and roll beat.

Little Richard remains an active performer and icon - and an inimitable reminder of the joyful frenzy that galvanized rock and roll into being almost fifty years ago.

Little Richard at All Media Guide

Presented by Live Nation.

Randy Newman is an anomaly among early-'70s singer/songwriters. Though he was slightly influenced by Bob Dylan, his music owes more to New Orleans R&B and traditional pop than folk. Newman developed an idiosyncratic style that alternates between sweeping, cinematic pop and rolling R&B, which are tied together by his biting sense of humor. Where his peers concentrate on confessional songwriting, Newman draws characters, creating a world filled with misfits, outcasts, charlatans, and con men.

Official Randy Newman Website

Presented by Live Nation.