The Flame Show Bar stood at 4264 John R Street, on the corner of East Canfield, where a Detroit Medical Center parking garage now stands. Morris Wasserman, the son of a Detroit developer, opened it on 24 June 1949 with Nellie Lutcher on the bill, and it ran for fourteen years at the edge of the Paradise Valley club district. Billie Holiday played a fourteen-night run in its first month. Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Etta James, Jackie Wilson and B.B. King all worked its stage, and from 1950 the house band was Maurice King and His Wolverines. The club's place in Motown history came from a side business. Anna and Gwen Gordy ran the concession selling keepsake photographs of customers, and Gwen introduced her brother Berry to Al Green, the manager who handled Jackie Wilson. Berry Gordy went on to co-write Wilson's hits "Reet Petite" and "Lonely Teardrops". The royalties disappointed him, and that grievance helped push him toward a label of his own. Maurice King later became a musical director and vocal coach at Motown. The last shows ran in July 1963 with George Benson at the top of the bill. The building sat empty for about a year and a half and came down in 1965, cleared under the Detroit Medical Center urban renewal plan announced in 1958.
Getting there
42.3530, -83.0588
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