An assortment of articles and images from Cleveland State University Special Collections
Playhouse Square from Cleveland Memory
A collection of photos and events from the history of Playhouse Square.
A collaborative effort between The Playhouse Square Foundation and the Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University
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The Cleveland Group Plan of 1903 from Cleveland Memory
Excellent assortment of articles and photos from Cleveland State University Special Collections
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The Glenville Shootout from Cleveland Memory
Excellent assortment of articles and photos from Cleveland State University Special Collections
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Hello Cleveland: The City’s Rock and Roll Legacy
Article discussing Cleveland’s Rock and Roll History
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- Cleveland native Bobby Womack and his brothers opened for Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers at Friendship Baptist Church in Cleveland in 1953. Womack and Cooke are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Womack is the first Cleveland native so honored.
- Cleveland eccentric Screamin’ Jay Hawkins sold more than a million copies of his signature tune, “I Put a Spell on You,” in 1956.
- Future Hall of Famers the O’Jays played the Tremend Lounge at Union and Broadway that decade. Lawrence “Kid Leo” Travagliante, who would become the voice of FM powerhouse WMMS, first saw the Canton group there.
- David Bowie broke out of Cleveland—literally—when he played his first U.S. date at Music Hall on September 22, 1972.
- Roxy Music broke out of Cleveland in 1974, largely thanks to Kid Leo’s tireless promotion.
- Cleveland music-industry forces Mike Belkin and Carl Maduri formed Sweet City Records, steering Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music” to Number One in 1976. Wild Cherry formed in Steubenville in 1970.
- In 1977, Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” roared out of Cleveland on Cleveland International Records, a label veteran Cleveland record man Steve Popovich founded.
- Bruce Springsteen played 10 dates in Northern Ohio in 1974 and 1975 alone, making Cleveland “Asbury Park West.” One of the most bootlegged shows of all is the three hour-plus performance he served up—with help from a name-checked Kid Leo—at the Cleveland Agora on August 28, 1978.
- In 1979, record labels fell all over themselves, signing Akron-based acts like Devo, the Rubber City Rebels, Tin Huey and the Cramps. Even the Pretenders were signed that year. The group led by Akron native Chrissie Hynde would become one of the most important acts of the 1980s.
- In August 1982, the Michael Stanley Band drew 66,377 to Blossom Music Center over four nights, still a record.
- In 1984, Sean and Gerald Levert, the sons of O’Jays singer Eddie Levert, formed LeVert. In the Nineties, Gerald began to spend time on a solo career that soon eclipsed the group’s. Gerald died in 2006, Sean in 2008.
- In 1984, Bill Peters founded Auburn Records, a heavy-metal label known for the bands Breaker and Shok Paris.
- In 1986, drummer Scott Pickering and guitarist Robert Griffin formed Prisonshake, an underground rock group contemporary with My Dad Is Dead and Death of Samantha, other talented Cleveland precursors of the “alternative” movement. That same year, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation chose Cleveland as the site of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The following year, I.M. Pei was selected as Rock Hall architect.
- In 1988, Cleveland native Tracy Chapman’s single, “Fast Car,” hit Number Six on the pop charts.
- In 1989, Nine Inch Nails, the brainchild of western Pennsylvania man Trent Reznor, released “Pretty Hate Machine,” the first industrial rock album to go mainstream. Some of NIN’s earliest performances took place at the Phantasy Nite Club in Lakewood. Its breakthrough came in 1991 during the first Lollapalooza, when NIN upstaged headliner Jane’s Addiction.
- Nothing Records, a custom imprint of Interscope, was formed in 1992 by Reznor and then-manager John Malm Jr. Key signings: NIN and the Canton-based band Marilyn Manson. Nothing died in 2004 amid a welter of lawsuits pitting Reznor against Malm.
- Among the hottest Cleveland clubs of the Nineties were Empire and the Odeon Concert Club. Empire ran from 1990 to 1992. Among groups and artists that played there were Nirvana, Lush, Warren Zevon and Nine Inch Nails. The Odeon was a Flats beacon from late 1993 to early 2006. Owned by the Belkin family, it showcased everyone from the Cranberries to Kid Rock to Chris Whitley to Metallica.
- In 1993, ground was broken on the Rock Hall. It opened September 1, 1995. The following day featured a star-studded concert with Bruce Springsteen, the Pretenders, Sam Moore, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and many others.
- The hip-hop group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony formed in Cleveland in 1991. Its 1995 debut album, E 1999 Eternal, sold 4 million albums, and the single, “The Crossroads,” won a Grammy award. BTNH’s last release was in 2007.
- “Green Mind,” a pop-industrial rocker by the Kent group Dink, got airplay on WENZ-FM (“The End”) in 1993, leading to a short-lived contract with Capitol Records. Also formed that year: Mushroomhead, a theatrical heavy-metal band that has recorded for several major labels.
- Akron native Joseph Arthur, a Firestone High School graduate like Chrissie Hynde and Black Keys Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach, signed with Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records in 1996. Arthur, now focused on guitar, played bass around Cleveland as a teen with guitarist Frankie Starr.
- In 1999, Canton native Macy Gray scored worldwide with “I Try,” a hit from her debut album, How Life Is.
- In 2000, Cindy Barber and Mark Leddy opened the Beachland Ballroom, the most important, non-mainstream rock venue in Cleveland. Its key competitor, the House of Blues, located off of Public Square, opened in 2004.
- In 2001, Belkin Productions was sold to SFX, which subsequently was sold to Clear Channel Radio, a public company that ultimately spun off its concert business into Live Nation. That year also saw formation of the Black Keys, an Akron duo that has sold more than 800,000 CDs and invested in or spun off such side projects as Drummer, an Auberbach solo album, Dan Auerbach protégé Jessica Lea Mayfield, and the bands Houseguest and Beaten Awake.
- One of the hottest current artists is 2010 Grammy Award nominee Kid Cudi, born in Cleveland in 1984. An associate of Kanye West, Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi, who grew up in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, charted in fall 2009 with “Day ‘n’ Nite,” a track from his debut album Man on the Moon: The End of Day. Other area notables of the 21st century: Mick Boogie (born Mick Batsyke) of Youngstown, who has done mash-ups with Eminem, Talib Kweli and Jay-Z and was official DJ of the Cleveland Cavaliers for several seasons; and Pittsburgh native Greg Gillis, who began creating mix tapes under the name Girl Talk while studying biomedical engineering at Case Western University in Cleveland. On the softer side: Bay Village native Kate Voegele, born in 1986. Signed to Interscope, she hit with “Lift Me Up,” a take on Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” and “Sweet Silver Lining.” She also records as Mia Catalano, the name of her character on the television show One Tree Hill.
Samuel Jones Chapter in “The American mayor: the best & the worst big-city leaders”
Hazen Pingree Chapter from “The American mayor: the best & the worst big-city leaders”
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Cleveland’s Terminal Tower: The Forest City Acquires a Metropolitan Image
Article by Walter Leedy presented at the Western Reserve Studies Symposium in 1997
Lorenzo Carter from Wikipedia
Major Lorenzo Carter was the first permanent settler in Cleveland, Ohio
From 1797 until 1814, “Major Carter was all the law Cleveland had.”
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Promises of Power: a political autobiography
From Cleveland State University Special Collections
Carl Stokes was the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, and famous as the first black mayor of a major American city. He put together a coalition and maintained it with the force of his personality and convictions. He attracted many idealistic and talented people to his administration, which has had a lasting impact on local politics. This is his own story, told simply and frankly.