Business & brands / Music
Clarence Eddins
1918–1992 · nightclub owner
Owner of the Blue Bird Inn on Tireman Avenue, who with his wife Mary ran Detroit's legendary west-side bebop club and booked Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Art Blakey.
- Born
Alabama- Died
- Detroit years
- 1920s–1992
- Field
- Business & brands, Music
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Clarence Eddins came to Detroit from Alabama with his mother in the early 1920s, worked for a time at a Chrysler plant and became a west-side businessman and a 32nd-degree Mason. The Blue Bird Inn at 5021 Tireman Avenue, opened as a neighborhood bar in 1937 by William and Pinkie DuBois, had become the city's most important bebop room after 1948, with a house band that at times included Billy Mitchell, Tommy Flanagan, Elvin and Thad Jones and, for several months in 1953, Miles Davis. After Robert "Buddy" DuBois was shot dead in 1956, Eddins and his wife Mary took over, closed the club briefly in 1957 for a thorough modern renovation and reopened it to more patrons. Eddins booked national stars including Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Sonny Stitt and Cannonball Adderley, alongside Detroiters such as Thad Jones and Yusef Lateef. Live jazz faded in the 1970s; Mary Eddins died in 2003 and the club closed in the early 2000s.
Highlights
- Took over the Blue Bird Inn with his wife Mary after 1956
- Renovated and expanded the club in 1957
- Booked Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Horace Silver and Art Blakey
- The club he ran is now a city historic district under restoration
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1956–1992
Blue Bird Inn
Closed
The west-side bebop club he owned and ran with his wife Mary; closed in the early 2000s, bought by the Detroit Sound Conservancy in 2018 and designated a city historic district, it is being restored as a music venue.