Famous people's places / Detroit – Black Bottom / 12th Street
Joe's Record Shop
Closed – archive entry · 1967
Joe Von Battle's Hastings Street and later 12th Street record shop and back-room studio, where he recorded John Lee Hooker, a teenage Aretha Franklin, and dozens of Detroit blues and gospel artists before the 1967 uprising destroyed it.
01 / The story of this place
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Joe Von Battle, believed to be the first African-American independent record producer in the country after World War II, opened his record shop at 3530 Hastings Street in Detroit's Black Bottom neighborhood in 1945, running a recording studio out of the back room on his own JVB label. Musicians drawn to Hastings Street's clubs came through his door constantly: he recorded John Lee Hooker there in the late 1940s and 1950s, captured local blues players including Little Sonny, Baby Boy Warren, Washboard Willie, and the one-man-band guitarist One String Sam, and in 1957 made the first recording of fourteen-year-old Aretha Franklin, daughter of his friend the Reverend C. L. Franklin. When the city cleared Hastings Street for the Chrysler Freeway in 1960, Battle moved his shop to 12th Street, where he kept recording and selling records until the Detroit uprising of July 1967 reached his block. Battle stood guard at the shop with a gun during the unrest, but the building and most of its stock and master recordings were destroyed, effectively ending his business.
- Opened at 3530 Hastings Street in 1945; recorded on his own JVB label
- Recorded John Lee Hooker through the late 1940s and 1950s
- Made the first recording of 14-year-old Aretha Franklin in 1957
- Moved to 12th Street in 1960; destroyed in the 1967 Detroit uprising
Famous Detroiters
Famous people tied to this place 7
Lexicon entries for the people who lived, worked, performed or liked to spend time here.
- John Lee Hooker 1917–2001 · blues singer, songwriter, guitarist
Recorded here
Joe Von Battle's record shop and back-room studio on Hastings Street, where Hooker recorded and was famously photographed with his guitar.
- Little Sonny born 1932 · blues harmonica player, singer, songwriter
Recorded here
Joe Von Battle recorded Little Sonny among the harmonica and guitar players who gathered at his Hastings Street shop.
- Baby Boy Warren 1919–1977 · blues singer, guitarist
Recorded here
Von Battle's Hastings Street shop, home of the JVB label that issued Warren's 1954 session with Sonny Boy Williamson.
- Joe Von Battle 1915–1973 · record store owner, record producer
Founded
His Hastings Street shop, back-room studio and a gathering place for Black Bottom musicians; demolished in 1960 for the Chrysler Freeway.
- One String Sam · blues singer, diddley bow player
Recorded here
Where Joe Von Battle recorded his only two commercial sides in 1956.
- Washboard Willie 1906–1991 · blues washboard player, singer, bandleader
Recorded here
Joe Von Battle recorded Washboard Willie among the Hastings Street regulars he captured in his shop studio.
- Marsha Music · writer, essayist, spoken-word artist, oral historian
Related place
Her father Joe Von Battle's record shop and studio on Hastings Street, lost when the street was cleared for the Chrysler Freeway; a frequent subject of her writing.
Sources & fact check · Checked: 2026-09-25
An independently written bilingual guide. This collection is not an attendance-based ranking.
03 / Events
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