Motown founder Berry Gordy his family came to Detroit from Georgia in the 1920s, around the same time Doctor Haley Bell arrived.

Grandpa Bell came to Detroit in 1923.

He's from Brunswick, Georgia.

He was born in 1895 and Mary Bell, his wife.

She was born in Lebanon, Tennessee, which is outside of Nashville, in 1900.

Another great Migration story Annette Bass came to Michigan Central last year to tell us about Bell Broadcasting for our Destination Detroit project.

Grandma Bell said they put three cities in a hat and one was Texas.

I think the third one was West Virginia in Detroit was second.

So they drew Detroit twice.

So they decided to come to Detroit.

Three decades later, Doctor Bell, a successful dentist, had saved up to build a radio station, partnering with sons in law Wendell Cox and Robert Bass, WCHB 14:40 a.m.

first broadcast November 7th, 1956.

What many researchers and historians argue if there had not been WCHB that launches in 1956, there would not be a Motown Records.

Coming to you live from WCHB.

It's most definitely the jolting JOE getting down to the nitty in this Detroit city.

And I can remember Berry Gordy coming over to my house when we lived down Lafayette Park back in the 60s, with 2 or 3 for 45 in his hand, asking my father, Doctor Bass, can you please see if you can get these on the air next week for.

Me if they were airworthy?

Eric Bass said WCHB would play them first before the other Detroit stations would get a chance.

Doctor Bell was a dentist.

He set up his dental office in Hamtramck.

Doctor Cox, my office, set up his office down the street near Holbrook, my grandfather's office near Caniff.

And when my father got out of the dental school, he set up shop in my grandfather's office, also on Joseph Campbell.

So all three of them operated there.

Three black dentists servicing the 90% population of Polish people back in the 50s and 60s.

Doctors Bell, Bass and Cox owned the first black owned radio station in the USA, built from the ground up.

Then my grandfather, he wanted to get into broadcasting because Detroit's black population was booming in those days.

It was growing exponentially.

Great migration brought a lot of black people from the South to Detroit, and there was no television, no radio targeting them specifically.

He applied for a FCC license for a building permit to build a station in Detroit to to target the black audience.

He was denied multiple times back in the 50s.

The Federal Communications Commission wouldn't let them in Detroit, but they got the okay in Inkster, west of the city.

Annette Bass, husband Bobby Bass, along with brother Eric Bass, became Bell Broadcasting executives.

With few family members left.

And that's trying to preserve the Bell broadcast legacy.

All those are archive boxes down there.

Those are all family members.

I mean, these are files.

Those are employee files over there.

When my husband passed in 2013.

He left.

Me with all this material, most of it he inherited from his grandmother's.

WCHB Detroit soul radio.

The soul of the city 1440 WCHB And it covered the news for the black audience.

June of 63.

Martin Luther King did his first version of I Have a Dream.

It was two weeks after Medgar Evers was assassinated.

And they had a march in Detroit.

Because I remember I got tired of walking.

My dad put me on his shoulders and we walked from, like, the boulevard all the way to Jefferson.

That was a long way.

And then after the march, everybody went to Cobo Hall, and that's when he first did his first version of I Have a Dream.

WCHB there to put it on the air.

And so his plantation background gradually gave way to urban industrial life.

Well, this is pretty unique, man.

My grandfather couldn't have pulled us off any other place, in my opinion.

Detroit was a once in a lifetime deal, you know, that's why I come to Detroit.

We probably wouldn't have enjoyed this success anywhere else.

Wow.

Radio talent then in binders.

Now, 60 years later.

Who are they?

Annette bass wants to put names to the faces.

I said if anybody recognizes.

Yeah, please write their name down.

You know.

I have people there.

Some of them.

Now, check this dude out.

This cat named Robbie Dee.

He was a white jock, obviously, that worked for back in the 60s.

Time magazine featured Mr.

Hip Lip Robbie D in 1967.

WCHB, Rocking Robbie D, What's Happening for you?

This is WCHB about the and proudly serving all together Detroit land 1440 minutes a day.

One of the things was shut your trap, sit on my lap and hail my rap baby.

That was a little.

You say that now.

Now he is working for a black owned and operated radio station in the mid 60s.

Man, this cab was ahead of the time.

Bell broadcasting put FM station WCHD on the air in 1960.

Not many FM listeners.

Then WCHD played jazz in.

Annette's late husband Bobby helped run the operation, gathering a faithful audience.

That's why you have to have people who are really locked into that.

That was Bobby strength.

Bobby really understood jazz music.

There was another jazz station in Connecticut programed by pianist Dave Brubeck of Take Five fame called WJZZ, but in the early 70s it gave up its call letters, and Bell Broadcasting took them, renamed WJZZ, with the station's marketing man, Eric Bass, helping roll out their iconic logo.

I saw that, said Bobby, that's it.

That's the radio station that that that's who we want to be.

That's what we want people to see, WJZZ and think about Detroit.

And it was so prolific that when it hit, we said, we're going to put this on hats.

We're going to put it on shirts.

We're going to put it on billboards.

At WJZZ Detroit Jazz 106.

By the 1980s, jazz radio evolved into smooth jazz, with WJZZ on top.

Recognized nationally for its programing and tie ins with the likes of concerts at Shane Park and the Detroit Jazz Festivals.

That's from 81.

There was always a smooth jazz show it down at the Fox, a smooth jazz show down the orchestra hall, a smooth jazz function here, smooth jazz funk until the format became until it didn't generate enough money.

Then they made it overnight.

Gone.

Radio and transition.

Bell broadcasting forced to adapt.

So small, independently owned families like mine you had to do 1 or 2 things.

You either had to get bigger to compete or they want to squeeze you out.

And we hung out.

We hung for a long time and competed.

Bell broadcasting sold its stations in 1998, but the history still here with Annette Bass sorting it out.

This family was very unique.

They were like radio royalty.

That's what I consider them.

Radio royalty.