Wonder’s never cease

For those of you with tickets to see Stevie Wonder at the 3Arena on July 9 I officially hate you all (as does Daddy’s Little Girl for not taking her!)

Motown may be 60 this year but its appeal endures, not least because of the success of The Motown Story musical but also because young people, DLG especially, get it.

Of course, Berry Gordy’s stable of stars, Stevie, Diana Ross, Martha Reeves, of Martha and the Vandellas, and Motown fans such as Paul McCartney all do so much to promote the world’s most famous music factory.

Of course all workplaces run on fuel and the fuel for Stevie was Baby Ruth peanut butter candy bars. His fellow stars would leave a bunch of dimes on top of the candy machine to help Stevie and he would scan the buttons knowing exactly which row and which number to press. Find out more at the Motown Museum http://www.motownmuseum.org.

If that’s given you food for thought then Detroit, home of Motown, has much, much, more. The Mo of course is an abbreviation of Motor and Henry Ford, the original Motorman, and descendant of Cork folk bestrides Detroit and Michigan.

You cannot go to Michigan and not visit The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation http://www.thehenryford.org in Dearborn where you can see the car in which John F Kennedy was shot and the bus where Detroit’s most famous schoolgirl Rosa Parks made her stand by refusing to give up her seat.

Michigan is part of the greater tourist region The Great Lakes, one of America’s great natural treasures. Pennysylvania and New York also skirt the lakes but they aren’t in this region, and anyway they have their own separate charms which I will highlight elsewhere.

So we’ll give Minnesota where Aer Lingus http://www.aerlingus.com will be flying direct into Minneapolis-St Paul this summer, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin a shout-out here particularly as The Great Lakes team http://www.greatlakesusa.co.uk wined and dined us last night at the Morrison Hotel, Dublin.

And here we are…

MET YOU ON THE ROAD