Recently the Canadian rocker and the country star happened upon the same muse -- a certain struggling Rust Belt metropolis.
The Sam Roberts Band's “Detroit '67" and Rich's “Shuttin' Detroit Down" each have caused a stir in the Motor City and represent the latest in a long line of songs that found musical inspiration in America's auto capital.
Many of the Detroit-centric songs of the past focused on the city either as party town (Kiss' “Detroit Rock City") or violent outpost (Trick Trick and Eminem's “Welcome 2 Detroit City" and David Bowie's “Panic in Detroit").
But the Roberts and Rich efforts paint a different picture. Roberts uses the infamous 1967 riots to make the point that Detroit has been down before and will rise again, while Rich's anthem praises the city's working-class roots.
