AADL Talks To: Marcel Shobey and Ruth Natalie Kellogg about the Legacy of Musicians Armando and Norman Shobey, aka the Shobey Brothers
When: February 1, 2024
In this episode, AADL Talks To Marcel Shobey, joined by his mother, Ruth Natalie Kellogg. Marcel shares memories of growing up on Ashley Street on the Old West Side and he and his mother discuss some of the changes they've seen in Ann Arbor over the years. They also take a deep dive into the music career of the Shobey Brothers -- Marcel's father, Armando Shobey, and uncle, Norman Shobey. The Shobeys were hand percussionists discovered in the Bronx as children. They toured with Bobby Orton's Teen Aces and then went on to play in a variety of music ensembles of some renown both nationally and in several European countries for many years before settling in Ann Arbor at the invitation of musician Rick Burgess. Here they formed -- or joined -- a variety of music ensembles that played throughout the Midwest region. Their story is further documented in photos and flyers in the Marcel Shobey Collection.
Transcript
- [00:00:09] AMY CANTU: Hi, this is Amy.
- [00:00:10] EMILY MURPHY: This is Emily, and in this episode, AADL talks to Marcel Shobey, joined by his mother, Natalie Kellogg.
- [00:00:18] AMY CANTU: Marcel reminisces about growing up on the Old West side and dives deep into the music career of the Shobey Brothers, his father and uncle, who ultimately ended up fixtures in the Ann Arbor music scene after touring both across the US and internationally. Well, thank you both so much for joining us today. Let's start out with Ann Arbor. Is Ann Arbor where you were born, Marcel?
- [00:00:44] MARCEL SHOBEY: I was born and raised here.
- [00:00:46] EMILY MURPHY: Where was the first house that you lived?
- [00:00:48] MARCEL SHOBEY: On Ashley Street.
- [00:00:50] EMILY MURPHY: Can you take me through Ashley Street at that time? Like, picturing walking down your street -- where did you go? How did you spend a day when you had a day?
- [00:00:58] MARCEL SHOBEY: Ann Arbor, of course, is like Ann Arbor of trees -- a city of trees. There were a lot of trees on both sides of the block. On a sunny day, we'd probably be playing very early in the morning with our Big Wheels scratching on the sidewalk with the wheels and crumbling of the stones and all that, and waking people up at 7:00 AM on Saturday morning, and the Washtenaw Dairy was very important.
- [00:01:25] EMILY MURPHY: Did you have a flavor that was a favorite for you?
- [00:01:29] MARCEL SHOBEY: Chocolate chip.
- [00:01:32] AMY CANTU: When you say "we", is it you and neighbor kids, you and siblings?
- [00:01:35] MARCEL SHOBEY: Me and the neighbor kids and siblings, and their friends, usually.
- [00:01:39] EMILY MURPHY: Nice.
- [00:01:39] MARCEL SHOBEY: Combination.
- [00:01:40] EMILY MURPHY: Natalie, what about you? When did you come to Ann Arbor?
- [00:01:43] NATALIE KELLOGG: Excuse me, I came to Ann Arbor in '62 to join my husband. I was very young, then I was right fresh out of high school, and I had two kids, one after the other. So I've had two before the age of 20, and then I had Marcel after that, and then one more after Marcel. Ashley Street was hard even to describe because it was such a community, and it was a very interracial community and inter-age community. There were students there. It's primarily African-American and white. But in order for that street to have block parties, you have to have a vote of 100% of all the people on the block, and even though they were extremely diverse, that happened over the years. So there were block parties there. They would have roller skates, the people in their houses would bring food out and have tables out with food. Jazz groups or impromptu groups would play music outside and the kids would roller skate and have a great time.
- [00:02:44] MARCEL SHOBEY: Everybody knew everybody.
- [00:02:46] AMY CANTU: That sounds really great. Now, is that considered the Old West Side, or does the Old West Side officially start after that?
- [00:02:52] MARCEL SHOBEY: That's pretty much that.
- [00:02:53] NATALIE KELLOGG: That's the Old West Side. It's the first block of the Old West Side.
- [00:02:57] AMY CANTU: Wow. That's a great memory.
- [00:03:00] EMILY MURPHY: What school did you go to?
- [00:03:01] MARCEL SHOBEY: I went to Bach Open.
- [00:03:04] EMILY MURPHY: And what was it like there?
- [00:03:05] MARCEL SHOBEY: It was wonderful. We had teachers that were just brilliant. I had a teacher, Ms. Gabrion that I just cannot forget. We had dual classes, so first and second grade would be together, second and third, and so on. And so the idea was the older students could help the younger students. It was just a whole eclectic of Ann Arbor and one school. It was really nice.
- [00:03:33] AMY CANTU: That was the open school at that time, and then that later moved to Mack.
- [00:03:40] MARCEL SHOBEY: Yes.
- [00:03:41] EMILY MURPHY: I always loved to ask this. What do you remember playing on the playground?
- [00:03:45] MARCEL SHOBEY: Kickball.
- [00:03:47] EMILY MURPHY: Did you play a particular position when you were fielding or were you a kicker?
- [00:03:51] MARCEL SHOBEY: I was a kicker. We had three fences, and if you could kick it over the third fence, you were really bad. You were a bad you-know-what. It was really nice. If you could kick it over that, everybody liked you. You were popular if you could do that. That was the goal -- is to kick it over the third fence.
- [00:04:09] AMY CANTU: Tell us a little bit about how Ann Arbor changed over the years. Natalie, you've been here since the '60s, and obviously, you've been here since you were born. What is your impression of how the city has changed in the intervening years?
- [00:04:26] NATALIE KELLOGG: I only see a smidgen of Ann Arbor, so I can't speak for all of Ann Arbor, but I'd say that it was a community and it was diverse, and people helped each other and felt safe with one another. There are all kinds of people that interacted with one another, especially in certain little pockets in Ann Arbor, I would think. So I can't speak for all of Ann Arbor, but just for that part.
- [00:04:48] AMY CANTU: What are your thoughts on that Marcel?
- [00:04:51] MARCEL SHOBEY: It seemed like after the '70s and the '80s, the music scene died in Ann Arbor. That I noticed was a big change from that kind of community -- what my mom was talking about -- to something that was a little more. People were trying to get dual income. Both people had to work kind of idea. It started to change, and we've always been a town they call progressive. It's progressing. It seemed to change about then, but always the school system seems to be firm on the older ideas. It's still there -- the diversity, the understanding that there's different classes in Ann Arbor, that Ann Arbor schools are competitive. It's always been that way, and that hasn't changed. But I think the community changed when the music scene died down a little bit to me.
- [00:05:48] AMY CANTU: When you say music scene, are you talking about the various venues that they had and also the number of musicians and the type of music?
- [00:05:57] MARCEL SHOBEY: Yes. It just seemed to change the culture. People just had to be more busy and didn't have time to visit these venues, and I think it kind of slowed down Ann Arbor a little bit in that sense, to me.
- [00:06:11] EMILY MURPHY: Let's talk about some of those older venues. What's one that you remember going to?
- [00:06:15] MARCEL SHOBEY: I went to the Rubaiyat, the one I can remember the most. Because back then, it was like, just the '70s and I was very little. I was still in the bars at 3:00 AM, I guess I jumped up [LAUGHTER] -- my mom's shaking her head -- I jumped on my dad's lap in the middle of one of the songs, and I said, "Is that the end?" Everybody's clapping and everything. That's one of the fondest memories I have.
- [00:06:43] EMILY MURPHY: Can you describe the Rubaiyat?
- [00:06:47] MARCEL SHOBEY: It seemed really dark, but all tables had a cloth with a candle on it, one of those rumply looking candles, dark and smoky and jazzy, and just lots of people talking, and very friendly and inviting, warm.
- [00:07:06] AMY CANTU: So you mentioned your father, and I would like to get, if you don't mind, a little background on where he came from and how he ended up in Ann Arbor. I know that's a long story, but I'd love to hear about it.
- [00:07:22] MARCEL SHOBEY: Well, from my understanding, he was discovered in, I think in the Bronx. He was playing drums or hand drums with his brother, Norman Shobey. Someone discovered him and wanted him to come in and play. I guess he ended up being with a group called the Teen Aces. Mom knows a little bit more of the serious storyline.
- [00:07:55] NATALIE KELLOGG: I think these were kids that had to make their own drums and had to fashion instruments of percussion, and there we are about six or seven of them. They became very coordinated. They won the Ted Mack Amateur Hour. They performed a little bit as the music behind some plays. I think at roughly that time the family moved to California, so the New York side ended, but I'm not sure what happened exactly after that.
- [00:08:27] EMILY MURPHY: Before we go too much farther, I don't think we've said your dad's name yet.
- [00:08:30] MARCEL SHOBEY: Oh, Armando Shobey.
- [00:08:31] EMILY MURPHY: Excellent. He played percussion?
- [00:08:33] MARCEL SHOBEY: Percussions.
- [00:08:38] AMY CANTU: You were saying that he played on stage and they were on Broadway, and they had agents, that Norman and Armando... Or they played behind bands?
- [00:08:47] NATALIE KELLOGG: They played the music track for some of Ella Fitzgerald's songs. But they may have had an agent. If it was an agent, it was probably a family member, an adult. But no, they weren't that famous that they had an agent.
- [00:09:01] MARCEL SHOBEY: It was actually Bobby Orton.
- [00:09:04] NATALIE KELLOGG: Bobby Orton and the Teen Aces. So he was the primary performer.
- [00:09:10] MARCEL SHOBEY: Bobby Orton, I looked him up. He's a producer.
- [00:09:15] AMY CANTU: So they were the Teen Aces? What kind of music? Can you talk a little bit about the genre or the style of music?
- [00:09:24] MARCEL SHOBEY: It's Calypso? Calypso music? Afro-Cuban Calypso.
- [00:09:31] EMILY MURPHY: And so did he continue to play that through the years when you remember?
- [00:09:34] MARCEL SHOBEY: He did. They ended up touring Europe quite a bit on their own and through various different venues and stuff like that in Europe. As they were invited different places, they toured in all of Greece, Spain, Germany, picking up the language as they go along. Dad claimed that he could speak five languages. He jumbled through it, but people loved him for it. Foreigners would love that if he could even speak a few words. To see a Black man speak German was major you know...
- [00:10:11] NATALIE KELLOGG: I think there was a family member that was a producer, and they went with what was called the Negro Ballet Jazz. They toured Europe for quite a while with the young people in it, with his dad and his uncle in it.
- [00:10:22] MARCEL SHOBEY: La Fontaine, maybe.
- [00:10:26] NATALIE KELLOGG: I'm not sure. They were there for years, and then they formed a group called The Five Kingsmen. But it was in Italian, like Il Cinque Uomini Del Re or something. [LAUGHTER]. Then they were touring and doing music. But in the meantime, there was the Vietnam War, and they were of age, and they were going to soon age out of when they could be drafted. So they were offered to come back to the States, and that otherwise, they would lose all their passports to everywhere simultaneously. So there was no other way that they could do except come out. In the meantime, they had met someone named Rick.
- [00:11:08] MARCEL SHOBEY: Rick Burgess.
- [00:11:08] NATALIE KELLOGG: Rick Burgess. Rick ended up helping them to have music but they both went to jail for punative...
- [00:11:15] MARCEL SHOBEY: For draft.
- [00:11:16] NATALIE KELLOGG: They both lost all of their possessions and all of their music that was confiscated by the police when they got off the, I think they came by boat. Yeah.
- [00:11:24] MARCEL SHOBEY: They were stuck in Greece. The Greece Consulate wanted them to denounce their American citizenship and stay in Greece and perform and they didn't want to do that because they wouldn't be promised to be able to get back to their families. They were stuck and they were being promised -- the United States wanted them for draft dodging and then Greece wanted to keep them for entertainment.
- [00:11:47] AMY CANTU: Wow.
- [00:11:47] MARCEL SHOBEY: It was the same thing they were doing people like Josephine Baker. It was the same thing. It was harassing. They harassed my dad's family -- even in California -- ransacked their home and everything. Harassed my family.
- [00:12:03] AMY CANTU: Roughly what year was this?
- [00:12:05] NATALIE KELLOGG: Probably the late 60s. I don't know exactly.
- [00:12:09] MARCEL SHOBEY: Early.
- [00:12:10] EMILY MURPHY: So how did it work then coming back? I'm sure it was both emotionally complicated and actually physically complicated to bring music back to his life, but we know he did.
- [00:12:20] MARCEL SHOBEY: Rick Burgess got them out of jail and orchestrated them some places to stay so that they weren't releasing them just to anywhere. Rick Burgess, I think orchestrated that.
- [00:12:34] EMILY MURPHY: And that was here in Ann Arbor?
- [00:12:36] MARCEL SHOBEY: That's how we got the connection here because he had a group at the Earle.
- [00:12:41] AMY CANTU: Right, right. And he was part of the Del Rio.
- [00:12:45] MARCEL SHOBEY: Del Rio, as part owner, I think, part owner of Del Rio and the Earle venue.
- [00:12:50] AMY CANTU: Tell us a little bit more about that connection then and what music they played and some of the other venues here in town.
- [00:12:58] MARCEL SHOBEY: I guess Rick was trying to bring back a five-piece band, basically a bass guitar, drums, singer and so a five-piece band run at the Earle I guess almost five days a week. They were partying pretty good.
- [00:13:19] NATALIE KELLOGG: It was run at the Golden Falcon.
- [00:13:20] MARCEL SHOBEY: That's right.
- [00:13:23] AMY CANTU: Right across the street.
- [00:13:25] MARCEL SHOBEY: And Mr. Flood's. They were playing the whole gamut.
- [00:13:30] AMY CANTU: Was it still the Calypso-style music? Or was it more straight jazz or what?
- [00:13:35] NATALIE KELLOGG: It was Afro-Cuban music. It was very dynamic and very danceable and it was not replicated, and there weren't any other groups doing that. They played a unique sound.
- [00:13:46] MARCEL SHOBEY: If they played a cover, what would they play? Santana. They would play a Santana song and some people claim they'd played it better than Santana in Ann Arbor.
- [00:13:55] AMY CANTU: Wow, that's saying something!
- [00:13:59] MARCEL SHOBEY: That was some of their favorite covers. Some Santana.
- [00:14:03] EMILY MURPHY: Was music how you met him?
- [00:14:04] NATALIE KELLOGG: Yeah, I was a waitress and I met him that way.
- [00:14:06] AMY CANTU: How neat. A waitress where?
- [00:14:09] NATALIE KELLOGG: Golden Falcon.
- [00:14:09] AMY CANTU: At the Golden Falcon, okay. Wow, that's a nice introduction.
- [00:14:14] EMILY MURPHY: Growing up in a musical house, I imagine you picked up instruments?
- [00:14:19] MARCEL SHOBEY: I did.
- [00:14:19] EMILY MURPHY: What did you play?
- [00:14:21] MARCEL SHOBEY: I picked up clarinet at first in grade school. In our house, we always had musicians and there was always a piano. Even a person that came to tune it was blind.
- [00:14:34] AMY CANTU: Oh, wow.
- [00:14:35] MARCEL SHOBEY: So we always had music in our house and always had different instruments around because of my dad. But I picked up clarinet, and I played first chair. I played first chair from fifth grade to 11th grade. I only lost my chair once to gain it back the next session. I couldn't read music. I still can't read music. But I'm a percussionist and a drummer now and I'm doing my own music now.
- [00:14:59] AMY CANTU: You must have had many opportunities to sit and listen to your uncle and father practice. Tell us about that. What was it like?
- [00:15:08] MARCEL SHOBEY: It was wonderful. There were lots of arguments, too. All the egos come out and so it was really interesting because there was different men in the group, and they were all my friends and I recognized all their characters from their arguments. That's how I got to know them is how they argued with my father or how they argued with my uncle and their different demeanors, and it was very interesting.
- [00:15:35] EMILY MURPHY: What do you remember about when those venues did start to close?
- [00:15:43] MARCEL SHOBEY: The feeling or?
- [00:15:44] EMILY MURPHY: Yeah, feeling or specifics. At that point in time, were you looking for places to play yourself?
- [00:15:50] MARCEL SHOBEY: I was trying to. When I got out of high school, I wanted to try to do a garage band thing. I was trying to join different groups and stuff like that. I joined a group called the Drunken Bus Drivers [LAUGHTER] and we almost made it to the Magic Bag in Detroit. Yeah, I've been in some garage bands and stuff like that. It just seemed that everybody was still trying to make it in the 80s and now, it's like everybody's doing music in their basement.
- [00:16:17] AMY CANTU: Yeah, that's true.
- [00:16:18] EMILY MURPHY: Do you have a favorite place now to go hear live music?
- [00:16:21] MARCEL SHOBEY: Not right now.
- [00:16:22] EMILY MURPHY: Or to perform.
- [00:16:23] MARCEL SHOBEY: Oh, well, I'm trying to. I have a studio in my basement so I'm trying to do the same thing. My uncle was really the one that was trying to be famous -- not famous -- but trying to make it, trying to do something with the music that would be sustainable. I think in the 80s that was the saddest thing for him. I think the dream kind of gave up then with a trio... Going from a five-piece band to a trio at the Earle diminished their property to perform five days a week. Full-time job, who went to starving artist again.
- [00:17:00] EMILY MURPHY: I can't remember when the Bird of Paradise came in. Was that in the 80s?
- [00:17:04] MARCEL SHOBEY: That was Ron Brooks.
- [00:17:05] EMILY MURPHY: Yeah. Did they play there or did they?
- [00:17:08] MARCEL SHOBEY: No.
- [00:17:09] NATALIE KELLOGG: Ron played with them occasionally but no, they never played.
- [00:17:15] MARCEL SHOBEY: They didn't have a relationship very much with Ron Brooks that much. He did perform, yes.
- [00:17:21] NATALIE KELLOGG: Not only Ron, but the trumpet player who was very famous. I can't think of...
- [00:17:26] MARCEL SHOBEY: I can't remember either. He's in some of the pictures.
- [00:17:29] NATALIE KELLOGG: Musicians come and go and start new groups and have spin-offs.
- [00:17:36] AMY CANTU: You saw a lot of that?
- [00:17:38] NATALIE KELLOGG: Yeah.
- [00:17:40] EMILY MURPHY: Natalie, did you have a favorite place to see live music or specifically see their band?
- [00:17:46] NATALIE KELLOGG: It would have been the Del Rio for sure because it was very intimate.
- [00:17:49] EMILY MURPHY: Can you describe it?
- [00:17:50] NATALIE KELLOGG: A very narrow little place where all kinds of people met. There was alcohol there, but it wasn't the primary thing. There was a lot of food and people could sit in. But that's many decades ago for me. That's not recent.
- [00:18:06] AMY CANTU: Yeah, and it closed what 10 years ago, now? I can't remember how long it's been since the Del Rio disappeared.
- [00:18:13] NATALIE KELLOGG: More than that.
- [00:18:14] MARCEL SHOBEY: Yeah, more than that.
- [00:18:14] AMY CANTU: Maybe longer.
- [00:18:14] MARCEL SHOBEY: Yeah, 15 or 20. I was there at the last night and performed on stage.
- [00:18:19] AMY CANTU: Did you?
- [00:18:19] MARCEL SHOBEY: I did.
- [00:18:19] EMILY MURPHY: What was it like?
- [00:18:20] MARCEL SHOBEY: It was like it was old times. There was a lot of people that were there from a long time ago. Julie Detwiler was there, and she was serving with her son, John Detwiler. It was a wonderful night, it was quite iconic. That place is the most iconic that I can remember is the Del Rio.
- [00:18:38] AMY CANTU: Did they ever play it? I never can pronounce this correctly. Is it, D'Agostino?
- [00:18:46] MARCEL SHOBEY: D'Agostino. D'Agostino was down by off of Broadway, where DT had property and still there's. That's part of that deal. They just knocked down that building like about I don't know, 8, 9, 10 years ago. But it was still standing there with, there was a nice wooden brown door and everything. My dad still would go by there and be like I played there. That's the D'Agostino. That was before my time.
- [00:19:21] AMY CANTU: There are some records out there that they played on and I know there's some controversy about the rights. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
- [00:19:31] MARCEL SHOBEY: Well, when I did some research on their names, a lot of music had popped up and they're selling it. Then I was trying to find out what happens with copyrights and if they're mentioned on the album as a performer, that's a copyright. I'm just wondering, I think my Uncle Norman was trying to do something with that. I think he was in some contact but I don't know. He's a lot older now. I'm not sure what happened with that, but I want to pursue that a little further, because I think what I call the Shobey Brothers story really deserves some recognition.
- [00:20:16] AMY CANTU: Yeah, it's definitely a fascinating history from the Bronx to Europe to... You said they had some time in California, too. Can you tell us just a little bit more about that?
- [00:20:29] MARCEL SHOBEY: I think that's where they left for Europe, because the family was struggling, a lot of social issues, and probably I'm sure there's alcohol and family issues involved and disputes. I think they were pretty tired of that. I remember Uncle Norman talking about just being tired of that and his sister taking the credit of taking care of the family and quite frankly, thinking that they abandoned the family, and they didn't really care. They were going to live their lives, and they left for Europe. I think they were quite young.
- [00:21:05] EMILY MURPHY: Music aside, just looking at let's say the footprint of downtown Ann Arbor. I imagine you're not still on Ashley Street, or is there any place in town that feels like the old days to you? Is there a place you go where it brings you back?
- [00:21:20] MARCEL SHOBEY: It's Ashley Street. If you walk down that street, it's two ways now instead of one way.
- [00:21:27] AMY CANTU: Yeah, that's changed.
- [00:21:28] MARCEL SHOBEY: There's quite a bit of buildings that have been dropped and then high rises. But it's still the Old West Side to me. You walk anywhere around that neighborhood, Ashley Street, you sit at the Dairy. It's still the same. There's... Some of the houses are still the same color. Our house just got painted recently a different color and it's been like the same color for 30, 40 years. It's amazing. It's still the same. I still get the same feeling. The high rises can come, the bike lanes can be here. I walk down, I still feel the same quite frankly. If you walk in the right spots.
- [00:22:07] AMY CANTU: You're only a couple of blocks from Main Street, really, so you must have spent a lot of time even as a kid, going up to town, just walking uptown.
- [00:22:16] MARCEL SHOBEY: We walked to the edge, but we weren't allowed as the youngsters. I think I was eight years old when we moved off, maybe nine when we moved off of Ashley Street.
- [00:22:25] NATALIE KELLOGG: There are two Ashley Street people that are still there, two houses that are still owned by some pretty cool people that are there.
- [00:22:34] MARCEL SHOBEY: Yeah, Tom Muthig.
- [00:22:37] NATALIE KELLOGG: Tom Muthig, and he's called Groucho. I can't remember.
- [00:22:42] EMILY MURPHY: Don't you love this neighborhood nicknames?
- [00:22:46] AMY CANTU: In terms of work, I know that you've talked about your father and uncle. What other type of work did you both do?
- [00:22:55] MARCEL SHOBEY: Well, I've always had a job. My brother, Torin Dewey, he had a job doing a paper route, and so when he was done with his paper route and he got a real job at Burger King, I took over his paper route, when we moved out on 391 Glenwood Street. I've always had a job, and when he quit Burger King to go to college, I took over his job at Burger King [LAUGHTER] So I've worked menial jobs like that, but I started doing landscaping with a friend of mine, Dan Gersh. I worked 14 years and managed eight years of that. Since 2000, when he sold the business, I've been doing it on my own, so I had my own business called Around The Corner Lawn Care and Gardening.
- [00:23:44] AMY CANTU: We have a photo of you, I think, doing lawn, right?
- [00:23:49] EMILY MURPHY: You're by a tree, it's you as a kid. It's a charming photo that a tree had been uprooted, and you're standing there posing with it.
- [00:23:56] AMY CANTU: Yeah. I don't know if have you seen that?
- [00:23:57] MARCEL SHOBEY: Yeah.
- [00:23:59] NATALIE KELLOGG: There were two pictures of him in the Arbor News that same day. It was a big massive storm, and his baby brother was at a daycare that was just a couple of blocks away.
- [00:24:07] MARCEL SHOBEY: The Pound House.
- [00:24:08] NATALIE KELLOGG: Pound house. A couple of blocks away. The kids were being evacuated.
- [00:24:13] MARCEL SHOBEY: I was there as a big brother kind of thing, a mentor kind of thing.
- [00:24:18] AMY CANTU: Yeah.
- [00:24:19] MARCEL SHOBEY: I was like calming the kids down and everything. The sky was turning all kinds of colors and trees were coming down. Then I went outside to go assess and look and the Ann Arbor News was out there.
- [00:24:30] AMY CANTU: Yeah.
- [00:24:31] MARCEL SHOBEY: That's when they took that picture.
- [00:24:32] EMILY MURPHY: Yeah. Well, there's something very fitting of you working in landscaping, and we've got a picture of you as a kid with a tree.
- [00:24:38] MARCEL SHOBEY: That's funny. I didn't think of that. I had to put that on my site.
- [00:24:43] AMY CANTU: So where do you live now, Marcel?
- [00:24:46] MARCEL SHOBEY: I'm in East Ann Arbor now.
- [00:24:47] AMY CANTU: What's that neighborhood like? Can you talk a little bit about that?
- [00:24:51] MARCEL SHOBEY: It's a neat cove, it's pressed against Mary Beth Doyle Park and surrounded by that. Then also what they call Stonybrook is also across the walkway, the catwalk across the 94. We're in that corridor of Platt, Ellsworth, and Eisenhower.
- [00:25:17] AMY CANTU: Yeah. It's nice over there.
- [00:25:18] MARCEL SHOBEY: It's nice.
- [00:25:19] AMY CANTU: Yeah.
- [00:25:20] MARCEL SHOBEY: The houses -- some of it feels a little old West side, a little bit. They're older houses. Some of them are about 150-years-old. Some of them -- I've learned a lot of history about this area. I guess, a lot of people came from downtown area and maybe further to the East Ann Arbor too, there was a lot of things to do. You go to Carpenter Road. Horses would water there and there was a lot of industry there on that corner that's no longer there. It's got a lot of history East Ann Arbor and I can feel it.
- [00:25:58] AMY CANTU: Speaking of history, I know that you are active on the Townie Page -- the Facebook Townie page.
- [00:26:03] MARCEL SHOBEY: Yeah.
- [00:26:04] AMY CANTU: There's a lot of controversy there. There's a lot of people complaining about all sorts of stuff. What about that particular page is interesting to you, and what are your issues that you like to talk about or engage the community there with?
- [00:26:23] MARCEL SHOBEY: I started out just with my family, just pictures that I take, and someone called me -- I can't remember -- a "shutter bug" and I got upset. I thought it was like they were saying something derogatory or something. Then I found it was like an endearment for photographers. Then I really like that. Then I started taking more pictures and posting them and people started responding and enjoying them. I like it there because of that. Sometimes people get on there and they're talking about... If you talk about bikes or high rises. It's over with.
- [00:27:01] AMY CANTU: Yeah right.
- [00:27:02] MARCEL SHOBEY: It's over with. The pages is just.
- [00:27:03] AMY CANTU: It's a mess. For the rest of the day and the next day.
- [00:27:06] MARCEL SHOBEY: And the next day. And so that's a problem. I'm just trying to embrace some of these. I like the color of some of these high rises. The one on Ashley Street actually in the back has so much functionality. I've never seen that in the ambient light. I think it looks, fits in quite well if you're going to have something like that. It might as well look like that. So I'm trying to embrace it.
- [00:27:29] AMY CANTU: Yeah, because not a lot of people on the Townie page are embracing the high rises.
- [00:27:33] MARCEL SHOBEY: No. There's too many, but I guess this is where we're going.
- [00:27:39] AMY CANTU: Yeah. We're definitely going up!
- [00:27:41] MARCEL SHOBEY: I want to try and make these developers have planters and things that I can fix and weed for my jobs. That's what I'm thinking. If they make them nice like that, I think we could all work together. I like the bike lanes. They're doing that a lot all over, it's not just here.
- [00:28:02] AMY CANTU: Right. We're behind many...
- [00:28:04] MARCEL SHOBEY: We're probably I'm sure, and this is a bike city, too.
- [00:28:07] AMY CANTU: Yeah, it is.
- [00:28:08] EMILY MURPHY: Do you have any hopes for where Ann Arbor is going?
- [00:28:12] MARCEL SHOBEY: Like I said, I think if we could make these high rises more functional. Like how can we talk to these developers, into, you know, "Can you listen to us since City Council sometimes does not? Can we have a forum to talk about like that with these developers, instead of... I think we'd feel more included. Even if we gripe, at least they'd hear our gripes, even if we don't have any rights to stop the development. I think they should hear some of us. That'd be nice and cut out the middle person somehow.
- [00:28:48] AMY CANTU: Now, we're going to be talking to you about some of the photos that you have, family photos, photos of your dad, and uncle. Can you tell us a little bit about what's in the bag that we are going to peruse at some point here? What do you got in there?
- [00:29:02] MARCEL SHOBEY: It's got pictures of their articles in the Ann Arbor News and Observer. It's got some of my dad's writings for trying to get a job. He was, and he did get some certificates in education. He wasn't able to read. I think he quit in third grade to help out with the family. There's going to be that. There's a lot of pictures of them in the different venues that we talked about inside the venues performing.
- [00:29:35] AMY CANTU: Local and...?
- [00:29:36] MARCEL SHOBEY: Local.
- [00:29:36] AMY CANTU: Oh, that's great.
- [00:29:37] MARCEL SHOBEY: Yeah and there's some iconic people in there. There's a whole drove of names and pictures.
- [00:29:42] AMY CANTU: Yeah, that great to see those.
- [00:29:45] MARCEL SHOBEY: My mom took the pictures. She can reiterate.
- [00:29:47] AMY CANTU: Oh, you took the photo?
- [00:29:48] MARCEL SHOBEY: She's the photographer.
- [00:29:50] NATALIE KELLOGG: Well, of the early years.
- [00:29:51] MARCEL SHOBEY: From the early years.
- [00:29:52] NATALIE KELLOGG: Then we separated.
- [00:29:54] EMILY MURPHY: Yeah. Then you took on the shutterbug job?
- [00:29:56] MARCEL SHOBEY: Yeah, I took on and she's been slowly giving me all this information, all the archival stuff and all the things, the keepsakes and pictures. Well, there's quite a few of them.
- [00:30:08] AMY CANTU: Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing those and getting a little bit of that history online for you.
- [00:30:14] MARCEL SHOBEY: That's a lifelong dream of mine is really to recognize. I wanted to play like my dad since I was seven. Then to see them, not get where they wanted or or anything. I just feel like I have to carry that torch. And to be here is an honor, and I really appreciate it quite frankly.
- [00:30:32] EMILY MURPHY: Well, thank you for helping and sharing that story. This is why we do this. Is there anything that you wish we would have asked you about that we didn't?
- [00:30:40] NATALIE KELLOGG: Anything about your dad's end of life?
- [00:30:43] AMY CANTU: Yeah, what happened?
- [00:30:47] MARCEL SHOBEY: He came down with Alzheimer's and dementia in the end. But, his sister took care of him. He wanted a cigarette, he wanted that drink. He was an avid drinker. He liked alcohol, and he was an alcoholic, but his sister got him away from that. But he was pretty happy. He's a very happy person. Even in his Alzheimer's, he was always talking to himself. It seemed like he was reliving everything in this bag. I swear he's really reliving his life inside. I just really embraced that. He was talking to me all the way up until he was about 76, 78-years-old. And then the last six years were just kind of him rambling to himself, and he went gently.
- [00:31:48] AMY CANTU: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
- [00:31:52] MARCEL SHOBEY: Thank you so much.
- [00:31:54] NATALIE KELLOGG: That was nice.
- [00:31:59] AMY CANTU: AADL Talks To is a production of the Ann Arbor District Library.

Media
February 1, 2024
Length: 00:32:10
Copyright: Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
Rights Held by: Ann Arbor District Library
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Subjects
Digitized collection
Interview
The Earle (Restaurant)
Del Rio
Golden Falcon Restaurant
D'Agostino's (Restaurant)
Shobey Brothers
Rubaiyat Restaurant
Bach Elementary School
Afro-Cuban Music
Calypso Music
Jazz Musicians
Jazz Music
Bobby Orton's Teen Aces
Negro Ballet Jazz
The Five Kingsmen
Vietnam War
Draft Boards
Torin Dewey
Pound House Day Care Center
Mary Beth Doyle Park
East Ann Arbor
Stoneybrook
Around the Corner Lawn Care & Gardening Inc
Melodioso [Musical Group]
The Unpredictables [Musical Group]
Changes [Musical Group]
Stale Bread Jr [Musical Group]
Helmut Piston's Big Rock-Jazz Band [Musical Group]
Stewart Cunningham Trio [Musical Group]
Ann Arbor
Local History
Music
Race & Ethnicity
AADL Talks To
Marcel Shobey
Armando Shobey
Frank Norman Shobey
Rick Burgess
Ruth Natalie Kellogg
Janet Gabrion
Daniel Gersh
Ruth Kellogg
Bernice Kellogg
Tom Muthig
Ashley Street
Ann Arbor 200