He died alone in the city that he loved, in an apartment off of Cadillac Square. His family was notified, and they notified his friends, who notified their friends, who notified their friends, and pretty soon it seemed like half of Detroit was saying the same sentence:
“Did you hear that Brian Pastoria passed away?”
In this world, there are cheerleaders, there are enthusiasts, and then there was Brian Pastoria. He never took on anything he didn’t think could be the biggest thing in the world, whether it was a band he formed, a studio he opened, or a charitable cause in Detroit that he got behind.
“Oh, man, this could be huge!” I can hear him say.
And while Brian spent 68 years perpetually on the “climbing up” side of the mountain, when his memorial service took place last Monday night, April 27, you saw just how infectious enthusiasm can be.
At least 400 to 500 people packed the large church in Rochester. Musicians. Producers. Guys from the old neighborhood. Family. More family. And of course, live performers, in front of massive screens that kept flashing similar photos: clusters of people with Brian in the middle, his cherubic cheeks always pulled above a smile, his dark hair wavy and free, his eyes squeezed tight with joy.
There’s Brian with Aerosmith. There’s Brian with Ernie Harwell. There’s Brian with his first band, his second band, with his three kids, his nieces and nephews.
You ask yourself how a man so connected, and who connected so many others, could have spent his final moments on this Earth alone. It didn’t seem fair.
But life often isn’t.
‘Gonna be huge!’
Remember that Monty Python movie called “Life of Brian”? Here is the Pastoria version, a life so soaked in Detroit, it should come with a car.
Brian was born in 1957 on the east side. He grew up on Lincoln, the oldest of four children, and to hear his brother Mark tell it, their neighborhood read like a “Goodfellas” cast sheet.
“There were the Vicaris, the Apones, the Finazzos, the Romeos. We were all Italian kids, living a couple blocks from each other.”
Many of those families, Mark recalled, were in the food or produce business. The Pastoria brothers sometimes spent nights unloading freight cars of fruits and vegetables down around Eastern Market.
But Brian’s passion was music. His father, who worked in Hudson’s warehouse as the head of upholstery, had a band that rehearsed in the basement, and Brian would go down there every day and bang on the drums. He got really good, and as soon as he graduated high school, he formed a band. Their first gig was a Halloween party. They moved on to school dances, then local venues like Traxx on Gratiot or Harpos on Harper.
That band was called Adrenalin, and on a week in 1984 when Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” was No. 1 on the album charts, Adrenalin’s album, “American Heart,” debuted at No. 37. You could hear Brian squealing, “Oh, man, this is gonna be huge!”
But few businesses will break your heart like the music business. Adrenalin’s record company had secret legal issues. Big ones. The record, like other assets, went into receivership. The band’s window that seemed so open closed quickly. Personnel changed. The music scene changed.
Throughout it all, Brian, who was strong in his Christian faith, remained the eternal optimist. The next song would be the big hit. The next album. The next band. Adrenalin became D.C. Drive. They had a moment. The moment passed.
Eventually, Brian and Mark and their childhood musician buddy Jimmy Romeo opened a recording studio in downtown Detroit, back when nobody was rushing to open anything in Detroit. They called it Harmonie Park, and all kinds of Detroit musicians came through: rock bands, soul bands, gospel singers.
And no matter who they were, Brian became their cheerleader. He told them they were great. He told them they could be huge. He related stories about Detroit music history, which he knew the way Einstein knew math, and promised young artists they could be a part of that tradition. Maybe his own band’s moment had passed, but his enthusiasm for others was as infectious as a catchy tune.
Brian’s tent grew and grew, and everyone was welcome inside it. He had friends from every ethnicity, every religion, every political position. His childhood buddy, Dominic Russo, used to run with Brian until, in early adulthood, he became religious. One night, Brian called up Russo and exclaimed: “We’re all going out, Dom! You gotta come with us!”
“Thanks, Brian, but my life is with Jesus now.”
“Bring him along!” Brian exclaimed.
Good vibes and a gut-wrenching loss
Music is often a jealous business. But no one ever felt jealousy from Brian. Only joy at your success, and a belief that his was still right around the corner. He never considered moving to LA or New York, because he loved Detroit, everything about it, from the Tigers to Motown to coney dogs.
In 1992, Brian and Mark wanted to do something to help local charities. So they came up with an idea. Get as many Detroit musicians as possible to record Christmas songs, then release the CD for the holidays. It was called “Christmas in Detroit” and bands as diverse as Skeleton Crew, the Howling Diablos, the Johnny Trudell Band and the Sun Messengers recorded on it.
The idea was so successful that Brian and Mark repeated it two more times, in 1994 and 2009, again giving all the money away to charity. I was fortunate enough to write and record something for all three albums, and the best part, every time, was seeing Brian through the studio glass, beaming like he was looking at his newborn child.
But as I said, the music business will break your heart. The Pastorias lost the studio in 2012, following the financial crisis. Lenders couldn’t be found, because, they told Mark, “nobody wants to build anything down in Detroit.”
Today, the Harmonie Park area is primo real estate. But you can’t control timelines.
So close to stardom
When the studio was lost, a piece of Brian was lost as well. He tried other ideas, talking them up with usual enthusiasm. But few of them panned out. He was getting older. His kids were grown. I imagine he had moments where he felt, as that old song goes, like a horse that never left the post.
“Our bands, we were touring around with some big names, like Aerosmith, Huey Lewis, 38 Special,” Mark recalled. “I mean, we were there.”
Then, after a moment Mark adjusted his wording. “We were almost there.”
It took a month to organize a service after Brian’s passing. Although a heart attack is suspected, because he died by himself and wasn’t discovered until days later, no one is quite sure. The shock of that took a while to absorb.
But when the time came for a goodbye, everyone showed up. There were so many stories Monday night, so many crisscrossed members of old bands, so many friends and neighbors, so many people who got teary-eyed thinking about life without Brian’s boundless passion.
He died alone in the city that he loved. And at first, I worried that Brian had left the world thinking, because his reality never matched his dreams, that he had somehow failed.
But then I remembered the end of “It’s a Wonderful Life” when Jimmy Stewart discovers an inscription left for him by his guardian angel: “Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.”
By that measure, Brian’s life was a smashing success. And his farewell? Oh, man, it was huge.
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow @mitchalbom on x.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mitch Albom: A dream just out of reach in a life lived to the fullest
Reporting by Mitch Albom, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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