Ron Banks’ Grave

That soaring falsetto on “In the Rain” and “Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get”? That’s Ron Banks, who founded the Dramatics in Detroit in the 1960s and led them to become one of soul’s great vocal groups. Their records — lush, dramatic, unmistakably Detroit even though they landed on a Memphis label — became bedrock samples for a later generation of hip-hop. Banks kept the group going for decades before his death in 2010.

He rests at Detroit Memorial Park, among the city’s music greats. On our list.