The U.S. state of Washington has been home to many popular musicians and several major hotbeds of musical innovation throughout its history. The largest city in the state, Seattle, is known for being the birthplace of grunge as well as a major contributor to the evolution of punk rock, indie music, folk, and hip hop. Nearby Tacoma and Olympia have also been centers of influence on popular music.
Several world-famous musicians have hailed from Washington. Bing Crosby, legendary crooner who was born in Tacoma in 1903 and raised in Spokane, had a number one hit in the U.S. in 1942 with "White Christmas". Jimi Hendrix, one of classic rock's most enduring guitar legends, was born and raised in Seattle and is buried in Renton; and folk rock singer-songwriter Kenny Loggins, who had a No. 1 Hot 100 hit in 1984 with "Footloose", was born in Everett. Saxophonist Kenny G is from Seattle and attended the University of Washington.
While not a jazz hot-bed, Washington state has had a jazz scene since the early 20th century, mostly centered in Seattle. In the early years there was a thriving African-American jazz scene on Seattle's Jackson Street, led by the Whangdoodle Entertainers featuring, amongst others, Frank D. Waldron (trumpet/alto saxophone). Waldron later joined the Odean Jazz Orchestra, one of the rare African-American bands in that era to play in downtown Seattle. He remained active in Seattle jazz as a musician and teacher until his death in 1955. On the other side of the tracks, Vic Meyers (saxophone) led jazz bands playing in Seattle's Pioneer Square and Belltown districts. Meyers left music for politics in the early 1930s and served as Lieutenant Governor of Washington from 1933 to 1953 and then as Secretary of State of Washington from 1957 to 1965. Another notable jazz figure in the early days was Harold Weeks, a ragtime composer/lyricist known as the co-writer (with Oliver Wallace) of the 1918 song "Hindustan", which is considered a jazz standard. Joe Darensbourg (clarinet/saxophone) was active in Seattle from 1929 until 1944 and Dick Wilson (tenor saxophone) played in his band from 1930 until 1936.
The 1970s saw the emergence of Kenny G (soprano, alto & tenor saxophone/flute) from Seattle, who is one of the leading smooth jazz artists of all time with 16 Grammy nominations. Jeff Lorber (keyboards) came out of Vancouver WA and also forged a fine career in smooth jazz,
as well as jazz fusion, with 7 Grammy nominations of his own. In 1971 Clarence Acox Jr. (drums) arrived in Seattle from his native New Orleans to revive the marching band at Garfield High School. In 1979 he started the Garfield Jazz Ensemble, which he led until his retirement in 2019. The Ensemble has earned many awards and honors. Acox has also been active as a musician in the Seattle scene. Hadley Caliman (saxophone/flute) moved to tiny Cathlamet in the 1970s and later led combos in Seattle during the 1990s and 2000s. John Holte (reeds) was a leader of the West Coast Swing Band revival of 1970s and continued to lead various swing bands in Seattle until his death in 2003. Cheryl Bentyne (vocals), who grew up in Mount Vernon, sang in Holte's New Deal Rhythm Band before joining the renowned vocal group The Manhattan Transfer in 1979, with whom she has won 10 Grammy Awards.
The new millennium has produced Roxy Coss (saxophone), Aaron Parks (piano), Emi Meyer (piano/vocals) and The Bergevin Brothers band, all from Seattle. Meyer and the Bergevins remain active in the Seattle scene. In the early 2000s husband and wife Wayne Horvitz (keyboards) and Robin Holcomb (piano/vocals) relocated to Seattle. Both had previously been involved in NYC's Downtown Scene. In 2015 Dmitri Matheny (flugelhorn) relocated from his long-time base in San Francisco to Centralia. In 2022 he released the album CASCADIA, celebrating the Pacific Northwest. The album also features the aforementioned Bill Anschell.
Country/Alt-Country
Washington state has a limited tradition in country music, but has produced some notable artists. In the 1920s Paul Tutmarc established himself as a fine tenor and lap steel guitarist in Seattle. He is also known for inventing the first electric bass guitar in 1936. Tutmarc continued to perform and teach guitar in Seattle into the 1960s. Fiddler Bus Boyk came out of Everett in the 1930s and had a long career, eventually being inducted into the Western Swing Society's Pioneers of Western Swing Hall of Fame.
The late 1950s saw three Country Music Hall of Famers active in Washington state. Loretta Lynn began her performing and songwriting career while living in the tiny logging community of Custer. She also played in nearby Blaine. Loretta wrote and recorded her first single "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl" while living in Washington (although the song was recorded in Los Angeles). The song was a hit and it was off to Nashville and superstardom. Willie Nelson took a job as a DJ at KVAN in Vancouver WA in 1956, where he also played local clubs. While there he cut his first record "No Place for Me". Nelson was still a ways from fame when he left Vancouver in 1958. Also in 1958 Buck Owens was working in Tacoma at radio station KAYE, when he saw Don Rich, a young fiddler from Olympia, play. Owens immediately asked Rich to join his band and soon they were being featured on the weekly BAR-K Jamboree on KTNT-TV. Loretta Lynn made her television debut on the same program. Owens left Tacoma around 1960 to return to Bakersfield, California and in a few months Rich followed and became a member of Buck's backup band The Buckaroos, eventually becoming the lead guitarist. Rich's Fender Telecaster was an instrumental part of the Bakersfield sound of the 1960s.
The late 1950s also saw the emergence of native Washingtonian Bonnie Guitar, who grew up in Redondo and Auburn. She is arguably the greatest country star ever produced by Washington state. Bonnie had her first hit, "Dark Moon", in 1957, which charted on the country and pop charts. She continued to have hits into the 1980s. Guitar was also a co-founder of Dolton Records and later co-owner of Jerden Records in an era when this was extremely rare for a woman. Before she became a star she was a student and wife of the aforementioned Paul Tutmarc. After their divorce in 1955, she did session guitar work for several labels in Los Angeles. Later in life she bred cattle and quarter-horses near Orting before finally settling in Soap Lake, where she continued to perform on weekends until the age of 92. Guitar died in 2019, at the age of 95.
The remainder of 20th century was a quiet period for country music in Washington state, but there were a few notables. Seattle based Lavender Country released their self-titled album in 1973. It is the first known gay-themed country & western album. They would not have another release until 2022's Blackberry Rose. Fiddler Mark O'Connor came out of Mountlake Terrace in the 1970s and has had a long and diverse career, winning three Grammy Awards. Michael Peterson grew up in Richland and released his first self-titled album of contemporary Christian songs in 1986. A decade later he hit it big in Nashville with the release of his second eponymous record in 1997, which produced five Top 40 country hits, including the No. 1 "From Here to Eternity". The 1990s saw alt-country enter the scene, led by Neko Case of Tacoma. With her powerful "flamethrower" contralto voice she has released a series of critically acclaimed albums and has also been a part of the revival of the tenor guitar. The Supersuckers formed in Tucson, Arizona in 1988, relocated to Seattle in 1989 and have been playing cowpunk ever since.
In the mid-1950s, the Washington rock scene was kick-started by a Seattle group, The Frantics, led by guitarist Ron Peterson. The Frantics were the first rock group from Seattle to have songs in the national Top 40 charts. Later, several garage bands achieved regional and some national fame. Perhaps the most famous of these are The Wailers, whose regional fame was paramount for several years in the early 1960s. Their version of Richard Berry's "Louie, Louie" became the state's unofficial anthem.
An influential garage rock band called The Regents became local icons in the Tacoma area, but the original incarnation never signed to a record label. They are known for pioneering a distinct sound technology when they fed the rhythm guitar through a Leslie organ speaker during a concert at the University of Puget Sound; this gave them their original sound.[citation needed]
Another Tacoma band, The Sonics, also proved to be influential, and are still a cult favorite. Their name was inspired by one of Seattle's most important employers, Boeing, an aircraft manufacturer, and The Sonics' brand of aggressive guitar rock made them icons in the later development of music in and around Seattle.
Record producer Jerry Dennon of Jerden Records was responsible for bringing The Kingsmen (of Portland, Oregon), best known for their national hit "Louie Louie", to the ears of northwest audiences. The Kingsmen soon found themselves in a rivalry with local favorite Paul Revere & the Raiders (of Boise, Idaho), who also released a version of "Louie, Louie". The Kingsmen's version eventually caught on nationally after a Boston radio station picked up the song and Dennon negotiated distributing rights with Wand Records out of New York City. The song's supposedly suggestive lyrics led to it being banned in some localities, including Indiana.
Also of particular note are Seattle's Slaughter Haus 5, Tacoma bands Sword of Judgement, Hammer Head, Diamond Lie (featuring Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains), as well as Olympia bands Cyperus and Death Squad. Two West Seattle metal bands from the 1980s were Sanctuary and Rottweiller. Sanctuary, after two albums and some years revamping, reformed with two original members (bass and vocals) and a former short-term replacement guitarist (along with some new members) and became known as Nevermore. Heir Apparent came out of North Seattle in the mid-1980's, signed to the independent label Black Dragon Records of Paris, France in 1985, and released what remains the highest-rated album in the 40-year history of Germany's ROCK HARD magazine[1] in January 1986. Heir Apparent performed with Sanctuary in 2012 at the Metal Assault Festival in Wurzburg, Germany.[2] In 2019 at the Headbangers Open Air Festival in Germany, Queensrÿche, Sanctuary, and Heir Apparent each headlined an evening of the 3-day event.[3]
More recent underground metal bands include Himsa, Aemaeth, Blood & Thunder, Midnight Idols, Fallen Angels, DEATHBEAT, Big Business, Drown Mary, Evilsmith, Vigilance, Skelator, Ceremonial Castings, Inquisition, Hoth, Inquinok, Pure Hatred, Riot in Rhythm, Deathmocracy, Blood of Kings, Wolves in the Throne Room, Twisted Heroes, Ashes Of Existence, Bleed The Stone, Casualty Of God, Mechanism, I Am Infamy, Devilation, Beyond Theory, Future Disorder, Edge of Oblivion, Last Bastion, Phalgeron, and Bell Witch.
Punk rock
Seattle's punk rock scene was always limited, but is important for its influence on the development of grunge as a distinct genre. In the 1970s, Ze Whiz Kidz made a unique and bizarre variety of confrontational music and helped launch a hardcore punk scene that included ZEKE, Mentors, RPA, The Rejectors, The Lewd, Violent World[4] The Refuzors, Crunchbird,[5] Pod Six, The Enemy, and, most influentially, Solger and The Fartz, as well as new wave bands like The Heats, The Cowboys, The Meyce, The Telepaths, Visible Targets, Chinas Comidas, X-15 and UC5. Hardcore skinhead bands like Extreme Hate, The Boot Boys and Firing Squad also gained a following. Green River, a punk rock band that splintered into Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone, was one of the first grunge bands. Also drawing on the punk rock scene were Melvins, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Fitz of Depression of Olympia and Vitimin C of Centralia. Musician Duff McKagan made his entry into the global rock scene in the punk rock scene of his hometown of Seattle. On the other side of the state, Spokane also contained an insular but vibrant punk and new wave scene in the 1980s, as chronicled in the documentary film SpokAnarchy!
Grunge began as a mixture of heavy metal, punk rock and indie rock in the 1980s and gained mainstream prominence in the early 1990s. The earliest bands included Green River, Skin Yard, Screaming Trees ("Nearly Lost You"), and Soundgarden, among others, with most signed to legendary indie rock label Sub Pop. This new style was featured on the 1986 compilation album Deep Six (CZ001) released by C/Z Records, with tracks by Soundgarden, Melvins, Green River, Skin Yard, Malfunkshun and The U-Men. By the late 1980s, several future stars had begun performing, including Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Mudhoney, while the death of Andrew Wood (d.1990, buried in Bremerton, WA) of Mother Love Bone led to that band's disintegration and subsequent reformation as Pearl Jam. In 1991 (see 1991 in music), Nirvana's Nevermind, along with Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger, Pearl Jam's Ten and Alice in Chains' Dirt, quickly brought the grunge scene to international attention and its music to the top of the national charts, where it stayed for many years and influenced a number of popular spin-off acts and subgenres across the world. Pearl Jam has recorded five No. 1 albums featured on the Billboard Top 200 between 1993 and 2013, including Vs. (1993), and also had a No. 2 Hot 100 hit with their cover of "Last Kiss" in 1999. Nirvana had four No. 1 albums, Alice in Chains had two, including Jar of Flies (1994), and Soundgarden had one, Superunknown (1994). Later successful grunge acts include Foo Fighters, which had a No. 1 album with Wasting Light (2011). Seattle is also home to newer alt-grunge-rock acts such as SixTwoSeven.
Riot grrrl
Riot grrrl is a form of punk rock which arose in Olympia in the 1990s with all-female and woman-led acts like Bikini Kill, known for their militant feminism and raw, uncompromising sound. The genre never achieved mainstream success due to an on-going media blackout along with their harsh criticism of society and often grating musical style, and eventually faded. However, stalwarts Sleater-Kinney stayed together and found themselves approaching mainstream audiences after the turn of the millennium. The movement generated many notable bands, concentrated in the Olympia area and including Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, and Excuse 17.
A new wave of the riot grrrl movement continued in the 21st century with bands like NighTrain, The Gossip, The Black Tones and Thee Emergency, which feature soulful vocals, heavy drums, a driving, intense rhythm and blistering guitar. This revitalization of interest in the AfroPunk and girl group-inspired soul music was well-received outside American borders, leading to the departure of some of these groups to European countries.
Bush, James. "Encyclopedia of Northwest Music: From Classical Recordings to Classic Rock Performances, Your Guide to the Best of the Region". Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 1999. 340p. ISBN1-57061-141-6
