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Evergreen Ballroom: Olympia's Lost Landmark (1931-2000)

The most fabled of any historic dancehall in Washington -- the Evergreen State -- the Evergreen Ballroom stood for nearly seven decades along a section of Highway 99 called the "old Tacoma and Olympia...

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Fanning the Flames: Northwest Labor Song Traditions

Political and social movements have long used music to draw attention to their causes and to rally the spirits of their members. The effectiveness of this tactic is well understood by rulers and robbe...

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Fort Lewis Teen Center and the Emergence of Northwest Rock

Fort Lewis authorities attempting to combat juvenile delinquency established a Youth Activity Center in 1951 on the large army base in Pierce County south of Tacoma. The center initially had limited a...

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Fox (Music Hall) Theatre (Seattle)

When it opened on April 19, 1929, Seattle's Fox Theatre was described as being "fairy-like in appearance," but that luster would fade pretty quickly in the years following its debut. Known variously a...

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Gallahads, The: Seattle's 1950s Doo-Wop Kings

In the 1950s, doo-wop singing flourished on the street corners of America's big cities, where countless a cappella vocal harmony groups created classic rock 'n' roll songs, often characterized by the ...

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Gio Solimene Ross: The first First Lady of Seattle Opera

Glynn Ross, the founding director of Seattle Opera, was known for putting Seattle on the international opera map. But he did not do so alone. His Italian-born wife, Angelamaria Solimene Ross, known as...

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Gossett, Orville Ozmund (1911-1982)

Orville Ozmund Gossett (1911-1982) was a musically gifted young man from Idaho who as a teenager was taken in and raised by his uncle and aunt, Robert and Florence Warner, in Tekoa (Whitman County). G...

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Grace Holden: Living with a Legend

The following account was excerpted from an interview with Oscale Grace Holden (b. 1930), the daughter of Oscar Holden (1886-1969), who was, according to Paul DeBarros in Jackson Street After Hours: T...

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Gray, Maxine Cushing (1909-1987)

Maxine Cushing Gray was a Seattle writer, critic, editor, and arts advocate. Over the course of her long career, she served as an arts critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, covered the arts for t...

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Guitar, Bonnie (1923-2019)

Musician, songwriter, singer, and hit-maker, Seattle's Bonnie "Guitar" Buckingham was one of the biggest stars to emerge from the Pacific Northwest's music scene. Her path to fame was one that saw her...

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Guthrie, Woody (1912-1967): His Northwest Days

Woody Guthrie was a Dust Bowl refugee from Oklahoma. A wandering troubadour. He was also a natural-born populist whose guitar was bravely emblazoned with the in-your-face slogan: "This Machine Kills F...

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Haglund, Ivar (1905-1985)

Ivar Haglund, Seattle character, folksinger, and restaurateur was known as "King of the Waterfront," and also "Mayor" and "Patriarch" of the waterfront. He began as a folksinger, and in 1938 establish...

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Haines, Walter (1904-1987)

Walter R. Haines was, by all accounts, quite a character. He arrived in Seattle as a teenager in 1923 and quickly scored his first musical gig playing tuba and string-bass with the house orchestr...

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Hansen, Harvey (1898-1990)

As the Electric Guitar Era dawned in the 1930s, the strange keening sounds produced by those revolutionary new musical instruments profoundly impressed many early ear-witnesses. In at least a few inst...

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Hawaiian Music and its Historic Seattle Connection

The distinctive music of the Hawaiian Islands is easily recognizable -- its signature thrumming of a 'ukulele, thwacking of bamboo percussion sticks (puili), and keening "steel guitar" lines are, toda...

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Hendrix, Al (1919-2002)

James A. "Al" Hendrix was the father of rock legend Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970). He grew up in Vancouver B.C. and moved to Seattle in 1940. He married Jimi's mother, Lucille Jeter (ca. 1925-1958) in 1942...

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Hendrix, Jimi (1942-1970)

Jimi Hendrix -- the single most famous musician to ever emerge from the Pacific Northwest's music scene -- rose from extremely humble beginnings to establish himself as perhaps the most gifted and inv...

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Holden, Ron (1940-1997)

A self-described "dancehall singer," Ron Holden (1940-1997) was born into a prominent African American Seattle family that has long excelled in music and sports. A Garfield High School (Class of &acir...

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Hoopii, Sol (1902-1953)

Solomon Ho'opi'i Ka'ai'ai, known as "King of the Hawaiian Steel Guitar," was an extremely gifted player, a great innovator, and an originator of the Sacred Steel movement. He sailed from Hawaii to Cal...

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Hot-Rod Songs of the Northwest

A century-long tradition of songs that feature lyrics (and sometimes musical sound effects) associated with driving automobiles attests to the fact that songsmiths have found the topic of fast cars to...

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Inland Empire Rock: The Sound of Eastern Washington

The "Northwest Sound" usually describes that regional strain of R&B-tinged rock 'n' roll that was forged decades ago (ca. 1957-1964) in various Puget Sound-area towns and then taken to wider prominenc...

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Intiman Theatre

Intiman Theatre is a professional not-for-profit resident theater company in Seattle. From its inception in 1972 in a tiny 70-seat theater in Kirkland to its present operation in the 480-seat Playhous...

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Jackson Street Jazz Scene (Seattle)

This is a look at Seattle’s legendary Jackson Street jazz scene. Sparked during the Roaring Twenties, it went on to nurture Ray Charles, Ernestine Anderson, and Quincy Jones, among many other yo...

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Jerden Records (1960-1969): When the Seattle Music Business Got Serious

History will always remember Jerden Records as the Seattle company that foisted the Kingsmen and their infamous "Louie Louie" on the world back in 1963. But there is much more to the saga behind the f...

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