The Sound of Seattle

INTRODUCTION
 
The first time I saw my wife, she was onstage singing. I didn’t know her band at the time. But I was suddenly glad to be in the Tractor Tavern, invited to write about the Friday night rock bill. I
walked to the back of the showroom to get a seat but there were only two stools open among the big audience and piles of belongings. I went to sit down when a stranger reached out, “That’s the singer’s mom’s seat!”
 
Confused, I looked to the stage and saw the Black Tones: frontwoman Eva Walker, twin brother Cedric on drums, mother and sister backup singers. Quintessential rock music and a family band? They captivated the room to such a degree that their seats were being saved while they were performing. That’s the power of music in Seattle. The art form is currency here.
 
In Seattle, music brings people together around a common love. In song. In authorship. Even in marriage. And after that night at the Tractor, Eva and I began to date. Today, we are married and, gratefully, the authors of this book too. The Sound of Seattle is our bow to music. We wouldn’t be together without it.
 
In every neighborhood of the city, music pours out. From festivals to local radio stations, from practice rooms to live performances. The region has always been resonant that way. The sounds change but there is always regeneration and experimentation, even in tragedy. From the jazz of Ray Charles and croon of Bing Crosby (who once asked my Hollywood actress aunt, Betty Uitti, to marry him; she declined) to the rock of chart-topper Ayron Jones, Seattle music is eternal.
 
Indeed, people in Seattle grow up learning the city’s music history as others elsewhere learn about local sports heroes. Kurt, Jimi, Quincy, the Heart sisters—these are our founding figures. The city touches all genres, from Grammy Award–winning classical recordings to Muzak, which used to be based here. And while we couldn’t cover every band in these pages, we hope you will see important lineages, trends, and styles unfold, and cherish the diversity of the sounds.
 
Whether it sits at the epicenter of pop culture (as it did in the ’90s) or takes the occasional backseat, the Emerald City always manages to move us.
 
—Jake Uitti
 
The 1990s: Sir Mix-a-Lot on Seattle’s Musical Explosion
When Grammy Award–winning rapper and producer Sir Mix-a-Lot (born Anthony Ray) thinks about 1990s Seattle, he thinks about two music genres happening simultaneously: hip-hop and rock. As the ’90s began, hip-hop was moving from more a “home brew” sound to something “more polished.” Mix and everyone he was working with at the time, including at his label Nastymix, had to step up their game, he says, since the songs were reaching far beyond the Emerald City bounds.
 
“I was coming off what I thought was a giant record,” says Mix of his 1988 debut LP, Swass. “And we thought we had arrived!”
 
Mix’s first album featured his first hit, “Posse on Broadway,” as well as the local favorite, “Buttermilk Biscuits (Keep on Square Dancin’).” His 1989 follow-up, Seminar, was certified Gold,
with songs like “Beepers” and “My Hooptie.” Mix, however, is quick to note that around this same time, grunge music was also beginning to take off—in a major way. The lyricist knew it. “I felt like, yeah, this is going to overshadow me. And it did!” he says.
 
Mix, however, wasn’t frustrated that grunge was taking over in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Many of the musicians in the popular bands were his friends and collaborators. (Indeed, there remains an unreleased Mix and Chris Ballew collab.) “You could stand outside on Broadway and hear people rehearsing,” says Mix. “It was quality band after quality band after quality band. Nobody sounded like shit. Nobody.”
 
Born August 12, 1963, in Auburn, Mix grew up in Seattle’s Central District. As a teen, via bussing programs many opposed at the time, Mix attended Roosevelt High School (at the same time as future Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan). In middle school, Mix had been introduced to the idea of music as a career. He always loved electronics, from CB radios to keyboards, and in high school that crystallized.
 
As the ’80s unspooled into the ’90s, Mix started to notice the city changing. He was around members of groups like Pearl Jam and he remembers walking down the street and going into clubs and seeing musical giants onstage. At the time, it all felt, well, normal. In 1991, Mix signed with Def American Recordings, which boasted artists like Johnny Cash and ZZ Top, working with famed producer Rick Rubin.
 
“Then fast-forward to 1993 and we’re all standing at the Grammys,” says Mix. “Literally. Myself, the Presidents, Pearl Jam, everybody. It was that fast. Seattle took over.”
 
The success of grunge made it a bit harder for hip-hop to be noticed, Mix says. Once 1992 came and went, it was all about sludgy rock. “You’d do a concert for, like, 3,000 people and then Pearl Jam shows up and plays for a stadium! But I wasn’t jealous because all eyes were on Seattle.”
 
In 1993, it was Mix’s turn. While he recognizes he may not be the best rapper who ever lived—in Seattle, he credits the Emerald Street Boys, who came up before him, with that title—his unique combination of talent and style paid off that year. “Let’s be honest,” Mix says, “if the Emerald Street Boys came along around my time, as polished as they were, I’d have been sweeping up after them. That’s how good they were.”
 
Yet as the ’90s progressed, rap grew and grew. Mix earned a Grammy in 1993 for his single “Baby Got Back.” The song also hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts. He’d arrived. But he says that wasn’t the song that the locals liked most. Those in Seattle liked “Posse on Broadway,” “My Hooptie,” and “Beepers” best. But as long as the people liked something, he says, and made sure to treat him like a human being, he was happy.
 
“Everybody was humble, thankfully,” Mix says. “I could walk down the street and maybe somebody would buy me a Dick’s burger. But there was no ass-kissing, which is what I like. Ass-kissing is very uncomfortable.”
 
Today, what makes the city so unique for the 59-year-old is its location (read: isolation). He says the city and its residents historically had to come up with their own things to do. Their own fun. Their own music. That gave the region a unique sound and perspective. Seattle wasn’t like
anyplace else because it wasn’t influenced by anyplace else. What Mix saw was a lot of people making art in odd, makeshift places. Working on stuff that was taboo. Not the glam stuff of the L.A. ’80s.
 
“Grunge was not that,” says Mix, famous for his signature cowboy hat. “It was like, ‘I got some goddamn jeans on. I have an old guitar that I got when I was broke and I’m still playing it.’ That was the beauty of it to me.”
 
SAMPLE ENTRIES:

Artist: Kenny G
Single: “Forever in Love”
Record: Breathless
Released: 1992
Recorded in: Seattle; New York City, Sausalito; Los Angeles
Producer: Kenny G, Walter Afanasieff, David Foster, Dan Shea
Label: Arista
 
One of the bestselling artists of all time, Kenneth Bruce Gorelick—a.k.a. Kenny G—was born in Seattle on June 5, 1956. The face of “smooth jazz,” a genre he essentially invented, Kenny G is known for playing his alto saxophone in ways that calm and mesmerize. (For others in the area who write similar meditative music, check out Bellingham’s Soundings of the Planet.) When Kenny G released his 1986 album Duotones, the artist was immediately put on the map. To date, he’s sold more than seventy-five million albums.
 
Kenny G, who first noticed the saxophone as a kid while watching The Ed Sullivan Show, began playing it when he was just ten years old. Later, he attended Franklin High School and then the
University of Washington. His first major gig was playing in Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra in 1973 at age seventeen. Around that time, he also played in the Seattle funk band, Cold, Blue & Together. In 1982, he signed to Arista as a solo artist after recording his self-titled solo album the year prior. His following two records, G Force and Gravity, both went platinum. His 1986 album, Duotones, sold more than five million copies in the United States. In 1992, he released Breathless, which became the bestselling instrumental album ever, selling some fifteen million copies worldwide and hitting No. 2 on the Billboard 200. It remains one of the top 100 bestselling albums ever in the United States for its universal sense of calm.
 
But the oft-criticized musician has remained polarizing, with critics saying his sound is bereft of any real artistic soul, especially for someone who calls himself a jazz musician. But Kenny G has always been able to wave away any negativity; he’s even able to joke about it. In 1997, the musician earned a Guinness Book of World Records nod for playing the longest-held note ever on a saxophone, playing an E-flat for 45 minutes and 47 seconds thanks to “circular breathing.” His song “Forever in Love,” from Breathless, was released in 1992 and it subsequently hit No. 1 on the US and Canada adult contemporary charts, earning him a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition at the 1994 show. It’s a somber, reflective, digestible tune, as docile as it is intricate. These days, Kenny G is still recording and releasing albums, including his 2021 LP, New Standards.

Artist: Thunderpussy
Single: “Speed Queen”
Record: Thunderpussy
Released: 2018
Recorded in: Seattle
Producer: Sylvia Massy
Label: Stardog Records, Republic Records
 
“Thunderpussy” kind of says it all. The energetic all-female rock band is the brainchild of singer Molly Sides and guitarist Whitney Petty. Together, they’re joined by bassist Leah Julius and drummer Lindsey Elias. (Former drummers of the group include Lena Simon and Ruby Dunphy.) The group’s big break came at the then-annual Sasquatch! Music Festival when Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready discovered the rockers onstage, becoming an instant fan. McCready soon released their single “Velvet Noose” on his boutique HockeyTalkter Records label, also providing a dazzling guitar solo on the track.
 
Inspired by the rock and roll style of the 1970s, Thunderpussy pushes the boundaries of the genre in the modern era with flashy outfits matched with powerhouse instrumentation. Vocalist Molly Sides demands your attention, and she can control a crowd from the front row all the way to the folks climbing in through the windows. Since the group got its start in 2014, Thunderpussy has released several albums, including one produced by renowned engineer Sylvia Massy. The first track off their 2018 self-titled full-length album, “Speed Queen,” is a song kicked off by Dunphy’s masterful rock drums, before Petty’s screeching guitar and Julius’s heavy bass join in. It climaxes with the song’s central riff as Sides’s room-filling rock voice hits.
 
Through persistence, dedication, and showmanship, Thunderpussy has remained one of Seattle’s favorite live bands. It’s this power, grind, and hard work that also led to the group winning a landmark case in the US Supreme Court, earning the right to trademark their name. The word isn’t dirty, the band argued. It’s essential, powerful, and life giving, kind of like their music.