Northwest Music Archives

03/26/2026

BREAKING NEWS! We have just made a major historical discovery regarding one of the key 1960s bands who'd helped forge the "Original Northwest Sound." Here's the story so far: Since 1959 New York's Golden Crest record company had taken an interest in various musicians from the Pacific Northwest, releasing records by: the Wailers, the Mad Plaids, Lord Dent & His Invaders, and Lola Sugia. Then, in early 1964 Golden Crest announced that they would be holding open auditions at Seattle's Olympic Hotel for any musicians interested in earning a recording contract. Among the starry-eyed local talents who arrived that day to perform for the label's field crew were the Counts. Even though the band did not successfully score a deal that day, they did go on to have their debut single ("Turn On Song" / "The Enchanted Sea") released by a start-up company, Sea Crest Records, in the summer. Interestingly, in March 2026 a mysterious artifact surfaced and then made its way into our archives: a vinyl reference disc bearing Golden Crest Recording Service labels and featuring entirely different early renditions of both "Turn On Song" and "The Enchanted Sea." At this point in time we believe that Golden Crest recorded these live during the Counts' audition. WOW!

11/25/2025

So many books have been published about certain facets of Northwest music history - the Grunge Era, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Hendrix, etc - but very few about the 1970s-1980s Punk and post-Punk eras. This is why we are excited by the series of books recently written by Eric N. Danielson which cover that time period and offer great detail about key bands including: Portland's Wipers and Na**lm Beach, and Seattle's The Lewd, 10 Minute Warning, and many others.

08/17/2025

Over the decades Seattle has been the home of numerous fabled nitespots where musicians have entertained patrons well into the wee small hours. But, one particular building located just off S. Jackson Street - at 410 Seventh Avenue S. - may have been the most legendary. In 1934 it was known as The Little Harlem Club. By 1937 it was recast as The Ubangi Club (where the likes of Cab Calloway, Gene Coy & his 11 Black Aces, Jasbo McDonald, the 4 Bell Boys, Art Meadows, and Zelma Winslow gigged). In the 1940s it operated as Club 410, and in the 1950s as the 410 Supper Club Cabaret (where stars like B.B. King, Redd Foxx, Jimmy Smith, Big Mama Thornton, and Memphis Slim performed). Sadly, today the site is evidently a boarded-up, graffiti-marred ruin.

01/11/2023

Pete Blecha here...

The first advance review for my upcoming (April 2023) book just dropped. The "Library Journal" deems it: my "magnum opus" and a "definitive" "tour de force."

University of Washington Press says: "Long before the world discovered grunge, the Pacific Northwest was already home to a singular music culture. In the late 1950s, locals had codified a distinct offshoot of rockin' R&B, and a surprising number of them would skyrocket to success, including Little Bill & the Bluenotes, the Wailers, Ron Holden, Paul Revere & the Raiders, the Kingsmen, Merrilee Rush, and the Sonics. Peter Blecha tells the story of music in the Pacific Northwest from the 1940s to the 1960s, a golden era that shaped generations of musicians to come. The local R&B scene evolved out of the area's vibrant jazz scene, and Blecha illuminates the musical continuum between Ray Charles (who cut his first record in Seattle) and Quincy Jones to the rock 'n' rollers who forged the classic jazz-tinged "Northwest Sound." Blecha offers highly entertaining firsthand accounts gleaned from hundreds of interviews. DJs built a teen dance circuit that the authorities didn't like but whose popularity pushed bands to develop crowd-friendly beats. Do-it-yourself enthusiasts launched groundbreaking record companies that scored a surprising number of hit songs. Highlighting key but overlooked figures and offering a fresh look at well-known musicians (such as an obscure young guitarist then known as Jimmy Hendrix), Blecha shows how an isolated region managed to launch influential new sounds upon an unsuspecting world."

08/26/2022

Tomorrow - Saturday August 27 - is the formal book launch for our new local history book: "LOST ROADHOUSES of SEATTLE." My co-author, Brad Holden, and I, Pete Blecha, will be up at "Seattle's last roadhouse" - The Shanty Tavern (9002 Lake City Way) - from 2pm until 5pm, signing books and talking about the book's content. Which features photos and stories about 60+ wild Prohibition Era dance-halls, illicit speakeasies, and rowdy backwoods taverns that popped up along nearby highways in the 1920s and 1930s providing thrill-seekers back then with smuggled liquor, toe-tapping live music, and parking-lot romance.

A book by historians Peter Blecha and Brad Holden, “Lost Roadhouses of Seattle,” showcases more than 60 dance halls and speak-easies on the city’s outskirts.

01/27/2022

We here at the Northwest Music Archives were saddened to learn of the recent passing of an old friend, Don Wilson (1933-2022), the founding rhythm guitarist of The Ventures. That band’s music was an inspiration for all of us back in the day, and Don also accommodated our desire to interview him numerous times over the decades. He and his bandmate Bob Bogle (1934-2009) even hosted a visit by me and a video crew who flew to Los Angeles back in the 1990s to shoot detailed interviews with them back when I was Senior Curator at Seattle’s music museum, the Experience Music Project (EMP). The Ventures have long been recognized as the “best-selling instrumental rock group of all time,” and can also be considered the “Cover Band of The Century.” They will always be remembered for their many hit records, the fact that they sparked the entire Surf Rock movement – and for just being real nice guys. The New York Times broke the news to me, seeking a quote for Don’s obituary. I hope I did him right...

-Pete Blecha

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/arts/music/don-wilson-dead.html

03/05/2021

Wow! Vintage artifacts continue to pop up...We've never seen one of these before! Here's a handbill from Jimi Hendrix' final hometown concert back in 1970:

02/06/2021

Back in the day -- circa 1930s -- there was an easy solution if one was feeling lonely: go and attend a dance downtown at the Lonesome Club. One of the ensembles that gigged there regularly was MORRIE MORRISON's ORCHESTRA: https://www.historylink.org/File/7548

12/31/2020

We are posting links to four brand new essays by Pete Blecha -- one covering each of Jimi Hendrix' four "homecoming" concerts that he played in Seattle between 1968 and 1970. This is the fourth one:

July 26, 1970:

On the afternoon of July 26, 1970, Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) headlines a concert at Seattle's venerable outdoor ballpark, Sicks' Stadium. The all-day fesitval is billed as a "Concert on the Ground," but the ground itself is muddy because of rain, a Seattle hazard even in late July. Writes The Seattle...

12/31/2020

We are posting links to four brand new essays by Pete Blecha -- one covering each of Jimi Hendrix' four "homecoming" concerts that he played in Seattle between 1968 and 1970. This is the third one:

May 23, 1969:

On May 23, 1969, Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) makes his third concert appearance in Seattle since becoming a rock star during 1967's "Summer of Love." His first two albums, Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold As Love, have been popular and critical successes, his performance at the Monterey International...

12/31/2020

We are posting links to four brand new essays by Pete Blecha -- one covering each of Jimi Hendrix' four "homecoming" concerts that he played in Seattle between 1968 and 1970. This is the second one:

September 6, 1968:

On September 6, 1968, six months after his homecoming concert at the Seattle Center Arena, Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) returns to Seattle, but this time to play the larger Seattle Center Coliseum. The Arena show had engendered local pride but garnered mixed reviews because of the loud volume and poor a...

12/31/2020

We are posting links to four brand new essays by Pete Blecha -- one covering each of Jimi Hendrix' four "homecoming" concerts that he played in Seattle between 1968 and 1970. This is the first one:

February 12, 1968:

On February 12, 1968, Seattle native Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) -- who has not played guitar publicly in his hometown since leaving to join the military in 1961 -- brings his London-based band the Jimi Hendrix Experience to play a concert at the Seattle Center Arena. The show will be remembered for an...