The Sound of Seattle: 101 Songs that Shaped a City - Softcover

WALKER, EVA; Uitti, Jacob

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1632175142 ISBN 13: 9781632175144

Verlag: Sasquatch Books, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

This rockin' paperback explores the musical evolution of Seattle through the lens of 101 songs spanning 80 years, examining the most prominent and important music and musicians to come out of our corner of the country, with a foreword by Pearl Jam legend Mike McCready.

KEXP DJ and musician Eva Walker and music writer Jake Uitti take readers on a musical journey, exploring the songs and artists instrumental to developing the "Seattle sound." The authors have curated the ultimate playlist for the Emerald City. It all begins in 1942 when Washington-born Bing Crosby records what will become the world's bestselling single of all time, "White Christmas." From there, readers will delight in a sensory trip through jazz, rock, punk, riot grrrl, pop, rap, grunge, indie, emo, and more, deepening their knowledge and love of the songs that shaped Seattle, and in the process, each of us.

Both a love letter and love song to the city, The Sound of Seattle is a visual guide organized by decade, with seminal songs profiled and paired with inventive design reminiscent of a favorite zine or concert poster. Includes interviews with Seattle legends like Heart's Nancy Wilson, as well as sidebars showcasing musical landmarks throughout the city. 

How has the Emerald City’s musical output changed and evolved? What is the connective tissue between Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and Kenny G? Between Melvins, Sleater-Kinney, and Foo Fighters? Between Sir Mix-a-Lot, Macklemore, and Travis Thompson? We're gonna find out!

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Eva Walker was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. She is the frontwoman and principal songwriter of the acclaimed local rock band, The Black Tones, which has opened for Mavis Staples, Death Cab for Cutie, and Weezer. A popular DJ on KEXP, Eva currently hosts the Early on KEXP show. She also has recorded songs with Mike McCready, released songs with Sub Pop Records, and produced The Arts Hour for the BBC. 

Jake Uitti’s work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Interview Magazine, Spin, Washington Post, Nation, Guardian, and many more. Jake is a staff writer at American Songwriter Magazine, where he’s chit-chatted with big names like Lady Gaga, Jennifer Hudson, Garth Brooks, Ryan Lewis, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Ben Gibbard, and hundreds more. He is the author of Northwest Know-How: Beer as well as Muggsy Bogues: The Godfather of Smallball.

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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...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Sasquatch Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1632175142
• ISBN 13: 9781632175144
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar