Finalist for the 2024 Washington State Book Award in General Nonfiction
Parking lot rumbles, teen dance riots, and the rise of the Northwest Sound
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 and the Bluenotes, the Wailers, Ron Holden, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Kingsmen, Merrilee Rush, and the Sonics.
With entertaining accounts gleaned from hundreds of interviews, 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 from 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.’ 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 new look at well-known musicians (such as an obscure guitarist then known as Jimmy Hendrix), Blecha shows how an isolated region launched influential new sounds upon an unsuspecting world.
Stomp and Shout was made possible in part by a grant from 4Culture’s Heritage Program.
A Michael J. Repass Book
Om författaren
Peter Blecha is a Seattle native and lifelong musician. He was too young to see any of the bands noted in this book during their heyday – but, his first album was by the Ventures, and he met the Sonics when he was about ten. Blecha’s debut ’70s band was Warbucks, and a later one, the Chains of Hell Orchestra, saw a couple songs issued by Sub Pop. He has directed the Northwest Music Archives historical preservation project since 1982, and in 1983 began writing regularly about local music history in The Rocket magazine. Blecha was a founding Curator at Seattle’s music museum, EMP (today’s Museum of Pop Culture – Mo Pop), served on the Museum Advisory Committee (MAC) for the Northwest African American Museum (NAAM), and has served as a Staff Historian and Contributing Editor with History Link.org since 2001. An award-winning author, Stomp & Shout! is Blecha’s tenth book.
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