Two of Seattl'e Most Known Contributions To The World Are Music & Airplanes! I give you The Boeing Band: " There's Music In The Air "

This Just In From Seattle Music History!!!     

THE BOEING BAND LIVE @ BOEING FIELD (1931)

WITH THE BOEING AIRPLANE COMPANY in the news a lot these days – mainly because of the firm’s increasing disloyalty to its historic hometown of Seattle while once-again attempting to extort zillion$ in tax breaks from the State of Washington, and additional concessions from its workforce (by threatening to take more work out-of-state) – I figured it was timely to gaze back and recall happier times. Like, ironically, the Great Depression when the Boeing Band used to perform for outbound passengers and spectators alike in free concerts given at Boeing Field’s airplane terminal. Comprised of musically inclined Boeing pilots (on 4 saxophones, a trumpet, clarinet, tuba, and guitar), the octet was photographed in 1931 by ACME Newspictures Inc. – and I was lucky enough to unearth this vintage photographic print – which was originally distributed with the suggested caption headline: “There’s Music In The Air.”

                                                     

Ray Charles often spoke of Seattle, Washington & referred to it as his second home! Charles said: "When i got to Seattle I could see that people were different, they were bettor there, they were much nicer!"

     This Just In From Seattle Music History!!!                                                                                

Charles, Ray

Sex:  Male

Born:  Atlanta, Georgia, United States
23 September 1930

Died:  Beverly Hills, California, United States
10 June 2004

Activity/Profession:  Blues Musician / Singer, Gospel Musician / Singer, Bandleader, Popular Singer, Pianist

(23 Sept. 1930–10 June 2004),

singer, bandleader, and entrepreneur, was born Ray Charles Robinson in Albany, Georgia, the son of Bailey Robinson, a day worker, and Aretha (maiden name unknown). Charles's younger brother and only sibling drowned at age four. By the age of seven Charles had lost his sight to glaucoma and was sent to the State School for the Blind and Deaf in St. Augustine, Florida, where he remained until his mother's death when he was fifteen. It was during his time at the school for the blind, which was segregated by race, that he received formal piano lessons and learned to read braille. After his mother's death, he set out on his own, traveling and working as a musician around Jacksonville, Florida.

Charles's earliest influences as a musician were the jazz and blues pianist Charles Brown and the pianist and singer Nat King Cole. His ability to learn the styles of both musicians allowed him to gain work in clubs where audiences were familiar with their music. Sensing the need to branch out beyond Florida, Charles moved to Seattle, Washington, at the age of eighteen. In Seattle, Charles formed a band, the McSon trio, and made his first recording, his own composition, “Confession Blues,” on the Swing Time label owned by Jack Lauderdale, who encouraged Charles to move to Los Angeles in 1950. In Los Angeles, Charles recorded two more singles for Swing Time before he began to tour nationally with the guitarist Lowell Fulson. Charles eventually became Fulson's musical director. In 1952 Charles signed with the Shaw Agency and began to tour nationally as a solo artist. On the strength of his second single, “Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand,” Charles was signed to a recording contract by Ahmet Ertugen, the founder of Atlantic Records. Charles's first release for the label was “It Should Have Been Me” (1952).

Charles's early recordings with the Atlantic label favored the styles of Charles Brown and Nat Cole—styles that had earned him a minor reputation as a rhythm-and-blues artist. But it was with the single “I've Got a Woman,” backed by “Come Back Baby,” that Charles began to exhibit the innovative style that would become the foundation of soul music. At the core of Charles's innovation was his use of chords and rhythms drawn from black gospel music to write and record music that had distinctly secular themes. “I've Got a Woman,” for example, was based on “Let's Talk about Jesus,” a gospel hit for the Bells of Joy in 1951. Follow-up recordings by Charles, like “A Fool for You” (1955) and “Drown in My Own Tears” (1955), also adhered to Charles's “soul” strategy, but “Hallelujah, I Love Her So” in May of 1956 became his first crossover hit.

Ray Charles crossed musical boundaries and entertained generations of fans. Photographed in 1960. (Library of Congress.)

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As Charles's new style became popular, he began to face criticism from black ministers and gospel audiences. The genius of his burgeoning style was his intuitive understanding that the “Saturday night sinner” and the “Sunday morning saved” were often one and the same. The addition of doo-wop girls called the Raeletts accentuated a feeling of call and response, the verbal interaction common between a black minister and his choir. By the time Charles scored with the gospel-frenzied “What'd I Say,” a top-ten pop single in 1959, he had inspired legions of followers, many of whom, likeSam Cooke and Aretha Franklin, went directly from the black church to the pop charts.

Much of Charles's early success was rooted in his ability to master many musical genres, most notably jazz, rhythm and blues, and soul. After Charles and his band made a successful appearance at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, Atlantic capitalized on his growing popularity with the recording The Genius of Ray Charles (1959), which included the pop standards “Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying,” “Come Rain or Shine,” “It Had to Be You,” and the big-band romp “Let the Good Times Roll.” The album was the last that Charles recorded for the label, though there were subsequent releases of previously recorded music. In November 1959 Charles signed with ABC-Paramount, which offered a larger advance on future royalties, a higher rate of royalties, and ownership of his own master recordings. Charles had mixed success with his first two singles for ABC-Paramount, but with the third release he achieved his biggest hit-ever.

Hoagy Carmichael's “Georgia on My Mind” (1960) was an old ballad that sentimentally recalls the American South. Charles infused the song with his unique soulful style and in the process made it one of his signature tunes. The song went to number three on the pop charts and earned Charles the first two of twelve Grammy Awards from the National Academy for the Recording Arts and Sciences. The following year Charles achieved his first number-one pop song and another Grammy with Percy Mayfield's “Hit the Road Jack.”

The success of “Georgia on My Mind” signaled a new direction in Charles's recording career. Always fascinated by country-and-western musicians, Charles finally recorded a full-fledged country song, Hank Snow's “I'm Moving On,” toward the end of his tenure at Atlantic. This was followed by Charles's groundbreaking Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music in April 1962. Though ABC-Paramount was fearful that Charles would lose his core fan base, Charles scored his second number-one pop single with “I Can't Stop Loving You.” Despite the label's initial concerns, the song also topped the R&B charts for sixteen weeks. So successful wasModern Sounds in Country and Western Music that Charles released a follow-up in late 1962.Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music 2 included versions of Hank Williams's “Your Cheating Heart” and the popular standby “You Are My Sunshine.”

When Charles released Ingredients in a Recipe for Soul in 1963, it was clear that he had so successfully integrated so many genres into his repertoire that it was no longer possible to label his music simply jazz, soul, or country and western. Ray Charles was becoming widely known as a song stylist, as evidenced by the success of his renditions of tracks like “That Lucky Old Sun” and “Ol’ Man River,” both from Ingredients in a Recipe for Soul, and the singles “Without Love (There Is Nothing)” and “Busted,” a top-five single on both the pop and R&B charts. In 1964 Charles was arrested for drug possession in Boston. He received a five-year suspended sentence, kicked his twenty-year heroin addiction, and miraculously continued his music career unabated. Although taste in popular music changed during the 1960s, with the appearance of Motown and British groups like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, Charles continued to make quality recordings in his own style. He even covered “Yesterday” and “Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles on his recordings Listen (1967) and A Portrait of Ray (1968). Charles also began to record themes for Hollywood films, the best known being “The Cincinnati Kid” (1965) and “In the Heat of the Night,” the latter from the 1967 film starringSidney Poitier. The film's soundtrack was arranged by Charles's old friend Quincy Jones, whom he had met when he moved to Seattle in 1948. Charles's “Here We Go Again,” released in 1967, was his last major crossover recording until the late 1980s.

Although Charles largely remained on the periphery of the civil rights movement as a recording artist, preferring to provide financial assistance privately, he did offer his political vision on A Message from the People (1972). This album includes versions of Stevie Wonder's “Heaven Help Us All,” James Weldon Johnson's “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (often referred to as the “Negro National Anthem”), and Dick Holler's “Abraham, Martin and John.” The recording also features a stirring version of “America the Beautiful” that was re-released as a single in 1976 to coincide with the U.S. bicentennial celebration. Charles also earned a Grammy Award in 1975 for his rendition of Wonder's politically charged “Living for the City.”

Charles recorded regularly with little fanfare throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, though he was feted with awards and acknowledgements. In 1981 he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Boulevard “Walk of Fame.” He was among the first inductees into the Rock Hall of Fame in 1986, and in 1979 the state of Georgia declared his version of “Georgia on My Mind” the official state song. Charles released his autobiography Brother Ray, written with David Ritz, in 1978. He had a bit of a renaissance in the mid-1980s, making popular recordings with the country artists Willie Nelson (“Seven Spanish Angels”), George Jones (“We Didn't See a Thing”), and Hank Williams Jr. (“Two Old Cats like Us”). In 1989 he teamed again with Quincy Jones to record “I'll Be Good to You,” with Chaka Khan. The song reached number one on the R&B charts. Charles earned his twelfth Grammy Award in 1993 for “A Song for You.” Popular cameos on Sesame Street and commercial endorsements for Pepsi Cola kept his music and image firmly embedded in the minds of generations of Americans.

Ray Charles was married twice and had nine children, but his music always took precedence over all other activities. He died of liver disease on 10 June 2004 and was buried in Inglewood Cemetery, Inglewood, California. Throughout his career Charles maintained an intense touring schedule, not simply for the economic benefit but also to bring various styles of black music to audiences that may have otherwise remained unfamiliar with them. Charles's influence on American popular music has perhaps been rivaled only by figures like Duke Ellington, B. B.King, and James Brown, all of whom toured well into their sixties and seventies, each holding up the banner for the particular brand of popular music he is best known for. Charles's remarkable ability to draw from many styles of popular music made it possible for him to cross—and thereby diminish—musical, racial, political, and geographical barriers.

Further Reading

• Charles, Ray, with David Ritz. Brother Ray (1978).
• Lydon, Michael. Ray Charles: Man and Music (1998)
• Wexler, Jerry, and David Ritz. Rhythm and Blues: A Life in American Music (1993).

Jimi Hendrix & Tommy Chong were longtime friends and bandmates!!! Here's Some Great Seattle Music History! (pun intended)

This Just In From Seattle Music History!!!

High Society - Hendrix & Chong's hidden history

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Wednesday, February 23 2005

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• HIGH SOCIETY

Old Friends Leon Hendrix & Tommy Chong

Back in 1962, Tommy Chong and Jimmy Hendrix both played guitar together for ten days in a band called "Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers". DML interviews eyewitness Portland Al at his music store on 3rd and Main. Also included are some Jimmy clips and early photos of Jimmy and Tommy, a joke Tommy made at the Marijuanalogues, and a duet with Tommy and Bobby Taylor at Taylor's birthday party.

Thanks to "Cheerful" for the bootleg Chong.

Clips of Jimmy from:

"Jimmy Hendrix" - Joe Boyd, 1999, Warner Brothers

"Hendrix - Band of Gypsys - Live at the Fillmore east" - Bob Smeaton, 1999
MCA


Other information:

"Hendrix met little Richard in 1962 during a stay in Vancouver, when he was playing with a popular local outfit called "The Vancouvers", led by one Bobby Taylor. Taylor was to brush against major success three times in his career without ever attaining it for himself. His partner in The Vancouvers was a Chinese-American singer named Tommy Chong, who later dumped music for comedy and teamed up with "Cheech" Marin as the suprisingly durable duo Cheech & Chong."

- "Crosstown Traffic - Jimmy Hendrix and post-war pop", Charles Shaar Murray, 1989, p.39


http://www.gocontinental.com/photos/taylor_bobby.jpg
http://www.gocontinental.com/cat_tu.htm
Bobby Taylor & Vancouvers (Click for picture sleeve) (Click for early photo - with Tommy Chong!)
Does Your Mama Know About Me
I'm Your Man

http://www.waykoolrecords.com/pics/45s/taylor.jpg
BOBBY TAYLOR AND THE VANCOUVERS ( "TOMMY CHONG" )
---- DOES YOUR MAMA KNOW ABOUT ME / SAME , GORDY - 7069 -1968
http://www.waykoolrecords.com/pages/45rpmt.html

http://www.canoe.ca/EncyclopediaImagesT/taylor_and_vancouvers_216.jpg



http://www.musicweb.com/catalogimages/1/082333126664.jpg


O: You were then in a band [Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers] that was signed to Motown, right?

TC: Yeah, we were discovered by The Supremes. Diana Ross saw us and called up Berry Gordy, and he flew to Canada to see us play. He was seeing Diana Ross at the time, so he was pretty much using it as an excuse to be with her. And then we had a hit with "Does Your Mama Know About Me," and that led to other hits as well, but after a while, I just got sick of it and I quit. When Berry Gordy found out I had quit the band, he called me up and tried to get me to come back, but I said no. I had moved on and wanted to try different things.

O: Was it difficult to turn down a guy like Berry Gordy?

TC: No, it really wasn't, because I was never in it for the money. I've never been in it for the money. And then, when I was back in Canada, I started doing shows at a topless bar. I'd write skits for the topless women, and gradually I started performing myself. And then I met Cheech in 1971, and we moved to California and became a team.

O: You were signed to Motown around the same time as Neil Young and Rick James. Did you ever meet them?

TC: No, but one time I was playing in London, and Jimi Hendrix sat in with us. We were doing a show, and he came up and said, "Tommy, do you mind if I sit in?" And then he sat in and played bass.

O: Was he a good bass player?

TC: Not really, and our bass player was kind of upset because he wasn't able to play with Jimi Hendrix. He was really bummed. And it's weird: When we were coming home, sort of out of nowhere I just said to my bandmates, "Someday I'm going to be bigger than Jimi Hendrix." And I didn't know if it was as a musician or a comedian that I'd do it, but sure enough, after I teamed up with Cheech, we really did become bigger than Hendrix.

http://www.theonionavclub.com/feature/index.php?issue=3535&f=1


In December of 1962 Jimi moved to Vancouver to stay with his grandmother and joined a popular R&B band in the area called Bobbie Taylor and the Vancouvers. One of the singers in the band was Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong fame. In the Spring of 1963 Jimi returned to the South to Mississippi and was hired to play dates with Slim Harpo and Tommy Tucker who wrote "High Heel Sneakers". Jimi was part of their backing band and got his first taste of the Chitlin' Circuit.

http://bluescities.net/jimihendrix.html


Bobby Taylor & The Vancouvers (members Bobby Taylor, Wes Henderson, Ted Lewis, Eddie Patterson, Robbie King (born ? - died 17-September-2003 in Vancouver, Canada - cause throat cancer) and Tommy Chong (later to have fame as one half of the well documented comedy / recording duo Cheech & Chong)) an interracial sextet based in Vancouver, Canada. Jimi Hendrix working as an R & B sideman joined the group in December-1962 until he met up with and left with Little Richard.
http://www.soulfulkindamusic.net/btaylor.htm




http://www.rocktripper.com/art/jimiyoung.jpg

Seattle's Own Quincy Jones Set To Receive A Lifetime Achievement Award in Seattle at Thee International Film Festival! May 15, 2014 - June 8, 2014 Hats Off Mr. Jones!!!

This Just In From Seattle Music History!

Quincy Jones to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at The Seattle Int’l Film Festival

SEATTLE — April 30, 2014   — Seattle International Film Festival, the largest and most highly attended  festival in the United States, announced today the complete lineup of films   and events for the 40th annual Festival (May 15 – June 8, 2014). This year, SIFF will screen   440 films: 198 features (plus 4 secret films), 60 documentaries, 14 archival   films, and 168 shorts, representing 83 countries. The films include 44 World   premieres (20 features, 24 shorts), 30 North American premieres (22 features,   8 shorts), and 14 US premieres (8 features, 6 shorts). The Festival will open   with the previously announced screening of JIMI:   All Is By My Side, the Hendrix biopic starring Outkast’s André   Benjamin from John Ridley, Oscar®-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave,   and close with Charlie McDowell’s twisted romantic comedy The One I Love,   produced by Seattle’s Mel Eslyn and starring Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass.   In addition, legendary producer and Seattle native Quincy Jones will be   presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the screening of doc Keep on Keepin’ On.   The 2014 Seattle International Film Festival is presented by SIFF, the   non-profits arts organization that reaches more than 250,000 annually through   SIFF Cinema, SIFF Education, and the annual flagship Festival. “Film is more than   entertainment. The life-changing nature of the collective experience of   cinema and the stories moving pictures can tell are SIFF’s inspiration and   mission every year as we put together the Festival,” says Carl Spence,   SIFF’s Artistic Director. “This year, SIFF continues to be a festival of   discovery, with more than 100 new directors making their debut. Richard   Linklater was one of those filmmakers back in 1990 with the premiere of Slacker; it’s   fitting to have him return for our anniversary with his masterwork Boyhood – unlike any   other film I’ve seen. I am thrilled to share these films with the world and   welcome the hundreds of talented guests expected to attend – from those   you’ve heard of to the many who will be making their debut at the   Festival.” In addition to the gala screenings,   this year’s premieres and special presentations feature a star-studded lineup   including Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, and Laura Dern in The Fault in Our Stars,   Richard Linklater’s Boyhood   with Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke; Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock in Keep On Keepin’ On;   Kim Basinger, Richard Jenkins and Cam Gigandet in 4 Minute Mile; Trent Reznor and Billy   Corgan in Beautiful   Noise; Nia Vardalos in Helicopter   Mom; Vincent Kartheiser and Olivia Thirlby in Red Knot; Cate   Blanchett, Rose Byrne, Miranda Otto, and Mia Wasikowska in The Turning; the   voices of Cate Blanchett, Kristen Wiig, and Jay Baruchel in How To Train Your Dragon 2;   Michael Pitt, Brit Marling, and Astrid Bergès-Frisbey in I Origins,and Paul   Rudd and Amy Poehler in   They Came Together. Mary Bacarella, SIFF’s   Managing Director, says, “This year’s Festival is an incredibly   meaningful milestone for SIFF. We’re all so excited to bring this outstanding   lineup of films, guests, forums, and events to our wonderfully supportive and   enthusiastic audiences. We’ve created a program this year with moments that   will fondly revisit our history and moments that will take us into the future   of SIFF. I can’t wait for the fun to begin!” Festival box office opens May 1 online at SIFF.net,   by phone at 206.324.9996, and in person at various locations. View the full   public program here.

Read more at http://www.eurweb.com/2014/05/quincy-jones-to-receive-lifetime-achievement-award-at-seattle-intl-film-festival/#I1eIuFDA3Tf0yTbx.99  Seattle Music History

James Brown - Funk On Ah Roll/Jimi Hendrix Tribute (live @ Woodstock '99)

This Just In From Seattle Music History!                                       What a great tribute to Sir Mr. James Marshall Hendrix by The Godfather of Soul Mr. James Brown At The 1999 Woodstock Celebration! James & his band break into #FOXYLADY just past the 5 minute mark!!!