Meet The Godfather of Seattle's Northwest Music Scene!!! Many hold Pat O'Day Responsible & To Blame For A Good Part of Seattle's Music Scene & It's Success!!

Just In From Seattle Music History!!! 

O'Day, Pat (b. 1934) -- Godfather of Northwest Rock?

HistoryLink.org Essay 3130 : Printer-Friendly Format

Pat O'Day -- founding father of Northwest rock 'n' roll or the "Godfather" of the 1960s teendance scene? A vampire or the catalyst? Or all of the above? There are many Northwesterners who would debate these points for days on end, but what is perfectly clear is that when it came to the business of rock music in the Northwest, Pat O'Day was the Chairman of the Board, the Grand Poobah, the Top Dog, the Big Kahuna. New York City had Alan Freed, Boston had Arnie Ginsberg, Los Angeles had Hunter Hancock, and Seattle had O'Day. As Seattle's highest-profile DJ of the 1960s and the region's dominant dance promoter, Pat O'Day ran Northwest rock 'n' roll for nearly a decade.

Radioman of the Year

In 1964 and 1965, the national radio industry acknowledged his power, voting him top Program Director. In 1966, O'Day was voted "Radioman of the Year" and was also honored (along with a select few other iconic radio men) with his own volume of the popular Crusin' LP series that featured his powerhouse patter wedged between compiled period hits. As Seattle's highest-profile DJ of the 1960s and the region's dominant dance promoter, Pat O'Day ran Northwest rock 'n' roll for nearly a decade.

O'Day's name became synonymous with KJR, the station he ran for a decade and built into an empire. To really understand his impact you'd have to consider the power of that station back then -- it was not uncommon for KJR to boast of a 37 percent rating, an unheard of dominance by a radio station. Today that rating would be more than the market share of the top seven local stations (KMPS, KUBE, KVI, KIRO, KBSG, KRWM, and KWJZ) combined! O'Day, KJR's star DJ, was eventually promoted to Program Director and, by 1968, to General Manager. He oversaw the production of each week's Fab-50 play-list -- inclusion on this list was virtually the only way a record could become a hit in this area.

Additionally, O'Day produced or engineered numerous recordings by many of the top bands on the KJR play-list including the Wailers, the Viceroys, the Dynamics, and the Casuals. And if that wasn't enough, he also ran an extensive teendance circuit across the region -- which was the most profitable part of his empire and perhaps the most visible. By 1962, O'Day was making more than $50,000 a year just from throwing dances. By the mid-1960s O'Day and Associates were presenting over 58 separate teen-dances a week throughout the state.

The Rock 'n' Roll Pie

When it came to Northwest rock 'n' roll Pat O'Day had his finger in every pie. And there were more than a few local bands and promoters who wanted some of that pie. In 1967, three local businessmen slapped a $3 million federal anti-trust suit on O'Day charging that he held a monopoly on the Northwest rock 'n' roll scene and suggesting that he had been involved in payola and kickbacks from the bands that KJR aired.

The legal actions took more than three years and included a highly publicized trial at which several local musicians testified (Merrilee Rush told the court that she and O'Day only exchanged Christmas gifts -- a bottle of Jack Daniels for a smoked turkey). Eventually O'Day was exonerated of all charges and given a cleanbill of health by the FBI and other investigators. Still, O'Day's power-base was weakened and he departed KJR, the station he had brought to prominence and dominance, in 1974 to develop his concert business. "The federal investigations cost me about $150,000," O'Day says today. "But I've never been further behind than when I started out because I didn't have anything when I started."

The trial was not the first or the last time O'Day was involved in a financial controversy. Though his reputation was hurt by the charges, he wasn't down for the count. He sold his teen-dance business (just when teen-dances were fading) and formed Concerts West, one of the world's biggest concert promotion firms. O'Day had promoted the Beatle s in 1964, and in 1965 he had local garage rockers, the Wailers, open for the Rolling Stones, and the Northwest's proto-punk cult legends, the Sonics, sharing the bill with the Kinks. By 1968 Concerts West was booking all the U.S. dates for the Jimi Hendrix Experience and O'Day was on the road with Seattle's guitar legend.

O'Day couldn't give up radio though and after selling Concerts West he parlayed his considerable wealth into ownership of a string of stations including KXA, KYYX, and Honolulu's KORL. But by 1982, O'Day was once again the center of controversy when his empire fell on hard times financially and The Seattle Times ran a feature story outlining his woes. By 1983, he was facing bankruptcy, squeezed by a $5 million bank loan. He almost lost everything he had once had. But adversity seems just another everyday challenge for O'Day, and the saga of his long career in the radio industry is always adding new chapters.

Out of Tacoma

The opening chapter sees the radio legend's birth in 1934 as Paul W. Berg, the son of a preacherman. His father for years had a radio ministry on Tacoma's KMO, introducing Pat to the medium. He was raised in Bremerton and from his early youth he had only one dream: to be the afternoon man on KJR. He attended radio school in Tacoma and in September of 1956 landed his first job at a tiny Astoria, Oregon station. There, in between reading Lost Dog Reports and funeral home ads he eventually developed his "Platter Party" concept, which meant broadcasting rock hits from remote teenage sockhops on weekends -- thus turning the previously sterile medium of radio into an "event."

The young radio talent moved to Seattle in 1959 lured by station KAYO and only there did he adopt the O'Day moniker, taking it from the name of a local high school, Odea. By the fall of 1959, he moved to KJR and only then did his dynasty begin.

From Sleepy to O'Day

That November, O'Day virtually turned the local rock 'n' roll scene (sleepy up until that point) upside down. First he hired the Wailers -- then riding high with their national hit, "Tall Cool One" -- to play at what was the first rock 'n' roll dance at the Spanish Castle, an old ballroom just south of Seattle. Before long the Castle emerged as the region's premiere dance hall and O'Day had his hand in almost every show there.

On the radio, O'Day was also shaking up the scene. For if radio is, as has been said, the "theater of the mind," then Pat O'Day was surely the greatest mind-bender to ever grace Northwest radio. Almost single-handedly, he transformed what radio was and helped mold the perceptions of thousands of teenagers into what it could be. Working with a bottomless bag of impromptu tricks and stunts, O'Day -- who was blessed with one of the all-time archetypal radio voices -- proceeded to capture the imagination of Seattle's teenagers by mixing rock 'n' roll hits with a never-ending cast of zany on-air characters including "Granny Peters," "Mr. KJR," and "Wonder Mother." The concept sounds old hat today but back in that day it was innovative, cutting edge, and fun.

O'Day can also fairly claim credit to being one of the first DJs in the nation to experiment with an "Oldies" format. That was partially because back in the late 1950s rock 'n' roll was still so young few stations concerned themselves with yesterday's hits. But O'Day was quick to understand that a classic song will always be a classic and he exploited this programming technique to its fullest.

Local Discs to the Top

But he also established KJR as a station that could -- and did -- make hit records (think: the Ventures' "Walk -- Don't Run" and the Tijuana Brass' "The Lonely Bull"). But perhaps more importantly, O'Day was one of the first DJs in the Northwest to realize the talent of the early local bands. Though O'Day has more than his share of detractors, one thing he cannot be faulted on was his commitment to local music -- no other station in history has played as many local discs as the O'Day-fueled KJR. And not only did he play local records (and book the bands for his teen-dances), he made them hits and increased the interest in Northwest music around the nation to a level that wouldn't again be attained (and surpassed!) until Seattle's Grunge rock movement of the 1990s.

By the late 1960s though, the bands O'Day pushed had already seen their better years and the style of radio he represented didn't go over too well with the freaks and hippies. It wasn't at all uncommon to see bumper-stickers in the U. District then that said "Pat O'Day Is A Shuck." Many freaks found his bombastic, wisecracking style to be the very embodiment of crass commercial radio.

Great offense was taken when it was eventually revealed that it was the "devil" himself, O'Day, who had been the secret financier behind a prominent local concert promoter -- Seattle's version of San Francisco impresario, Bill Graham -- who had been booking concerts at the Eagles Hall, the "hip" alternative to O'Day's teenybopper dance scene. It seemed there was no escaping the guy's presence.

Indeed, that Pat O'Day has more lives than a cat is evidenced by his four decades of involvement in Northwest rock 'n' roll. And now, once again, the man seems to have a few more tricks up his sleeves. Rumors abound about yet another radio scheme in the works for O'Day. Stay tuned ... 

Sources:
Peter Blecha Interviews with Pat O'Day, 1980s-2001; John McCoy, "Pat O'Day and Radio Are Still Best of Friends," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 11, 1983; Peter Blecha, "Pat O'Day: The Godfather of Northwest Rock," The Rocket, June 1987.

Note: Pat O'Day left KJR voluntarily in 1974, a fact misreported in an earlier version of this essay. The essay was corrected on January 28, 2002.

By Peter Blecha, April 03, 2001

                                                                                

UPDATED ON 8/26/2014: A little Seattle Music History about a song writen & performed by Sir Mr. James Marshall Hendrix!!!

     This Just In From Seattle Music History!!!

  I was recently chatting online with a friend named Alex S and we were talking about Jimi Hendrix believe it or not! We talked about Mr. Jimi's song that maybe might not be in the top 10 of Jimi's talked about songs and I asked Alex if he knew what the song was about. Alex said that he did not but to please tell! So its about an old music venue just south of  Downtown Seattle that through another Seattle Music Legend Pat O'Day Jimi was able to jam at "The Spanish Castle" Pat O'Day is a long time Seattle area music promoter, on air radio personality, artist manager and a real true icon when it comes to anything music in Seattle! I've included a link with a lot more information on The Spanish Castle!      http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=3826    

Spanish Castle Ballroom (Sea

HistoryLink.org Essay 3826 : Printer-Friendly Format

The most fabled dancehall in Seattle's history was, ironically, not even located in Seattle. And that odd geographic detail is a defining aspect of the Spanish Castle Ballroom. When constructed in 1931 by its founders, Archie Bacon and Frank Enos, the hall was purposefully situated at "Midway" -- an area located literally midway between Seattle and Tacoma. That site -- just outside of the city limits, on unincorporated county land -- was selected specifically in order to escape those towns' busybody efforts to clamp down on nightlife activities. Taken together, both the city codes restricting public dancing and the state's Prohibition laws outlawing alcoholic drinks made for tough times in the entertainment industry.

Mystery and Romance

The Spanish Castle's Grand Opening event drew huge crowds from the populations of both distant towns nevertheless. Some attendees were likely attracted by the big-band sounds of the Frankie Roth Orchestra and the promise of a great new recessed dance-floor. Others were simply drawn by the social spectacle.

Some though, must have been curious about the new building itself (located near the corner of old Highway 99, now Pacific Highway S, and the Kent-Des Moines Road). How could they not have been? Designed like some kind of storybook caricature of an ancient Moorish fortress, the building's exotic architectural details -- a stucco structure with neon accents -- successfully evoked mystery and romance and was somewhat of a roadside attraction in and of itself.

With Prohibition's repeal in 1934, the Castle began selling beer. Crowds of dancers continued packing the place. But in 1937 the owners sold off the Castle to a new partnership consisting of M. W. "Wes" Morrill (founder of Kent, Washington's First Bank) and C. L. Knutson (a local auto dealer).

One thing that remained constant throughout those years was the house-band. Roth led his orchestra in weekly shows up through 1942 when he stepped aside and his trombonist, Gordon Greene, took over. Those World War II years proved to be the peak for the Castle -- a time when as many as 2,000 folks attended dances that were necessarily scheduled into shifts to correspond with the labor shifts in war industry factories.

Golden Era of Teen-Dances

The big-band swing dances continued regularly at the Castle up until 1962, but by 1959 their popularity had declined to the point that they were limited to just Saturday nights -- Fridays suddenly opened up. Thus, it was in the fall of 1959 that Seattle''s dominant radio DJ, Pat O'Day, booked the area's most prominent band, the Wailers, to play what would be the very first of countless rock 'n' roll teen-dances ever held at the Castle. And so began the Pacific Northwest's Golden Era of Teen-dances.

By 1961 -- when Morrill sold out to Knutsen -- various DJs like O'Day, John Stone, and Lee Perkins had booked shows into the Castle and early shows there featured such major touring stars as Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Burnett, Tony Orlando, Freddie Cannon, Ray Stevens, Johnny Rivers, Bobby Vee, Jan & Dean, and Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. But rock 'n' roll and pop acts weren't the only action and a good number of Country acts including national stars like Conway Twitty and Ernest Tubb also made appearances there and locals like Jack Roberts & the Evergreen Drifters, picked, yodeled, and twanged at the Castle regularly for years. [Note: One of Tubb's shows was recorded and recently released on compact disc as The Complete Live 1965 Show.]

Plenty of early local rock 'n' roll bands also got chances to play shows at the Castle, including the Adventurers, the Amazing Aztecs, the Casuals, the Checkers, the Checkmates, the Cut-Ups, the Dynamics, the Frantics, the Playboys, the Sonics, the Statics, the Swags, and the Torments. The Aztecs' singer/keyboardist, Merrilee Rush, was one kid who'd been vastly impressed by the first dance she ever attended there:

"I'll never forget the first time I went to the Spanish Castle and saw the Wailers. They are the classic. They are the epitome of rock 'n' roll from this era. Because they combined the rhythm & blues and the rock 'n' roll. ...I remember standing in front of Rich Dangel's amp and it just blew my ears off! Oh, and Gail Harris had that big deep, deep vibrato in her voice! I was just, Oh! ... I was just overcome" (Interview).

The Checkers' guitarist (and future jazz star) Larry Coryell is another player who recalls the excitement of those pioneering days: "I remember gigs at the Spanish Castle with the Checkers backing up Ray Stevens. And another time when we backed up Gene Vincent. It was the thrill of our life to play the Spanish Castle!" (Interview).

Jimi Hendrix Coming Up

One other notable young Seattle musician who developed a fondness for the Castle was a teenaged guitarist named Jimmy Hendrix. Between 1957 and 1961 Hendrix earned a local reputation for consistently showing up at various gigs and asking if he could sit in and play along. He attempted this with the Wailers, the Dave Lewis Combo, the Playboys, the Adventurers, Dynamics, and other local bands.

Many years after Hendrix had changed his name to "Jimi" and become an international rock star, his father Al would recall that his son would "go to the clubs and ask the guy could he sit in with him. He used to do that right here in Seattle when he was coming up. He used to go to the place on Old [Highway] 99, the dancehall, the Spanish Castle. He used to go there and hang around the stage and try to get in and play with some of the groups."

O'Day concurs, even recalling Hendrix's particular modus operandi:

"Well, Jimmy would come out to the Spanish Castle and would bring his Gibson amplifier with him. And, people were always blowing amplifiers [back] then. And bands would only carry one or two amplifiers. So one night, I forget who was playing -- I think it was the Checkmates who blew their amp -- and Jimmy's deal was: It was his amp: He got to play on stage. So, he's on the side of the stage and he played his axe" (Interview).

Despite being rejected on some such occasions, Hendrix eventually joined his own teen combos -- the Velvetones, Rocking Kings, Thomas and His Tomcats -- and developed his skills considerably. Hendrix's lingering fondness for Seattle's music scene is indicated by the fact that years after he left the Northwest he penned "Spanish Castle Magic" in tribute to his days hanging out at the old roadhouse. Dave Marsh probably puts it best in Louie Louie: A History of The World's Most Famous Rock Song, when he writes:

"Once you know the legend of the Wailers at the Castle and the facts of Jimi's attendance there, the lyrics of his 'Spanish Castle Magic' seem haunted by homesick nostalgia. 'It's very far away, it takes about half a day/to get there by my ah...dragonfly,' he sings, in the voice of a kid stranded a couple continents from home."

Later in the tune's lyrics Hendrix offers one last global positioning clue for the literal-minded: "No it's not in Spain."

The Wailers and the World's Fair

Meanwhile, back in the fall of 1961 O'Day and the Wailers were drawing great crowds to the Castle and it dawned on them that -- with additional hordes of visitors expected to descend on the area in a few months for the opening of the 1962 World's Fair -- a few additional bucks might be also made by producing a record that would serve as memento. And so, the DJ hauled recording gear down there, rolled the tapes, and before long the Fabulous Wailers At The Castle LP was in area record shop racks.

O'Day's liner notes included this direct pitch:

"If you visit Seattle for the World's Fair, I hope you will find it possible to stop by the Spanish Castle. ... "The Castle" is the entertainment mecca of the Seattle-Tacoma area. There is a big dance there every Friday night, but the big night is when the Wailers are at the Castle. It was on such a night, as about 2,000 teenagers danced their heads off, that we turned on the tape recorders and captured the following grooves."

Though no triumph of sound engineering, the album was a fine aural document of a typical teen-dance of the day and it became a regional bestseller that is today (now available on compact disc) widely acknowledged as a classic.

In the summer of 1963 Ian Whitcomb -- then a British student out touring the states (a bit before he launched his own music career) -- happened through Seattle and recalled in his Rock Odyssey that it was at the Castle that he was first exposed to our regional rock traditions:

"I journeyed out with a beer-bellied kid to a dance hall called the Spanish Castle to hear some of the instrumental groups who specialized in the Northwest sound. I was lucky enough that night to hear the Kingsmen play their current hit, 'Louie Louie.' They wore band jackets and looked fairly clean cut, but when they blasted out on this number the kids went wild."

Tragedy Foreshadows the End

Such teen-dances -- not to mention the many high school proms, parking lot rumbles, and amorous backseat rendezvous that also occurred at the Spanish Castle -- were definite highlights for a generation or two of local youth. But the Spanish Castle's days were, unfortunately, numbered. O'Day recalls that disaster struck in about 1966 when a tragic incident took place. Three kids were attempting to cross the roadway out in front of the castle when they were hit by a speeding automobile. Everybody's spirits were dampened. The luster was suddenly gone, and O'Day chose to quit booking shows there soon after.

In the end, all those decades worth of magic evenings with dance and romance at the Spanish Castle came to an abrupt and permanent halt when Knutsen's sons decided to have the wonderful historic structure razed by bulldozers in April 1968. Today only magic memories remain of the Spanish Castle: A mere gas station and nondescript burger joint/mini-mart mark the original site.

Sources:
The Wailers, The Fabulous Wailers At The Castle (Etiquette Records [ETALB 1], 1961); Ian Whitcomb, Rock Odyssey (New York: Doubleday/Dolphin, 1983); Jo Ann Smith, "Dancers Had a Ball at the 'Castle," Des Moines Times-News, March 13, 1985; Dave Marsh, Louie Louie: A History of The World's Most Famous Rock Song(Hyperion, 1993); Richard Kennedy & Grechen Schmidt, Looking Back, (City Currents, ca. 1998); Ernest Tubb, The Complete Live 1965 Show CD, Lost Gold Records, 1998; Pete Blecha Interviews with: Al Hendrix (1978-1994); Pat O'Day (1987-2002); Larry Coryell of The Checkers and The Dynamics (1984); Merrilee Rush of The Aztecs and The Statics (1987-2001); Ian Whitcomb (1995).

By Pete Blecha, May 24, 2002