Published all the way back in February, PETER BLECHA’s Stomp and Shout: R&B and the Origins of Northwest Rock and Roll is a captivating read that any fan – or nascent scholar – of the region’s popular music history should lay their eyes on. I certainly have no excuses for taking this long to read and review it.
Blecha himself already has a track record of knowing what he’s talking about when it comes to Northwest Rock. He has written numerous articles on it for the website HistoryLink.org, wrote a long-running column in Seattle’s The Rocket* called “Northwest Music Archives,” and has authored a handful of great books – including Sonic Boom: The History of Northwest Rock, from “Louie Louie” to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Backbeat Books, 2009). With Stomp and Shout it was one of Peter’s goals to expand greatly on what he was only able to surface-scrape in Sonic Boom, which he most certainly does. This book, though, goes back much further in time, beginning roughly in the 1940s (with flashbacks to earlier times when necessary) and wrapping up at the dawn of the ’70s. Did you know that both Ray Charles AND Quincy Jones got their start in Seattle? Or the convoluted story of how “Louie Louie” became so ubiquitous in the Pacific Northwest? How about that Jimi Hendrix once spelled his name the same way most people spell “Jimmy”? (Okay, I’ll bet you suspected that.)
What Blecha achieves most successfully in this book is communicating the raw, visceral excitement Northwest musicians craved and delivered to their ravenous audiences. If you think listening to the Sonics today is a thrill, you will absolutely go ape over how it must have been at one of their raucous shows in 1966! And they aren’t the only band detailed in this book. Besides the dozens of musicians and groups he goes in depth on, he also names a thousand more. With The Kingsmen, The Ventures, The Wailers, Sonics, Merrilee Rush, Paul Revere & The Raiders, and on and on, you’d think he couldn’t have missed one. (I therefore have to assume the reason The Bandits from Mercer Island aren’t covered is because, aside from their real cool version of “Little Sally Walker” [released in ’65 on Jerden], that they recorded nothing else worthy of noting.) Anyway… If you want to know who the bands were, who the local DJs, promoters and record label owners were, and the way things were way back when, it’s all here for ya.
Stomp and Shout may very well go down as the last word on the primal music that oozed out of the Pacific Northwest’s primordial muck, covering the world in some of the most despicable, evil, exciting music ever perpetrated. Peter Blecha is probably the only person who could have written the story. Here it is – have at it. – Marsh Gooch
4/5 (University of Washington Press, 2023)
*(FULL TRANSPARENCY DEPT.: Pete and I both wrote for The Rocket, and we worked for the same great guy, Robert Jenniker, back in the late ’80s via Park Avenue Records. RIP, Bob.)
NuDisc 