50 Most Influential Musicians

Photo: Courtesy Baby Gramps

Baby Gramps

He’s been a Seattle institution since the 1960s. Behind a beard that may not have been trimmed since the Nixon administration hides one of the most perceptive musicians in town. Look around at any other singer’s Seattle gig, and you’re likely to catch him absorbing it all like a sponge. Armed with a National steel guitar, Baby Gramps is a mixture of everybody he’s ever seen or heard filtered through a somewhat twisted musical brain into a singing voice that sounds like the love child of Louis Armstrong and Walter Brennan. Gramps’s amazing repertoire includes Fats Waller standards, Bob Dylan favorites, material from dusty old 1920s 78rpm records, and lately, his variations on sea chanteys (he recently toured England and appeared on Late Night with David Letterman to promote a CD—made with Bono, Lucinda Williams, and Johnny Depp, among others—inspired by Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movies). Add his own songs, stories, and word games to the mix, and it’s no surprise that Gramps’s fans are a disparate lot; he’s as much at home playing a kids’ concert as he is opening for Phish or the Neville Brothers. —John Ross

Because of him… Today’s Seattle audiences know about old blues and novelty songs that the rest of the world has mostly forgotten.
Now hear this: Gramps’s Same Ol’ Timeously CD converts the kiddie tune “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” into a wild jug band epic complete with kazoos.

Alan Bishop

Had he been content just playing bass for one of history’s most theatrical, unpredictable art-punk ensembles, Bishop would still have left generations of audiophiles happily scratching their heads. But his role in enigmatic Arizona transplant band the Sun City Girls wasn’t enough. In 1983 a two-month visit to Morocco prompted Bishop to rescue field recordings and discover rural grooves from around the globe, particularly Southeast Asia and the Arab world. With his brother, Richard, and Hisham Mayet he founded Sublime Frequencies, the least fussy world-music label ever: They get tips from foreign taxi drivers about “new” talents; snippets of radio broadcasts—static, hiss, and all—are woven into full-length albums; and even the latest LPs have pops and crackles. Most of the titles in Sublime’s catalog are only pressed in limited editions, and quickly go out of print; if you see a copy of Thai Pop Spectacular in the racks, buy it now and worry about your bank balance later—if you can stop go-go dancing long enough. —Kurt B. Reighley

Because of him… Aficionados with a limited travel budget own eclectic music from every remote corner of the planet.
Now hear this: The weirdest instrumental not featured in a classic Looney Tunes clip? S. Hazarasingh playing lead on “Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu” on the Sublime Frequencies compilation Bollywood Steel Guitar.

Photo: Jasper Coolidge

Carissa’s Wierd

Newton’s third law says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and in the Seattle music scene of the late ’90s and early twenty-first century, Carissa’s Wierd (the misspelling is intentional) offered solid proof. Well, semisolid: Their intricately arranged chamber rock was so painfully hushed it sometimes threatened to dissolve on the spot. But their style contrasted sharply with the era’s dominant garage punk bands. Arizona expatriates Jenn Ghetto and Mat Brooke founded Carissa’s Wierd in 1995 and vexed concert sound engineers around the country for eight years with their muted dynamics and meticulous attention to detail. They released a handful of albums and earned a rabid fan base, yet never achieved anything approaching commercial success…until they went their separate ways. Members of three acts on the current Sub Pop roster—the similarly somber Band of Horses, Grand Archives, and Sera Cahoone—played in Carissa’s Wierd, while Ghetto went on to record under the moniker S for local label Suicide Squeeze. —KBR

Because of them… Seattle rock learned to bury its sound and fury in a quieter alternative.
Now hear this: Alas, most of their discography is currently out of print, save the superlative, Chris Walla–produced Songs About Leaving from 2002.

Norm Bobrow

Like others on this list, Bobrow’s experience as a musician led to a greater contribution guiding others to experience music. He played percussion and sang with his own big band, but it was as an impresario throughout the 1940s and ’50s that he began to make his mark. Bobrow brought many of the greatest names in jazz to the Northwest—Charlie Parker, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, and Ella Fitzgerald were just a few of the performers who played under the “Norm Bobrow presents…” banner. He also elevated the early careers of local artists such as Ernestine Anderson, providing work and visibility beyond the Jackson Street clubs and lounges. Jazz, Bobrow insisted, deserved to be revered as high art. He backed that belief up by overseeing the West Coast’s first “formal” jazz concert in 1940 at downtown Seattle’s now long-gone Metropolitan Theatre; Fats Waller, thanks to Bobrow, played the Moore in 1941. Setting the model that rock promoters would later follow, Bobrow used his radio shows on KING and KRSC to publicize his concerts. He continued playing jazz on Seattle radio into the 1990s and passed away last spring—bequeathing to the city a rich music it might not otherwise have had the pleasure of enjoying on such a broad scale. —JR

Because of him… Seattle became a consistent stop on West Coast jazz tours, exposing the city’s jazz musicians and enthusiasts to many of the biggest names in the business.
Now hear this: Bobrow’s 1946 vocals on “Darktown Strutter’s Ball” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” for bandleader Gaylord Jones were the first releases on Seattle’s Linden record label.

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Published: December 2008