Captain
Jack
Corky Corkran
Larry Coryell
The
Electrics
Bill
Franklin
George Griffin
His
Majesties Shorts
Jr.
Cadillac
The
Kingsmen
Mike Mandell
The
Nitemates
Ovation
Jim
Brady and the Sonics
Merrilee
and the Turnabouts
Others?
The Embers, West Seattle: Virtually every top Northwest rock act of the late1960’s - 1970’s played this great club on Harbor Avenue.
Mike McElhoe, December 2005Although it sounds like a hotspot, The Embers was cool. Hollywood couldn't dream up a better setting for a nightclub, on the edge of Elliott Bay reflecting the pinnacled skyline downtown.
There was a canopy over the sidewalk, torches, a maitre d'.
The Embers opened in 1964 at 1317 Harbor Ave. S.W. It offered drinks by the fireplace, dining, dancing and live jazz.
Bill Cosby and Robert Culp went there. So did Quincy Jones and West Seattle's own Dyan Cannon. But musicians were the real stars at The Embers. Guys like George Griffin, Corky Corkran, Bill Franklin and Mike Mandell performed there.
"(Guitarist) Larry Coryell played The Embers for six months. Two weeks later he was on 'Ed Sullivan,'" said Kerry Kinsey, owner of the popular jazz club.
As the '60s wound down, The Embers shifted its focus to rock 'n' roll. Entertainers like the Kingsmen, Junior Cadillac and Merrilee Rush performed there.
A reunion of "Embers Members" was held at the West Seattle Eagles lodge on August 4.
David Enroth, a former employee and fan of The Embers, was reminiscing earlier this summer with friends about the nightclub. Then the Admiral Benbow Inn closed abruptly with the death of owner Neysa Longmire in late May.
Enroth attended Longmire's memorial service, where he talked over old times with another Embers' alum, Red James. Both could feel the past slipping away so, while still at the memorial for Neysa Longmire, they decided to organize an Embers reunion.
"There was not another place in West Seattle that was more famous than The Embers," Enroth said.
The spark for The Embers actually came from another West Seattle establishment called The Happy Hour. It opened in 1960 in the Admiral District, where TNT's Place is today. It too was owned by Kerry Kinsey, along with his father, Ken.
"The Hour," as it was affectionately known, was a jazz hangout. Charlie Byrd, Woody Woodhouse, Mike Mandell and Stan Getz all jammed there. But The Hour was more of a sports bar than a jazz venue, Kinsey said.
"I sponsored every sport but tiddlywinks really," he chuckled.
One Happy Hour team came within a single run of reaching the World Series of Softball in Stamford, Conn.
Kinsey always wanted to own a jazz club. He grew up in Tacoma and started high school at Stadium High. Then his dad moved the family to West Seattle, where he had a vending-machine business. Kerry enrolled at West Seattle High School and graduated in 1950.
"I grew up with the big bands in the '40s," Kinsey said. "That's really what attracted me to it. Music has an effect on you if you have any kind of soul at all."
The nightclub scene came into being partly due to economics, he said.
"The expense of traveling with a 14-, 16-, 18-piece band got too high," Kinsey said. "Then the halls went away."
Many of the auditoriums and theaters where big bands performed were demolished or remodeled into large retail stores.
In the 1950s, combos of three or four musicians started playing jazz together in smaller, more intimate venues. That's also when rock 'n' roll started and its groups had just three or four musicians too, Kinsey pointed out.
He opened The Embers in a building that was constructed in 1907. It once housed a tavern called the West Seattle Inn. There were also four apartments on the second floor.
"It was a pretty active jazz club," said Gary Bannister, who does the booking at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley in Belltown. Other Seattle jazz clubs popular at the time were The Langelin, Pete's Poop Deck, The Penthouse and the College Inn Pub.
"The Embers was the only jazz club in West Seattle and probably the only one not downtown or in the University District," Bannister said.
Much of the reason for the demise of The Embers was the construction of Don Armeni boat ramp and its big parking lot across the street, Kinsey said. That was where Embers' customers used to park.
The wooden building where The Embers once glowed still stands on Harbor Avenue. The brownish-gray structure is but a sagging semblance of its former glory. Gravity and rain have eroded the bottoms of the white-paint letters that spell "Embers."
"It gave people a place where a guy could bring his girlfriend, they could enjoy music, dance, see name entertainment," Kinsey said. "There was nothing like that in West Seattle."
Tim St. Clair, West Seattle Herald-News, 2002
Web Slave's Note: The building that once house The Embers was reported as demolished in about early 2003
Sammy Carlson, December 2006
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Last Update: 17 December 2006
Credits:
Craig Brandt, Mike McElhoe, Tim
St. Clair, David Enroth