In the mid-1950s, Seattle was host to the little-known music recording legacy of Jay F. "Joe" Boles. A fraction of his discography includes The Ventures, The Wailers, Cab Calloway, Big Jay McNeely, Buck Owens, The Fleetwoods, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby Darin, Elmer Gill, The Frantics, Dave Lewis, Pat Suzuki, and Duke Ellington. But how he got there has a unique story.
Seagulls barking, steam whistles, and trains rolling over rickety wood piling. People yelling instructions and warnings to trucks backing up. Below, the water laps quietly. The trains nearby routinely blast their air horns at 120 dB. The smell of sawdust, fish, the exhaust of burnt diesel, and dented pots full of clam chowder. Thousands of sailors roam around on shore leave. Longshoremen unload cargo ships from Japan and Taiwan. Bales of bananas are pried loose from deep in a ship's hold, lifted with cranes onto trucks or huge carts, and then rolled to nearby wharves for immediate triage and redistribution.
Joe Boles was in the center of all this as co-owner of Seattle Harbor Water Tours. His 50-foot sightseeing boats were docked at Pier 54, next to Ivar's Acres of Clams and Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. It was not long after WWII, and everyone came to the Seattle waterfront. Joe did pretty well with the tours, and he wanted to capture the excitement by replaying sounds for people who weren't there. Ampex had recently hit their stride with accessible (about the price of a new car, that is) tape recorders. The Ampex 350 wasn't exactly "portable," but it was "transportable." Joe had plenty of help from enthusiasts who sensed excitement in what he was doing. That's good, because a mono 350 and transport, in their respective black fiber road cases, weighed over 100 pounds. Joe immediately set about recording his world of the waterfront. When the center of the city's commerce transitioned into jet planes, Joe made the first civilian recording of a Dash 80, a prototype of the Boeing 707, taking off from Renton. The audible souvenirs of the waterfront apparently never happened, but something else did. There was another scene happening in Seattle; one that was in enclosed, curated spaces.
"The rest of Seattle was out in their boats, and we were inside this dark tavern on a sunny afternoon, listening to jazz. We felt like we knew about something everyone else had missed." Jerry Rosen immortalizing the Pioner Square tavern, Pete's Poop Deck, in the book, Jackson Street After Hours: The Roots of Jazz in Seattle, by Paul de Barros. Joe Boles had begun recording and documenting Seattle's emerging jazz, blues, and R&B scene – and its eventual transition into rock 'n' roll. He would hide his newly-acquired Neumann U 47 into a fold in the stage curtains, but sometimes Joe's pirate missions were foiled. Once, a famous big band discovered Joe's hidden microphone before a performance. Joe was ordered to remove the mic. Instead of doing it himself, he sent a young assistant onstage to do the deed; a humiliating experience related by that assistant, Jim Hartt, 50 years later.* Joe was soon everywhere. One of those places was the Birdland club on Madison Ave. Cultures blended here to create Seattle's own version of rock 'n' roll, best exemplified by the Dave Lewis Combo. A young Jimi Hendrix played at these shows. One night, Jimi's teenage luck ran out: his guitar disappeared – he'd left it face down on the floor backstage.
Peter Blecha relayed a story to me from our mutual friend Glenn D. White [Tape Op #39]. Joe was driving home from a remote recording gig when he was stopped by a State Patrol officer. The officer noticed tape reels and tape recorders on the back seat. He told Joe: "Is that tape recording equipment? We must be kindred spirits, because I happened to be recording you too! You were driving over the speed limit. I would like to put you on our new radio show, This Could Be You!" Joe turned white. **
One night Joe drove south to Des Moines, WA, and recorded At the Castle for The Fabulous Wailers. But as Joe's chops got sharper, he took it to the next level – it was time for studio recordings. Joe and his wife, Virginia, bought a bigger home in West Seattle and dedicated the lower area of the home (it was on a slope) to his work, and a studio space for J. F. Boles Custom Recordings was born. “Come Softly to Me” by The Fleetwoods was recorded there, with Bonnie Guitar helping to produce it. The Ventures tracked “Walk, Don’t Run” with Joe and had a hit. “There is Something on Your Mind” was an R&B smash for Big Jay McNeely. Joe's studio became a place many musicians wanted to be part of. Rick Chinn remembers, "People wanted to find a way to get into his circle. He was known as a kind of hold-your-cards-close kind of guy."***
Wally Heider came up several times from Sheridan, Oregon, to watch Joe – to glean something from Joe's magic rituals. But as more folks entered the Seattle recording scene, people showed up with better business acumen and stronger partnerships. Joe's eccentric ways found less favor in the hustling and dealing inherent to the recording marketplace. In the hot summer of 1962, Joe's last recording was a session for Tiny Tony and the Statics' "Hey Mrs. Jones," with singer/keyboardist Merrilee Rush. Later that summer the song took off, but Joe was gone by then. On the night of July 18, Joe had a heart attack and passed away. He was only 58. Wally Heider drove up to Seattle and bought Joe's remaining gear from his widow, Virginia. Wally had left Sheridan, Oregon, and was in Los Angeles making his name. Did Bill Putnam and Wally pair Joe's Ampex 350s with more channels of Ampex? Did these electronics record Jefferson Airplane? Crosby, Stills & Nash? The Band of Gypsys? Did they still have grainy, salty residue in their greasy corners, underneath the 12AX7 tubes? Maybe you, dear reader, might even own one of Joe's 350s?
