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Spring 2024

Musicians

Edgewater Hotel
Spring 2023

The Edgewater Hotel: Legend of the Sound

The Edgewater Hotel in Seattle hosted rock and roll royalty from the Beatle to Led Zeppelin and Nirvana. Students from Washington State University Everett pulled together photos and stories to share that incredible musical history.

Read more in “Encoring Seattle’s Edge.”

 

Produced by the Edgewater Hotel, with material gathered by WSU students

 

Stories from the Edgewater

History and legends at the Edgewater. Here’s a sample:

The Beatles

In 1964, at the height of Beatlemania, few hotels would host the Fab 4. During their world tour, however, The Edgewater welcomed them. An ambulance was used to … » More …

Fred Kamaka (left) with his brother Sam Kamaka Jr. Photo Tommy Shih
Spring 2017

Sweet strumming

Leaning back against a wall mounted with a variety of ukuleles, Fred Kamaka begins the story of his family’s 100-year-old ukulele business for a tour group at the factory in Honolulu.

“To be cool in the ’20s, you needed to have a coonskin cap and a uke in hand,” he says, “So my father started making ukuleles.”

A spry 91-year-old, Fred sprinkles the history with dry jokes, and periodically pulls down one of the ukuleles to musically punctuate a point.

His father, professional musician Samuel Kamaka Sr., traveled to New York and Europe and learned the luthier’s art before he returned to Hawai‘i and began … » More …