Fronted by husband and wife duo Kim West (keys and vocals) and Ryan Devlin (guitar and vocals,) Smokey Brights is a rock band out of Seattle, Washington. The couple’s entrancing bond shines through in their deeply personal cowriting as well as their ecstatic live performances. West, a barred attorney, and Devlin, who has a background in booking, publishing and punk bands, met working summers at a pizza restaurant in college. They write about their transition from young friends to life partners in their beloved city, touring in a van during the Northwest’s notoriously grey winters, and being in love in a deeply uncertain world. West and Devlin’s songs are made eminently danceable by Nick Krivchenia (drums) and Luke Logan (bass.) Krivchenia, an Ohio native from a family of musicians, brings a soulful, classic groove to Smokeys’ sound. Logan, who grew up singing folk songs with his family in Kodiak, Alaska, provides melodic bass lines and a crucial third harmony to the band’s vocals. Known for their explosive live shows that immerse the listener in warm, harmony rich, arena rock anthems.

Seattle songwriter Debbie Miller is like a tantalizing book of short stories. You might find yourself laughing, then crying, then laughing again - sometimes all in the same song. Miller, who recently performed with Dave Matthews, has played prominent Northwest festivals like Timbrrr! and Upstream. She has also opened for the world famous von Trapp family, John Gorka, Lucy Kaplansky, and Kris Delmhorst. Miller’s most recent television appearance was on the acclaimed “Band in Seattle” in 2021. In 2018, Miller appeared on PBS’s “The Great American Read,” which highlighted her song, “Queen of Hearts.” Miller’s songs have also appeared on WNYC’s Freakonomics, TED-ED, and the New Yorker Radio Hour. But her dream is to write a Broadway musical, which she absolutely-freaking-will one day.

Born in Japan and raised in Seattle, Washington, Tomo Nakayama is an artist whose melodic, complex and emotionally compelling music has been praised by NPR, New York Times, and The Stranger. After two critically acclaimed indie-folk albums “Fog on the Lens” and “Pieces of Sky” (named "Best Folk Act" by Seattle Weekly), he surprised his fans by releasing the synthpop album "Melonday" (on Seattle label Porchlight Records). Co-produced by Yuuki Matthews (The Shins, Teardrops, Sufjan Stevens) and mastered by Dave Cooley (M83, Paramore, Tame Impala), “Melonday” was named one of the Top Albums of 2020 by Seattle Times, KEXP, and Seattle Met. and debuted at #1 on KEXP's NW Charts. He has toured across the US and Japan, sharing the stage with Cornelius, Wye Oak, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, Ben Gibbard, Damien Jurado, and Shugo Tokumaru. He has collaborated with Dave Matthews, Sera Cahoone, Jherek Bischoff, and Jeremy Enigk (Sunny Day Real Estate). An active, longtime member of the Seattle music and arts community, Tomo has also curated and produced numerous events for Forterra (Ampersand Live) and Town Hall, where he also served as Artist in Residence. He also composed music and appeared as an actor in the Lynn Shelton film “Touchy Feely” with Elliot Page and Rosemarie DeWitt.

Name a Seattle country band—any Seattle country band—and chances are that “Country” Dave Harmonson has likely played with it. He might even be an official member. He rattles off a few to me over a beer at Elliott Bay Brewery in Burien. “Cahalen Morrison and Country Hammer, Ganges River Band, Country Lips, Annie Ford Band, the Swearengens, Side Saddle, T & D Revue, Tequila Rose, Wes Jones Band, Papillion Saints, Zoe Muth . . . ” We meet in Burien because it’s halfway between my house and the airport, where Harmonson’s just wrapped up a gig for the Sea-Tac Airport Music Initiative, playing tunes for travelers passing through. He’s no stranger to this part of King County either, he tells me between sips of beer. He also plays “a little gig every now and then at C.C.’s [Lounge] here in Burien.” Harmonson, 63 as of a few weeks ago, actually lives in Ballard, the irrefutable capital of Seattle’s alt-country and roots scene, but folk and country music’s been in his blood since he was a boy, growing up in the songwriter-drenched state of Texas (see "Happy Hours"). A self-described “acoustic music nerd,” he moved to the Oregon coast when he was 5, went to high school in Tacoma, and shortly thereafter became involved in Tacoma’s underground folk and open-mike scenes. It was there that he met Dudley Hill, a founding member of gypsy-jazz group Pearl Django, at a coffee shop called Court C. “I remember seeing him play,” Harmonson says. “He was flat-picking bluegrass, and he was the best I’d ever seen.” He was hooked. “I saw people who really knew what they were doing, and I said, ‘I gotta start learning this.’ ” Harmonson proceeded to do just that, expanding on the guitar playing he learned from his sister on an acoustic. He soon became frustrated trying to play over noisy cafe crowds and went electric. “I decided to get a Telecaster,” he says. “They’re gonna hear me, goddamn it!” Harmonson made a living throughout the ’70s and ’80s with a slew of country groups that have all since disbanded—bands like Lance Romance, Stampede Pass, Shade Tree, and Road Apple that toured the country circuit throughout the Pacific Northwest into Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming. All told, Harmonson’s opened for the likes of Dwight Yoakam, Commander Cody, the Amazing Rhythm Aces, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Asleep at the Wheel, Mel Tillis, Mickey Gilley, Fred Eaglesmith, EmmyLou Harris, Flying Burrito Brothers, Vassar Clements Band, James McMurtry, and Justin Townes Earle. “I was working 51, 52 weeks a year,” he says. “Five or six nights a week. Once in about ’84 we did something like 60 days straight,” he says. Those years cemented his love of the guitar and the musician’s life. “I went 25 years without a day job,” he says. But then, when he had kids—two boys, both now grown, and both of whom play the bass—“I wound up driving a school bus for 15 years.” Harmonson returned to the country scene in 2006 with his first solo release, I’ll Have the Country Music Please, but things didn’t really take off again until he connected with Zoe Muth in 2010, while the singer was helping to ignite Seattle’s roots renaissance with her classic country sound. He toured with her around the globe before parting ways when she moved to Austin. Not only can you hear Harmonson’s long love of country music and the guitar on his upcoming release, Alive & Pickin', you can see it. He opens a copy of the CD to reveal the track listing and some photos. “That’s a six-string Fender lap steel,” he says, pointing to what looks like a plank of wood strung with six strings. There’s a similar looking instrument on legs. “My 10-string Sho-Bud pedal steel,” he says, pointing out its pedals and knee levers. Also pictured with Harmonson are a G&L ASAT electric, a Huss & Dalton acoustic, and a Carl Barney archtop. When asked to describe what he likes playing best, Harmonson is noncommittal. “I’d say I’m a guitar player who plays pedal steel,” he says. The songs—all covers of country classics, including Waylon Jennings’ “I’m a Rambling Man” and Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried”—are “kind of a legacy thing,” he says. “I’ve been doing [them] for over 30 years. Over the years I’ve learned hundreds of songs, and a bunch of them get left after you do them for a few years. These are the ones that have survived that I feel are important for me to play and I still enjoy doing them.” Harmonson enlisted the help of friends to flesh out the idea—among them local country crooner Davidson Hart Kingsbery, who designed the album art, and vocalist Andrea Peterman, who sang harmony. The rest is mostly just Harmonson and his song and guitar of choice. He dedicates the album to his friend, the late Eric Eshelman, who was a “huge influence on me” and “ ‘made’ me listen to Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and much more.” “I’m still alive and pickin’, and I still love it!” he proclaims on the liner notes. “It only took me 40 years to get here,” he adds, shortly before he leaves our meeting—for a gig, of course.

With music described as “gritty and soulful, raucous and beautiful,” Seattle singer-songwriter Shelby Earl was named by NPR/LA Times music critic Ann Powers as her "new favorite songwriter" (see below for full letter), and her solo debut album, Burn the Boats (produced by John Roderick of the Long Winters, out on Local 638 Records) was named the "#1 Outstanding 2011 Album You Might Have Missed" by Amazon.com. She has since garnered praise from the likes of Rolling Stone, Paste Magazine, NPR, KEXP, No Depression, American Songwriter and many more. Earl’s sophomore album Swift Arrows (produced by Damien Jurado), was released in late-2013 to further critical acclaim, and in the words of Benjamin Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie/Postal Service) it “proves [Shelby] has the most heartbreakingly beautiful voice in Seattle.”