Banel: Seattleites looked to Patrick MacDonald for musical cues for decades

Retired Seattle Times’ music writer and critic Patrick MacDonald has died, according to a loving tribute written by Corbin Reiff.

“MacDonald was a groundbreaker in his field as one of the very early daily news rock music writers in the United States,” Reiff wrote in his Times story covering MacDonald’s life and career. “He was someone who kept his ear to the ground and was eager to herald rising local artists.”

In the glory days of live music from the 1970s to the 2000s, as rock and roll became rock, and punk and new wave crested and morphed into “alternative,” MacDonald was one of the few trusted authorities on what was good and what was bad, sonically-speaking and performance wise.

For decades, countless aficionados of live concerts held at bars, theatres and arenas looked to MacDonald’s review in the next day’s paper before they knew for sure that what they had seen and heard was worth, or not worth, the price of admission.

Before the web and social media — and before everyone became a critic with a platform –Patrick MacDonald was a trusted observer of the local and national scene whose columns gave even those who rarely ventured out some idea of what was happening in smoky barrooms and acoustically challenging venues like the Kingdome and what was then the Seattle Center Coliseum.

Patrick MacDonald was 79 years old.

Jimi Hendrix, shown performing at Sicks Stadium in 1970, was one of the local artists who Patrick MacDonald wrote about during his long career with The Seattle Times. (Photo courtesy of MOHAI via Feliks Banel.)

You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks. You can also follow Feliks on X.

Follow @https://twitter.com/feliksbanel