Harold Weeks’ name has nearly been lost to history—but Town Hall is here to reclaim it. Weeks (1893-1967) was a Seattle songwriter and a church leader. He was a trustee for Fourth Church of Christ, Scientist. That church building just so happens to be the one Town Hall owns and that we’ve been doing a massive renovation on. We’re set to re-open the historic structure in March 2019.
The building was constructed in two stages between 1916-1922, at the peak of the Christian Science movement. Built in the Roman Revival style by Portland architect George Foote Dunham, it has a large portico with six two-story columns fronting Eighth Avenue, a central dome with an oculus, large art-glass windows, and elaborate window treatments with pilasters and a balcony on the Seneca side.
It was this building that Harold Weeks would attend on Sunday mornings. And it was this time, 1916-1922, that ragtime music was all the rage across the nation. Weeks wrote plenty of ragtime ditties during this time. In fact, he’s mentioned several times in the original Town Crier, where Town Hall’s blog takes its name. In the August 14, 1915 edition it’s noted, “Harold Weeks of this city is the composer of words and music of ‘My Honolulu Bride,’ and Alec M. Malin another of our residents, has written a dance tune called ‘The Alaska Rag.’ This blending of southern seas and northern snows should result in an Elliott Bay temperature.”
In the February 12, 1916 edition the writers praise Weeks’ new tune ‘No Fair Falling in Love,’ saying, “Mr. Weeks is certainly coming to the front as a composer of popular music.” By November 26, 1921, Weeks’ popularity is cemented. In an ad for Youngstrom & Nelson’s new modern music shop, they tout their “complete line of Columbia Records and Harold Weeks’ well-known line of Popular Sheet Music.”
One particularly popular piece of music was his tune ‘Seattle Town’ which Weeks wrote around the time the art glass windows were being installed in the Fourth Church building. President Harding was coming to town with the US Navy Fleet, and Mr. Weeks wrote this piece with a swell of civic pride for Seattle. In the September 1, 1923 edition of the Town Crier, they mention “Tiny Burnett and his men furnished an acceptable music program headed by ‘Seattle Town,’ Harold Weeks’ latest.”
Weeks’ “Fuzzy Wuzzy Bird” performed by the Al Burt Dance Orchestra (1922)
Aside from his activities as a songwriter and church leader, Weeks was associated with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; Christian Science Publishing Society; and the National Temperance League. He died in 1967. His correspondence, writings, sheet music, scrapbook, and phonograph records are held at the University of Washington’s Special Collections library. Some of the sheet music they own includes such tunes as “Fuzzy Wuzzy Bird,” “My Kandy Girl in Old Ceylon,” Moonlight Makes Me Think of You,” “Mew-Mew Rag,” “Hindustan,” “Love’s Canoe,” and of course “Seattle Town.”
You can listen to more of Weeks music here.
