Kerry Kinsey, Embers owner, dies at 72
Jazz pianist Mike Mandel jammed there. The Kingsmen rocked there. Quincy Jones frequented the place. And Bill Cosby and other celebrities dropped by when they were in town.
The little tavern that became a major player in Seattle's music scene during the 1960s and mid-1970s was the brainchild of Mr. Kinsey, a jazz fanatic who wanted this city to fall in love with music.
A memorial service for Mr. Kinsey will be July 15 at the West Seattle Golf Course, 4470 35th Ave. S.W., at 5:30 p.m. Mr. Kinsey died of heart failure on May 31. He was 72.
"If you were anywhere close to Seattle during that era, you knew about the Embers," said David Enroth, a friend who was an employee at the tavern in 1969. "It was one of the hottest places in town. There was never a place more famous in West Seattle than the Embers."
The Embers, said several former workers there, became everything that Mr. Kinsey had envisioned since he was a boy who played his 78s on a hand-cranked Victrola in an upstairs bedroom in Tacoma.
Mr. Kinsey was born on Sept. 26, 1931, in Roslyn, Kittitas County, to Ken and Frances Kinsey.
A 1950 graduate of West Seattle High School, Mr. Kinsey went on to spend his days working for Boeing's test-flight department and his nights running the Happy Hour Tavern on Southwest Admiral Way, his first business venture, in 1960.
The young entrepreneur thought Seattle was ready for a more ambitious jazz venue, and the tavern became a favorite hangout for jazz musicians. Among the stars to jam there were Charlie Byrd, Stan Getz and Woody Woodhouse.
In 1964, Mr. Kinsey renovated another bar into the Embers. Jazz musicians such as Larry Coryell made it a place to be.
Lines formed outside the bar, said Red James, who worked at the Embers.
By the 1970s, Mr. Kinsey was focusing more on rock 'n' roll, with acts such as Jim Brady & the Sonics and Merrilee Rush.
The success allowed Mr. Kinsey to quit his Boeing job. Often he could be found at the Embers, usually dressed in a white turtleneck and an Arnold Palmer-type sweater, smoking a cigarette and nursing a beer, Enroth said.
"He looked a lot like John Forsythe," Enroth said. "He was also quite the lady's man."
Mr. Kinsey never married.
He sold the Embers in 1979 and retired a few years later, living in Scottsdale, Ariz., and spending summers at his West Seattle home, his friends said. The Embers has since been demolished.
Mr. Kinsey is survived by his brother, Bill Kinsey, and his sister-in-law, Bertha Kinsey, of Tacoma.
Tan Vinh: 206-515-5656 or tvinh@seattletimes.com