Music of Seattle  Seattle is the largest city in the U.S. state of Washington and has long played a major role in the state's musical culture, popularizing genres of alternative rock such as grunge and being the origin of major bands like Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. The city remains home to several influential bands, labels, and venues. Seattle's music history begins in the mid-19th century, when the first European settlers arrived. In 1909, amidst the boosterism engendered by the city's first world's fair, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, the Seattle City Council adopted "Seattle, the Peerless City" (words by Arthur O. Dillon; music by Glenn W. Ashley) as Seattle's official song. By the early 20th century, Seattle had an upper-class society that established an urban culture, which included music; the city's high culture was, however, shadowed by that of San Francisco, which was then the major cultural center of the West Coast. Seattle also became an important stop for vaudeville tours, put on by large chains like Pantages and Considine; the city also produced a major attraction in the exotic dancer Gypsy Rose Lee. By the 1920s, Seattle had also come to support a politically radical American folk scene, inspired in part by several lengthy stays in the region by folk singer Woody Guthrie; Seattle's folk performers included Ivar Haglund, who later founded a chain of successful seafood restaurants. The Seattle jazz scene included Jelly Roll Morton for several years in the early part of the century, as well as Vic Meyers, a local performer and nightclub owner who became Lieutenant Governor in 1932. Russell "Noodles" Smith, founder of the Dumas Club and the Entertainers Club, was another important name in the Seattle Jazz scene of the day. Early musical establishments included the art school founded by Nellie Cornish, which saw residencies from both John Cage and Martha Graham, and the Seattle Symphony, which became embroiled in a controversy in the early 1940s when British conductor Thomas Beecham either described Seattle as a "cultural dustbin" or warned that it could become one. World War II brought a "flourishing" vice scene, where "booze, gambling and prostitution" were unchecked by "paid-off cops". The Showbox Ballroom was a center for these activities; it was open twenty-four hours a day, geared towards active members of the military, featuring popular performers like the racy Gypsy Rose Lee.