Nora Michaels and Maggie Bloodstone at Wildrose, Seattle WA, August 20, c. 1980

This poster advertisers a performance by local Blues singer Nora Michaels with actress and performer Maggie Bloodstone, a regular at the Wildrose, Seattle’s only lesbian bar, sometime in the 1980s. 

Nora Michaels (b. 1947), also known in Seattle as the Blues Chanteuse, is a Jazz and Blues singer and cabaret performer. She has been performing in the Northwest and in blues festivals and venues around the world for over 50 years and is well known for her Edith Piaf tribute show. She performed in the late 1980s and early 1990s with Seattle Women in Rhythm and Blues, a Northwest supergroup with a rotating lineup founded by Kathy Hart (b. unknown). She has also sung with Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Michaels released the EP Blue Lullaby to celebrate her 71st birthday in 2018. 

Maggie Bloodstone (b. unknown) is the advertising manager and a long-time writer at Seattle Gay News, one of the largest LGBTQ newspapers in the world. She has performed in the Seattle Fringe Theatre Festival and at other venues around the Northwest. A longtime patron of the Wildrose in Capitol Hill, she first went to the bar for its open mic nights in 1986 and at one point hosted a “Red Rag” party to celebrate menopause. 

The Wildrose is one of the oldest lesbian bars on the West Coast, and now the only one north of Los Angeles. Located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood at 1021 E Pike, five women opened the doors of the Wildrose on New Year's Eve, 1984, and Bryher Herak (b. unknown) was soon running the bar by herself. Martha Manning became a bartender at the Wildrose in 1997 after moving from the East Coast, and she purchased the bar with her coworkers in 2000, one of whom Shelley Brothers bought out in 2002, and the last of which Manning and Brothers bought out together to become co-owners in 2005. The bar was originally only open to women, but since the two took over the ownership of the Wildrose, it has been open to all. Over the years, the Wildrose has hosted DJs and musicians from across the US, with an emphasis on local and LGBTQIA+ artists. Inside the bar there is a rose mural, painted by local artist Takiyah Ward (b. unknown).