Bessie Smith Strut returning with changes
New Bessie Smith Cultural Center Director Dionne Jennings wants everybody to know one thing: “The Bessie Smith Strut will be back.”
Jennings said at a news conference Tuesday at The Bessie, as the center has come to be known, that there was some question as to the future of the annual event after gate and concession money went missing after last year’s Strut. More than $42,500 was stolen from a desk drawer after the event, and Torrey Hines, a worker at the facility, later admitted taking the money and eventually returned $39,921. Employees at the center originally reported that almost $89,000 had been taken.
Director Rose Martin left the center in October and was replaced by Jennings in January.
Friends of the Festival will have a greater role in the Strut this year, Jennings said. Friends produces the Riverbend Festival and has always partnered with
the cultural center on the Strut, but in recent years has done little more than provide staging and book the musical acts.
This year, Friends will handle the bulk of the Strut’s production work, including wristbands, beer sales, volunteer coordination and back- office administration.
“Really, they do such a great job with Riverbend and are so successful at that that we thought they were the best partners to work with and make sure that we pull something off just as successfully as they do,” Jennings said.
Since taking the job in January, Jennings has ordered a full audit into the facility and its practices and reached out to Friends of the Festival Executive Director Chip Baker for help in making sure this year’s Strut goes smoothly.
“One of the big differences this year obviously is Dionne,” Baker said.
“She’s huge. She cooperates with us tremendously. We offer business practices, our business practices, and she gladly accepted — our cash process, our reconciliation process, all our log sheets, all the things we use to track business processes. That was, for us, a real coup. It shows that she understands; she gets it. That’s important for us. She’s tremendously fun to work with.”
The Bessie Smith Strut, which has been held on the Monday night during the Riverbend Festival almost since that event’s beginning, will take place June 8 along Martin Luther King Boulevard as it has in the past, albeit with extended hours. Gates will open at 4: 30 and the music will play until 11 p.m.
It again will be a gated, ticketed event as it has been since 2012, Jennings said. Admission will be $ 10 for all patrons. Last year, festival attendees with a wristband got a 50 percent discount.
Jennings said the center will fund the event, in part with grants it has received, and that vendors for the Strut will be many of the same vendors that have worked with The Bessie over the last years.
“We’re working with merchants on the street to strengthen that as well,” she said.
Performers for the event will be Deacon Bluz, Lil’ Ed & The Blues Imperials, Davina & The Vagabonds, Jarekus Singleton, DieDra and an as-yet-undetermined sixth artist.
Both Jennings and Baker expressed enthusiasm for the future of the Strut, often billed as the city’s largest block party and featuring live music and food along what was once the city’s most vibrant musical part of town.
Both the strut and the center are named for legendary singer and “Empress of the Blues” Bessie Smith, who was raised as a child in Chattanooga and performed at various stages of her career along “The Big Nine,” as Ninth Street, which became Martin Luther King Boulevard, was known.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6354.