I’ve always been intrigued by the South and frankly, while I’ve lived in Florida, been to New Orleans, Austin and Atlanta dozens of times, my experience with Southern states has been minimal.
I first fell in love with Tennessee during a cross country trip last year so I was excited about the opportunity to go hang gliding and take in the music scene in Chattanooga this past June, a new city stop for me.
Swing music lovers will know Chattanooga from the song it made famous. For years, my legs and feet went into smooth flowing swing outs to the Chattanooga Choo Choo on hard wooden floors from Catalina Island and Mexico in the west and Boston and New York in the east to dance camps in London and Paris across the pond. Its charming lyrics and rhythms always brought a smile and transformed my mood regardless of where in the world my toes were tapping and hips were swaying.
Rewind the clock to the 1940’s and 1950’s at a time in Chattanooga’s Big 9 District when locals were making music. The main drag was loaded with bars that bore names like White Elephant Saloon and many of these buildings are where music greats such as Bessie Smith and Roland Hayes once played. For those not familiar with Bessie Smith, she was born in Chattanooga, grew up playing on the city’s streets and is historically known as the “Empress of the Blues.”
In the early days, the area had worker housing and simple bungalows, but it also provided stately houses for prominent citizens. It is the only remaining cohesive area historically associated with Chattanooga African Americans. Today, it’s called the MLK historic district and it borders the city’s central business district, occupying roughly five blocks between Houston and University streets. Other prominent African American figures from that time included William “Uncle Bill” Lewis, Randolph Miller and G. W. Franklin. While Memphis, Nashville and Bristol can take the bulk of the credit for changing the face of American music, it doesn’t mean that other southern towns and cities like Chattanooga weren’t contributing voices and talent. Of course, Bristol is best known for being the site of the first commercial recordings of country music with Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, and is also the birthplace of Tennessee Ernie Ford. Nashville is home to the Grand Ole Opry which we had an opportunity to experience last year and the very impressive Country Music Hall of Fame.
This era obviously influenced the musical talents coming out of Chattanooga. In addition to Bessie Smith, double bassist Jimmy Blanton, member of Duke Ellington’s band, jazz blues pianist Lovie Austin, trumpeter and singer Valaida Snow, multi-instrumentalist and composer Yusef Lateef, and saxophonist Bennie Wallace were also born in Chattanooga. It got its biggest plug in the 1941 big band swing song “Chattanooga Choo Choo” which is still popular today among my swing dancing crowd.
While I sadly didn’t get a Big Band fix while I was there, I did get a taste of banjo player Matt Downer who was part of the Rock City Music weekends, which is particularly popular among families in the summer. Matt has an old world style to his banjo playing and also plays fiddle and guitar as well.