New M.L.King mural depicts heyday of music on 9th Street

photo The mural "Big 9 Legends," recalling the musical heritage of Ninth Street, adorns the Live and Let Live Barbershop on M.L. King Boulevard.

Musicians from the heyday of the Big 9 are playing again on the west side of the Live and Let Live Barbershop on M.L. King Boulevard.

Thanks to a project engineered by Mark Making and being completed in cooperation with the Partnership for Families, Children and Adults and Children's Home/Chambliss Shelter, a mural depicting artists from the former jazz and blues hub once called Ninth Street has been installed on the side of the red brick building.

The project was ambitious, said Frances McDonald, founder and executive director of Mark Making, a collaborative dedicated to creating public art.

"It's a process we've never done or anybody else has ever done," he said.

Today, larger-than-life musicians such as Bessie Smith, Frazier Benefield, Mary Bessie Brown, Dorothy Courtney, Cortez Greer, Tiny Kennedy, Wilfred Middlebrooks, William Price, Johnny Schreane, Willie "Papa" Stubb and Rick Upshaw sing or play instruments in a club setting. The mural measures 60 feet by 18 feet and is titled "Big 9 Legends."

McDonald said the idea for the work began about a year ago when the barbershop wall, the area's musical history and a desire to work with teens were the only variables in play.

Every succeeding step, she said, was taken in accordance with what M.L. King residents said they needed and what the partners could do.

"We don't breathe without talking to the neighborhood," she said. "We work with what comes down the pike. We're all about doing our best to make our partners happy."

The physical process began, according to McDonald, by surveying the MLK neighborhood for input on musicians to feature and then narrowing the 50 to 60 responses with the help of a team of musical historians.

"Ask anybody their ideas [of] who was important," she said, "and you get a myriad of answers. We did not grow up here, so we did not want to make that call."

Dr. Clark White, a professor in the Sociology, Anthropology and Geography Department at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and William Price, a bassist and a member of bands who played the area, served as the historians.

Next, teenagers from the Partnership for Families, Children and Adults and the Children's Home/Chambliss Shelter adopted one of the musicians, researched their backgrounds and adjusted 15-inch-high paper men into their individual musician's activity.

After tracing their individual modeled musician onto paper, they covered the paper with photos, construction paper and other textures to create a collage. Those collages were taken to Paragon Printing, scaled to size for the wall and printed onto vinyl to create billboard-like images.

The images were arranged and placed on the pressure-washed, primed and repainted brick wall. McDonald and fellow artist Judith Mogul then used high quality latex paint to create a club scene around the images.

The official installation was June 5, but a marquee with the names of the entertainers and a few finishing touches will be added by the end of the month, she said.

The work is one in a series of works Mark Making has done, with help from the Tennessee Arts Commission and the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga, along M.L. King Boulevard. It is planned to be a permanent fixture.

McDonald is hoping it also brings a smile to one particular tenant.

"As long as Virgil (McGee, the barbershop owner) is happy," she said, "we're happy."

Upcoming Events