To celebrate the nation’s independence this weekend, the Nightfall concert series is practicing a bit of Manifest Destiny and sprawling farther down M.L. King Boulevard.
Through a partnership with the Bessie Smith Cultural Center and series’ organizer Chattanooga Presents, the IndepenDance Day Street Party will feature extended hours, a host of street vendors, kids activities, a climbing wall and a car show, among other diversions.
If you go
What: Nightfall IndepenDance Day Street Party featuring Tinsley Ellis. When: 8 p.m. Friday, July 3; Xsklusive opens at 7; street party starts at 5 p.m. Where: Miller Plaza, 850 Market St.; and Bessie Smith Cultural Center, 200 E. M.L. King Blvd. Admission: Free Phone: 423-265-0771 Venue website: www.nightfallchattanooga.com Artist website: www.tinsleyellis.com
The headliner
Tinsley Ellis is a Florida-born, Atlanta-based blues/rocker with a 40-year career as an artist with Chicago-based Alligator Records. Billboard says of his 15-record catalog, “Nobody has released more consistently excellent blues albums. He sings like a man possessed and wields a mean lead guitar.” At 58, he continues to perform more than 150 dates a year and has shared the stage with artists such as The Allman Brothers Band, Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy and Widespread Panic.
The opener
Xsklusive is a Chattanooga-based R&B trio consisting of DonQuen Rutledge, Clifton Braden Jr. and Adrian Johnson. They have served as the house band for Mocha Restaurant and Lounge. For more information, visit their profile on Facebook.
“We just want it to be really family-friendly,” says Chattanooga Presents owner Carla Pritchard. “There will be fun things for the community to do. We just want it to feel like a good Independence Day celebration with some slices of watermelon being sold in the street and kids playing in sprinklers and enjoying some great free music.”
The Bessie has invited back many local food vendors whose sales were cut short during the Bessie Smith Strut in June when a squall line ended the event hours earlier than expected.
Pritchard says the street festival idea wasn’t organized in response to the storm. She has reached out for the past several years to the Cultural Center about co-hosting an event but was turned down.
This year, however, newly installed Executive Director Dionne Jennings was more receptive, she says, and the city’s Traffic Engineering Administration was willing to approve moving the road closure back half an hour to coincide with the start of festivities at 5 p.m.
“We all worked together this year to get a yes,” Pritchard says. “It seems like it’s a new day at City Hall and at the Bessie, so everyone is on board.”
This week’s concert – which will start, as usual, at 7 p.m. – will feature Atlanta-based blues rocker Tinsley Ellis. In December, Ellis was inducted as a Master Blues Artist into the Blues Hall of Fame. He replaces Chicago fusion outfit Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, who canceled their date late last week.
The cancellation was nothing new – it happens about once a year, Pritchard says – and it opened the door to featuring an artist who already had been considered for a headlining slot this season.
“I feel good about Tinsley Ellis,” she says. “A lot of people know his name already. He’s really well known in the blues realm, certainly. We felt like it’s the Fourth of July, the blues feels good, and it lends itself to a party. It’s great.”
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6205.