[ back ]
Let's go blues
(by Kara Krekeler - July 21, 2009)
Grand Center has long played host to showtunes, jazz, folk and classical music in its various venues. But this fall, local entrepreneur Reginald Dickson hopes to add rhythm and blues to that list.
Owner of Reggie’s Backstage restaurant, Dickson is the driving force behind the St. Louis Rhythm and Blues Preservation Society, which this year has begun to coalesce after years of planning. The society will be run out of Dickson’s restaurant, which is currently undergoing renovations that will turn it into a rhythm and blues performance venue.
“Five or six years ago, I came up with the idea that we need to preserve the rich [rhythm and blues] heritage we have in St. Louis,” Dickson said, noting that much of the genre’s evolving history took place along the Mississippi River and particularly in St. Louis. “I want to honor the men and women who were pioneers of the blues.”
Dickson said his love affair with rhythm and blues music started when he was a child growing up on a farm outside Memphis. His grandparents wouldn’t allow him to listen to the music, so he waited until they had gone to bed to sneak in the tunes.
The obsession continued through his teenage and college years in St. Louis and Chicago, the highlight being a BB King concert at Chicago’s Northwestern University. Dickson described the event as one of the best experiences of his youth.
As an adult, he returned to St. Louis and began frequenting blues venues, getting to know the local legends, including Booboo Davis, Charles “Skeet” Rogers and David Dee, who performed at a kick-off event for the preservation society in April.
“He’s better known in England than he is in his hometown of St. Louis,” Dickson said of Dee, adding that there are several rhythm and blues musicians from throughout the metro area who are in the same situation, touring Europe regularly but virtually unknown in their hometown.
“My effort is to give them the overdue recognition that they deserve,” he said. “These people, who are proud to be St. Louisans, that have a reputation nationally, we want to show them that St. Louis is proud of them too. I want to showcase these people here.”
The St. Louis Rhythm and Blues Preservation Society won’t be the first of its kind in St. Louis, although similar organizations typically petered out after a few years. The society’s executive director, Cornelius Washington, said he believes that the other groups lacked a broad-based board of directors and “had a taste for musicians that exceeded their budgets.” The new society, however, is attempting to hedge its bets, creating a board of directors that will handle finances and an advisory board that will weigh in on the artistic side of the operation.
“We’ll have a fiduciary board to make sure we don’t make the same mistakes,” Washington said, adding that he and Dickson are trying to “make sure both boards represent a broad cross-section of St. Louis.”
The St. Louis Rhythm and Blues Preservation Society is structured as a three-pronged organization, focusing equally on education, performance and preservation of the art form.
The first stage of that involves the renovations to Reggie’s Backstage, which will make it a performance venue and restaurant capable of seating around 160 patrons in intimate booths and tables. The upscale venue, which is located across the street from the Fox Theatre on Grand Boulevard, has been closed since early July and is scheduled to reopen later this fall.
“It’s going to be a different experience than being at the symphony where you listen and don’t talk,” Washington said. “Rhythm and blues artists need that feedback.”
Washington said that he’d like to see Reggie’s Backstage become known as a place to hear rhythm and blues music any day of the week, with nationally or regionally known acts performing on Fridays and Saturdays, with a house band or local favorites performing on weeknights. Dickson added that additional performances would likely take place at other venues in Grand Center.
Dickson and Washington are also planning several educational programs, including master classes and an artist-in-residence program that would help introduce the history of rhythm and blues to local elementary and high school students.
“We want to keep the art form going,” Washington said. “We need to start educating young people on rhythm and blues because a lot of popular music has a base in rhythm and blues.”
In a few years, Washington and Dickson hope to take the educational aspect of the organization to the streets. Literally. Inspired by Grand Center-based annual events First Night and Dancing in the Streets, the pair said they hope to create an R&B weekend festival in the arts district, perhaps partnering with other Grand Center organizations such as the Black Rep and Jazz St. Louis.
“My vision is for this to become a signature attraction for Grand Center and the region,” said Dickson, who serves on the board of Grand Center Inc.
The final prong of Dickson and Washington’s plan is creating an archive of photographs and artifacts that document the history of rhythm and blues in St. Louis, from the music form’s beginnings in gospel and blues to present-day performers. Both said that they’ve talked to several local rhythm and blues figures who are interested in donating pieces for the archive.
Dickson said that such an archive would likely be housed at an educational or not-for-profit center such as the Sheldon Concert Hall or Harris-Stowe State University.
“We want to paint a historical picture, so people have a better understanding of the music,” Washington said. “The music didn’t just stand on its own.”
[ back ]
