Participation Type
Performance
Session Title
The Healing Blues Experience
Session Abstract or Summary
PRESENTATION #1 Abstract or Summary: The Healing Blues Experience includes a brief history of the blues, connection to African-American history with a focus on overcoming difficult situations and interactive story-telling by participants. The use of culturally responsive music, especially the blues, provides a way for participants to connect with their history while also telling their own stories of trauma and overcoming. This performance seeks to use blues music experience to increased community awareness of cultural traditions and practices as a way of lessening trauma exposure. The performer, Rick Rushing, lives and works in Chattanooga, also known as “The Scenic City” has a complicated history including the Cherokee Removal and Trail of Tears, the first organized Labor Strike, and the lynching of Ed Johnson on the Walnut Street Bridge which resulted in federal legislation to outlaw lynchings. The city is considered by many a key chapter in the blues history of the South as told through the blues music of Bessie Smith. Today, the city remains segregated by race and class and has some of the most gentrified zip codes in the United States. The African-American community in Chattanooga has experienced many forms of trauma: historical trauma, poverty amplified through gentrification, low-performing K-12 schools, limited employment opportunities, poor health outcomes, and high rates of gang involvement. In the 2015 report, Picture of our Health: Hamilton County, Tennessee 2015 Community Health Profile, violent crime was ranked as the #2 perceived top health problem in the county.
Presentation #1 Title
The Healing Blues Experience
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
PRESENTATION #1 Abstract or Summary: The Healing Blues Experience includes a brief history of the blues, connection to African-American history with a focus on overcoming difficult situations and interactive story-telling by participants. The use of culturally responsive music, especially the blues, provides a way for participants to connect with their history while also telling their own stories of trauma and overcoming. This performance seeks to use blues music experience to increased community awareness of cultural traditions and practices as a way of lessening trauma exposure. The performer, Rick Rushing, lives and works in Chattanooga, also known as “The Scenic City” has a complicated history including the Cherokee Removal and Trail of Tears, the first organized Labor Strike, and the lynching of Ed Johnson on the Walnut Street Bridge which resulted in federal legislation to outlaw lynchings. The city is considered by many a key chapter in the blues history of the South as told through the blues music of Bessie Smith. Today, the city remains segregated by race and class and has some of the most gentrified zip codes in the United States. The African-American community in Chattanooga has experienced many forms of trauma: historical trauma, poverty amplified through gentrification, low-performing K-12 schools, limited employment opportunities, poor health outcomes, and high rates of gang involvement. In the 2015 report, Picture of our Health: Hamilton County, Tennessee 2015 Community Health Profile, violent crime was ranked as the #2 perceived top health problem in the county.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Rick Rushing III is a native of Cincinnati, learned the blues down South and comes from a musical heritage most notably Blues/Jazz Legend Jimmy Rushing, vocalist and musician for Count Basie’s Big Band Orchestra. Rick believes “life is richer with music” and works every day to express this core belief through his band gigs as well as the private music lessons he offers to both youth and adults in the Chattanooga community. Rick is a full-time musician who performs locally and regionally with his blues band, Rick Rushing & the Blues Strangers and is the past Board Chair for the Folk School of Chattanooga. He was a selected member of the 2014 class of Holmberg Arts Fellows, a semester-long experience to provide artists with exposure and understanding of diversity, policy, and governmental issues. In addition to being a skilled professional musician, Rick has over 18 years of experience as an advocate and social worker in therapeutic home-based services, child protective services, and inpatient child/adolescent psychiatric programs. He presented a peer-reviewed live performance and discussion on the healing blues at the 38th Annual Appalachian Studies Conference at ETSU in Johnson City, Tenn. He graduated from Chattanooga State Technical and Community College with an Associates of Arts Degree and completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2004. He regularly provides the Healing Blues experience for victim services organizations in SE Tennessee.
Conference Subthemes
Diversity and Inclusion
The Healing Blues Experience
PRESENTATION #1 Abstract or Summary: The Healing Blues Experience includes a brief history of the blues, connection to African-American history with a focus on overcoming difficult situations and interactive story-telling by participants. The use of culturally responsive music, especially the blues, provides a way for participants to connect with their history while also telling their own stories of trauma and overcoming. This performance seeks to use blues music experience to increased community awareness of cultural traditions and practices as a way of lessening trauma exposure. The performer, Rick Rushing, lives and works in Chattanooga, also known as “The Scenic City” has a complicated history including the Cherokee Removal and Trail of Tears, the first organized Labor Strike, and the lynching of Ed Johnson on the Walnut Street Bridge which resulted in federal legislation to outlaw lynchings. The city is considered by many a key chapter in the blues history of the South as told through the blues music of Bessie Smith. Today, the city remains segregated by race and class and has some of the most gentrified zip codes in the United States. The African-American community in Chattanooga has experienced many forms of trauma: historical trauma, poverty amplified through gentrification, low-performing K-12 schools, limited employment opportunities, poor health outcomes, and high rates of gang involvement. In the 2015 report, Picture of our Health: Hamilton County, Tennessee 2015 Community Health Profile, violent crime was ranked as the #2 perceived top health problem in the county.
