Tina Turner's trips to Belmont-Devilliers helped earn it 'Mississippi Blues Trail' honor

Can you imagine?

Fifty years or so ago, Tina Turner on the stage at Abe’s 506 Club in the now-historic Belmont-Devillers neighborhood shaking and shimmying in frantic fashion in front of hundreds of dancing and shouting showgoers who were just feet away from one of the most dynamic live performers ever – and at a time when she was prime energy and kinetic passion and building the dynamic legacy that will long outlive us all.

Turner, known as “The Queen of Rock & Roll,’’ died on Wednesday. She was 83 years old.

While she would become a global superstar able to command the world’s largest stages and arenas, Turner, with former husband Ike Turner at her side, created her legend performing in the 1960s and early '70s playing smaller, more intimate clubs and ballrooms on the so-called “Chitlin Circuit” that provided African-American performers of the day safe venues with rapturous, appreciative audiences.

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Pensacola was one of the stops on the “Chitlin Circuit” and Abe’s 506 Club was where artists including Ray Charles, James Brown, Aretha Franklin and even Louis Armstrong would command the stage bringing everyone to the area known as “the Blocks.”

When the stars came to Belmont-Devilliers, it wouldn’t just be Abe’s 506 Club and the Savoy that would get the celebrity visits. Stars such as Turner and the rest would often shop at the numerous African-American establishments such as the legendary Gussie’s Records, now the site of Five Sisters Blues Café. Gussie’s was on the first floor of the building. Pensacola’s first African-American radio station, WBOP, was located upstairs. Musicians would often head over to Gussie’s to check for their records – many mainstream stores still refused to sell records by African-Americans or had limited stock.  After visiting, many performers would head upstairs to be interviewed on WBOP.

Alvin Streeter Jr., 60, whose mother Gussie Streeter ran the shop, said Tina and Ike Turner most likely played Abe’s 506 in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

“She came through the shop,’’ Streeter said. “They all did. It was a special time that can’t be recreated. What was going on with the clubs was just huge and exciting.”

It wasn’t just Abe’s 506 that made Belmont-Devilliers sing. Another popular club was the Savoy Ballroom. Today, the Savoy Place residential complex pays tribute to the club. (Abe’s 506 Club was located on Belmont Street, next to the Savoy Ballroom. Abe’s 506 Club owner Abe Pierce later purchased the Savoy Ballroom and merged the two clubs.)

In 2019, the Belmont-Devilliers’ neighborhood became only the second Florida city to earn a designation as an official “Mississippi Blues Trail” destination.

“The community was thriving then,’’ Alvin Streeter Jr. said. “It was wonderful, but it was out of necessity.  You couldn’t go to other places then.”

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Gussie Streeter, now 88, said “it was not unusual to see artists walking the streets visiting businesses in the local area or eating in places like the Sugar Bowl, the Blue Dot or the H&O Café. It was a very special time, not only for our community, but for musicians trying to grow their name. But for all us – artist and business owners alike – we were just making a living.”

Pensacola’s Georgia Blackmon, 81, was one of the many who attended shows at Abe’s 506 Club and the Savoy Ballroom during their sparkling prime.

“I saw Ike and Tina Turner there, and Sam Cooke and James Brown and a lot more,’’ said Blackmon, longtime owner of the former Gathering Awareness and Book Center on Devilliers Street and founder of Mother Wit, a nonprofit organization that led the charge to restore the historic Ella Jordan Home in the Belmont-Devilliers neighborhood. The house on C Street was home to the Pensacola Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc., a vital part of African-American culture and social outreach that opened in 1929.

Blackmon admitted she doesn’t recall much of Turner’s Pensacola performance but knows what visits by her and other entertainers meant to the community.

“It was just a wonderful time,’’ Blackmon said. “There was so much energy in the neighborhood. People would come from all over to see the shows. The whole neighborhood would come alive.”

Tina Turner would return to Pensacola in November 1987 to play at the Pensacola Civic Center, now Pensacola Bay Center, this time as a world-renowned superstar. Her 1984 album “Private Dancer” is heralded as one of the greatest comebacks in music history.

Her Civic Center performance was surely special, as she belted out hits such as “What’s Love Got to Do With It?’’, “Private Dancer” and “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)”.

Yet there’s something magical about the smaller club shows like Abe’s 506 Club and the Savoy Ballroom. Sweaty, well-dressed folks packed tightly face to face with the celebrated performers they idolized. How tightly?

Blackmon remembers people sometimes standing on tables to get a better view over the bobbing, dancing folks up front.

“It’s just something that was wonderful and special,’’ she said. “People everywhere having fun and listening to great music. The neighborhood would be electric.”

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Tina Turner made stops on Pensacola Belmont-DeVilliers Chitlin circuit