Fort Worth: Evans Avenue Historic District

Fort Worth’s Black entertainment corridor ran down Evans Avenue like a current — and for a generation of Texas musicians growing up under Jim Crow, it was the only circuit that mattered.

During the 1940s and early ’50s, when King Curtis was developing his sound on Fort Worth’s east side, Evans Avenue in the Near Southside was the spine of Black Fort Worth’s commercial and cultural life. Theaters, restaurants, barbershops, and music venues lined the strip. The Chitlin’ Circuit — the network of venues where African American performers could work without navigating segregated white establishments — had a Fort Worth outpost here. Young musicians learned what it meant to hold a room in clubs that didn’t care about critics or charts, only whether the place was full.

Curtis came up in this world before he moved to New York in 1952. The musicianship he built in Fort Worth was the foundation for everything that followed: the session work for the Coasters, the Aretha Franklin years, the Grammy, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. None of it happens without a city that gave him somewhere to play. He’d later say he loved authentic rhythm and blues “more than anything” — but also that he liked to live well. Fort Worth showed him the music. New York showed him the money.

The Near Southside has changed considerably since Curtis walked these blocks. But Evans Avenue still carries its name and its memory. For the full story of where King Curtis grew up, visit the Stop Six neighborhood where he and Ornette Coleman both came of age.