By Brittney McKenna, bmckenna@timesfreepress.com

The Bessie Smith Strut will keep rocking tonight well past its usual 9 p.m. curfew.

Event organizers created an outlet for guests who want to keep strutting after the last headliner performs, the new After the Strut blues concert and party.

After the Strut provides guests with live music and dancing at Bessie Smith Hall to cap off one of the South’s largest block parties. The event marks the first time in several years that the Strut has extended into the late hours of the evening.

In addition to entertaining festival-goers, the creators of After the Strut hope to bolster Bessie Smith Hall’s presence in Chattanooga’s artistic community.

“Basically (After the Strut) came about as an effort to present Bessie Smith Hall as a performance venue,” said Rose Martin, executive director of the Chattanooga African American Museum. “It is a collaboration with Friends of the Festival and Riverbend to develop programming concepts that would expand its presence in the community.”

Randy Pavlock and the Daddy Mack Blues Band perform after the last Strut headliner concludes.

Pavlock, a blues rock guitarist from Texas, brings his own blend of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix-inspired blues to After the Strut with his band Twenty Four Seven.

The Daddy Mack Blues Band, fronted by vocalist and lead guitarist Mack Orr, also takes the stage with a Memphis-style blues described by the band’s Web site as “down home and funky.” All four members of the band once played with blues group The Fieldstones.

Admission to After the Strut is $5 at the door. Organizers said they expect the event to sell out.