Clinton honors Dolly
WestWend to perform Parton tribute at antique festival
Visitors jam Market Street in Historic Downtown Clinton during the Clinch River Fall Antique Festival in October 2024, before the improvements to the sidewalks and repaving of the street. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Parton, 80, died Aug. 25 in Nashville after a brief battle with cancer.
The concert will be held on Market Street from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3, Katherine Birkbeck, executive director of the Historic Downtown Clinton organization, said on Monday.
“WestWend presents ‘Coat of Many Colors: A Tribue to Dolly Parton’ at The Clinch River Antique Festival … presented by Enrichment Federal Credit Union,” the organization said on its Facebook page.
WestWend consists of Clinton city Councilwoman Wendy Maness, her husband Jonathan, David Whitaker, David Becher, and, for this concert, steel-guitar player Ronnie Chauvin, who has performed extensively at Dollywood, Wendy Maness said.
“Katherine [Birkbeck] said she thought we should do an all-Dolly tribute, and I immediately agreed,” Maness told The Courier News. “I worked at Dollywood right after I moved to East Tennessee, and I got to meet Dolly once. I immediately agreed to do the Dolly tribute.”
The festival will run from noon-7 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 2, and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3.
Theme of the festival will be “Frontier Jubilee,” Birkbeck said, and she personally recruited WestWend to perform the Dolly Parton tribute for the event.
“This will be the first antique festival after completion of the downtown construction,” Birkbeck said. “It’s very exciting.”
Market Street reopened in August after being closed to vehicular traffic for about 15 months while a $5.9 million downtown improvement project was underway, including new sidewalks and upgraded utilities.
The festival will include eight artists from out of state set up on Main Street on Saturday, Birkbeck said. They will be from California, Illinois, South Carolina, Kentucky, Florida and more, she added.
Antique and food vendors will be set up along Market Street on both days, and the street will be open to pedestrians only.
Country music dance lessons will be offered by Russell Walker & the Honky Tonks from Knoxville.
There also will be a tailgate party on Market Street beginning at 5 p.m. Friday for people going to the Clinton High School football game, Birkbeck said.
“We invite everyone to tailgate before the football game at 7:30,” she said. “Come out and support our local restaurants and businesses before the football game.”
On Saturday, there will be horse-drawn carriage rides available down Eagle Bend Road, Birkbeck said. They will feature Clydesdales.
As for the Dolly Parton tribute, Wendy Maness said people are welcome to send her their suggestions for Dolly songs they would like to hear at the event.