Operating out of the circa-1923 GM&O freight depot building in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, Hal & Mal’s USA Blues Club was founded in 1985 by brothers Hal White (now deceased) and Malcolm White, current director of the Mississippi Arts Commission. While Hal & Mal’s has presented all types of music, the main focus has been blues and R&B. The club, in fact, was one of the first white-owned venues in central Mississippi to book black bands. Albert King was their first act, and B.B. King, Koko Taylor, Little Milton, Mose Allison, James Brown, Charlie Musselwhite, Buckwheat Zydeco, Johnny Winter, R.L. Burnside, Pinetop Perkins, and Bobby Rush performed there over the years. For the past 13 years, Hal & Mal’s has partnered with the Central Mississippi Blues Society to host Blue Monday, a show/jam featuring local blues talent as well as visiting musicians who come to play with the Blue Monday Band. With more than three decades of blues music history, the venue has been identified by scholars as deserving of a Mississippi Blues Trail marker from the Mississippi Blues Commission; installation of the marker currently awaiting funding.
