Lawmakers bond over the blues in downtown Jackson

On Monday nights during the Mississippi legislative session — sure as the looming sine die— legislators gather around dimly lit tables in downtown Jackson. It’s a backroom deal, but not the type of which you might be thinking.

They’re not here in the name of policy, but in celebration of Mississippi culture. This is Blue Monday, a 17-year-old tradition organized by the Central Mississippi Blues Society. For more than 15 of those years, the weekly concerts have been hosted at Hal & Mal’s, the legendary restaurant and musical institution.

“Monday night in the blues is a very special night because of the songs and the history that have gone into it,” says Malcolm Shepherd, member of the Blue Monday Band and President of the Central Mississippi Blues Society. “Friday rolls around, you get paid. Saturday, you go out to play. Sunday, you go to church. And Monday, the blues returns to you.”

The song “Blue Monday” was written by Dave Bartholomew and made internationally famous when Fats Domino recorded it in 1956. It was one of the first crossover R&B singles, hitting number five on the Billboard pop charts and cementing Domino as a forebear of rock and roll. The lyrics remark on the near-universal distaste for Mondays shared by working people.

Blue Monday concerts at Hal & Mal’s are antidotes for this soul sickness, and during the early months of the year when state lawmakers are in session, they happen to fall on legislative “travel days” when members are just revving up their week.

“A lot of legislators are looking for interesting things to do on Monday nights,” says Sen. John Horhn, a Democrat from Jackson. “… And the arts, and in particular, the blues, have always been great convening points where people from different backgrounds can come together and enjoy the art form, but also hopefully get to know each other better.”

Prior to becoming a lawmaker more than 30 years ago, Horhn served as folklife director at the Mississippi Arts Commission, where he championed traditional arts practitioners. The blues are ideal for reaching across the aisle and building bridges, Horhn said.

“I can’t think of a better vehicle than blues music, which is the basis of American popular music, and therefore, in my opinion, world music. And so it’s a common soother of people’s souls, and everyone has an affinity for the blues in whatever form it might take place.”

On any given Monday, the smiling, dancing and whooping crowd is a tapestry of Mississippi that weaves a collective portrait of racial, cultural, geographical, and generational diversity. The judgment-free open mic backed by the Blue Monday Band is the democratic process at work, a town hall of creative self-expression. This seems appropriate because while much of public policy in Mississippi is hashed out in the halls of the Capitol, the state’s cultural identity is communicated by a delegation of unelected representatives — its artists and musicians.

Malcolm White (the “Mal” in Hal & Mal’s) has booked, promoted and supported blues artists for decades, including through past public service roles as director of the Mississippi Arts Commission and director of Visit Mississippi (the state tourism agency), as well as through his time on the Mississippi Blues Commission.

Hosting blues at Hal & Mal’s was part of White’s larger statewide strategy to ensure that anyone from anywhere on any night could find an authentic blues experience somewhere in the state. Beyond its prodigious tourism value, the blues are instructive and paradoxical poetry for its people, built on a history of struggle and marginalization, yet indicative of Mississippi ingenuity and cultural influence.

“It is diverse and complex, much like the state of Mississippi and the rest of our art and culture,” says White. “But it is, to me, a really unique phenomenon that this cultural asset we call the blues is a thing that can help bring together opposing views and conflicting politics.”

In late 2022, White sold Hal & Mal’s to partners Damien Cavicchi and Mary Sanders Ferriss Cavicchi, who share a passion for keeping the legacy alive. This passing of the torch — a peaceful transition of power, if you will — is part of the spirit of Blue Monday, too. The Blue Monday Band includes veteran players who have performed with the likes of Bobby Rush and Dorothy Moore, but also makes space for young talent like guitarist Brian Ballou.

“That’s such a valuable thing to get somebody young or somebody not from Jackson up there playing with them and seeing them share the stage together and stories,” Damien Cavicchi said. “It’s a multi-generational quality that I don’t really see a lot in Jackson or anywhere really.”

At a Blue Monday concert not long ago, in the middle of a raucous rendition of an old blues standard, a developer from the Gulf Coast in town on legislative business exclaimed, “This happens every Monday night?!” He was bewildered, as if in some bluesy dream. Then he added, “This is the best Monday night of my life.”

From the stage, Malcolm Shepherd sees an influx of Mississippi legislators during the session each year. He might note Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons (a Democrat from Greenville), or Sen. Rod Hickman (a Democrat from Macon), sitting near or conversing with Sens. Jeremy England (a Republican from Vancleave) and Scott Delano (a Republican from Biloxi). Many in the Coast delegation, like England and Delano, have become steadfast Blue Monday patrons, encouraging their colleagues to join in.

England was introduced to the Monday night concerts during the 2023 session and rarely misses a week. Horhn calls Delano a “blues man from the Delta at heart.”

“… To listen to these artists pour out their heart and soul inside a bar that was once a railroad freight warehouse in the middle of downtown Jackson — that is true, blue Mississippi,” England said.

Rep. Hank Zuber, a Republican from Ocean Springs, is known to hit the dance floor when the mood strikes.

“It gives me an opportunity to dance and spend time with people that I would usually not socialize with in the bubble that we call the Capitol,” says Zuber. “Also, people don’t mind if I wear my sunglasses inside even though it’s after dark.”

On Tuesdays, these same legislators will be buttoned-up at the Capitol, debating policy, hearing from constituents or handling billions of dollars of state appropriations. The hope is that their work is guided by core values of service and public good, and perhaps also by the knowledge that Mississippians have a great deal more in common than they do in opposition.

“… If you keep people separated, they never get to know each other,” Shepherd said. “You can separate them by race, you can separate them by class, you can separate them by money or income … but the one thing that we are very proud of and that we see in the audience every Monday night — and it’s wonderful — is Mississippians sitting out there together, enjoying themselves.”

“Mississippi has a very tough history to overcome,” England said. “No hiding that. But to me, while our differences once scared us and caused us to fight, these same differences and blending of cultures is something we now celebrate. No other state has this uniqueness that we have. What better way to start a week off in the Legislature, passing laws and directing policy, than with a positive reminder of that fact?”