By Sherry Lucas. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (March 4)
Art, culture, community and family are the vines that wind through The Artful Evolution of Hal & Mal’s (University Press of Mississippi), a project that pairs Malcolm White’s words and Ginger Williams Cook’s illustrations with engaging results. Much like the iconic eatery, bar, and live music institution at its heart, it entertains at the outset and sustains in the long haul.
Hal & Mal’s is not one story, but many, and the book sheds a warm and witty light on the background and influences that fed into this cultural outpost in Jackson’s downtown. Of all those vines, family clings the strongest with tendrils in every story of the boys who grew up in Perkinston and Booneville, lost their mother young, and held the love of father, stepmother, brother, grandparents, relatives and friends close.
Brothers Hal and Malcolm White opened Hal & Mal’s Jan. 8, 1986, and it became the capital city’s hub. It’s the junction where food, music, song, dance, words and art met, mixed, mingled, likely had a drink or two and got along famously.
Author White shares the major tenets of Hal & Mal’s business philosophy: (1) embrace art, culture and creativity as a strategy, not an afterthought; and (2) the more we give, the more successful we are. Anyone who has patronized Hal & Mal’s over the decades knows the result: a lively, generous atmosphere that boosted the best our state offered.
White’s vignettes—on red beans and rice, comeback sauce, the genius of Sambo Mockbee, Willie Morris’ bowling trophies, the Tangents, Albert King and the Autograph Wall, to name a few—share the essence of their subjects with a deft, authentic touch. An attractively breezy layout, like the happiest hours at Hal & Mal’s, works as well for dropping in, as it does for digging in for the night.
These are fine tributes, all—done with a clear eye, a fond gaze, an occasional wink and the fine appreciation of a good story. Nuggets pull you deeper into the Hal & Mal’s lore, such as the logo inspired by Smith Brothers Cough Drops, the St. Paddy’s Parade start in a snarl of rush-hour traffic, and how to start a literary stampede. “My Brother the Ampersand,” about brother Brad White, is a delight.
You can get lost in the photos on the walls at Hal & Mal’s. The same goes here as each self-contained jewel opens a window to the soul of this venerable spot. Cook’s artwork captures that ineffable lure with a sure, loving hand.
Hal White died in 2013. “Hal’s Recipe Cards,” illustrated with those index cards stained and worn with age and use, touches deep, and his younger brother Malcolm’s reference to “these pieces of folk art” speaks volumes about family, nurturing, legacy and love. He includes Hal’s daughter Brandi White Lee’s words, “the smell in those cards captures the cooking bliss … embedded into all his hugs.” For anyone who misses Hal’s soups nearly as much as they miss his presence at the end of the bar, it’s enough to pull your hand to the page for a rub.
Hal & Mal’s fed the soul as well as the belly of Jackson, with concerts and events and fundraisers and festivities that brought the creatives together for a good time and often, a better tomorrow — with a good meal in-between.
As chef and restaurateur Robert St. John notes in the foreword, Hal & Mal’s is a classic. He waxes eloquent about the killer gumbo and best roast beef sandwich east of the Mississippi River. I’ll single out the catfish po-boy as the best on either side of that river.
Doubtless, readers will bring their own stories to this table, nudged by a mention or memory, or Cook’s evocative art, into their own personal reverie. Because if you ever went there, ate there, drank there, danced, partied, mourned, celebrated, fund-raised, hell-raised or simply gathered there, Hal & Mal’s became a part of your story, too.
Sherry Lucas is a freelance writer covering food, arts and culture in Jackson. She is a long-time Hal & Mal’s patron.
Signed copies of The Artful Evolution of Hal & Mal’s are available at Lemuria’s online store.
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