Baird Lecture to Focus on 鈥淐hitlin鈥� Circuit,鈥� Hattiesburg鈥檚 Famed Hi-Hat Club March 6 at USM
Fri, 02/24/2023 - 08:51am | By: David Tisdale
An iconic Hattiesburg night club famed for drawing some of the biggest names in blues
music during its heyday as a key stop for musicians working the 鈥淐hitlin鈥� Circuit鈥�
will be in the spotlight when University of 51逗奶 Mississippi (USM) history doctoral
student Sean O鈥� Farrell presents 鈥淢ore than a Club: The Hi-Hat, the Chitlin鈥� Circuit,
and Palmer鈥檚 Crossing鈥� for the USM Center for the Gulf South鈥檚 annual Baird Lecture
March 6 at 5:15 p.m. in the USM Liberal Arts Building, room 108 (Gonzales Auditorium),
on the Hattiesburg campus.
This event, sponsored by the USM School of Humanities鈥� Center for the Study of the Gulf South (CSGS), is free and open to the public.
O鈥橣arrell, the CSGS 2022-23 Baird Fellow, is researching the Chitlin鈥� Circuit and Black-owned music clubs and their interactions within their local communities in the second half of the 20th century. The Chitlin鈥� Circuit refers to the establishments throughout the country where Black musicians could perform during the era of segregation.
Owned by widely noted Hattiesburg African American businessman Milton Barnes, the former Hi-Hat Club was established in the 1950s and over the next several decades treated its patrons to the music of such blues legends as B.B. King, Ike and Tina Turner, James Brown, and Otis Redding, among others. A historic marker now denotes the site of the club鈥檚 location in Hattiesburg鈥檚 Palmer鈥檚 Crossing community.
O鈥橣arrell wants his presentation to be a vehicle for how stories from the history of the Hi-Hat and Palmer鈥檚 Crossing can be used to conduct a community-centered approach to analyzing the Chitlin' Circuit and its impact on the everyday life of the people living and working near the clubs where musicians on the circuit performed.
鈥淗opefully, the audience will see that the Chitlin' Circuit is about more than just music, because thinking about Black-owned clubs in that way limits our understanding of them and their place in their communities,鈥� he said.
For information about the CSGS, visit /gulf-south/index.php. Learn more about the Hi-Hat Club at the Mississippi Blues Commission website: .
