Blues legend Eddie Kirkland killed in Florida crash Sunday

“Weep, weep…
Cry a river of tears for the Lord has called the road warrior home. 8:30 am, Feburary 27th 2011 in Tampa, Florida.”
– Eddie Kirkland’s homepage.

CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. – An 87-year-old blues legend, with close ties to Maine, was killed Sunday morning when his car collided with a Greyhound bus.

Eddie Kirkland was traveling north of Tampa, about 8:30 a.m. Sunday when he tried to make a U-turn in front of the bus, the Florida Highway Patrol said. The bus, which was traveling in the opposite direction, pushed Kirkland’s Ford Taurus about 200 yards before the vehicles stopped. According to his business manager, Hedy Langdon of Phillips, Maine, as of today they don’t know why the accident occurred.

“We still don’t know if it was fog or sun – something that caused him to run into that bus,” Langdon said.

According to news reports, Kirkland was flown to Tampa General Hospital, where he later died. No one on the bus was injured. The Highway Patrol is continuing to investigate the accident.

Known as the “Gypsy of the Blues,” for his traveling on a nearly nonstop concert circuit, Kirkland, who lived in Macon, Ga., last performed Saturday night at the Dunedin Brewery in Dunedin, Florida. It was the final stop of a four-city swing through Florida this month. He was scheduled to play at the University of Maine at Farmington on April 30.

Kirkland was born in Jamaica, raised in Alabama, and settled in Detroit, where he met and would go on to record and tour with John Lee Hooker for the next seven-and-a-half years. In the 1960s, Kirkland parted ways with Hooker and moved to Georgia, where he was bandleader for Otis Redding. He traveled widely for the rest of his life, performing with Ruth Brown, Little Richard, Little Johnnie Taylor and many more big name musicians along the way.

Kirkland recorded Front and Center and The Devil and Other Blues Demons in the early ‘70s before spending 12 years in Hudson Valley, according to his biography on his website.  During that span, he appeared on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert with Muddy Waters, Honeyboy Edwards, and Foghat.

The last time Langdon saw Kirkland was in December, when he performed in New York City with Foghat, she said.

“Like so many bluesmen, Eddie was always on the road, traveling all over the U.S. and it just so happened he came to play at the Granary 12 years ago (in Farmington),” Langdon remembered. At the time, the Phillips Library was trying to raise funds for building renovations and, after seeing him play, she asked him if he would do a benefit for the library at the Nostalgia Tavern in Kingfield.

“He said yes and being just like Eddie, he arrived three days early for his concert,” Langdon said. He was 73 years old at the time and the Phillips librarian found out over those few days until the concert that he hadn’t “cultivated his royalties,” she said. She asked if she could help him and began a letter-writing campaign to music industry executives to help recoup his due. Langdon became Kirkland’s business manager, arranging performance dates and keeping his life organized.

He returned to Maine many times over the years.

Musician Eric Rutberg of Wilton, remembers Kirkland fondly.

“I first saw him play at the Granary around 1999. He was standing on the tables that night. Years later he suffered a heart attack and convalesced here in Maine. As he recovered and just before going on a world-wide tour, he invited Mike Cummings and me to play with him at Cherries Café (then located next to the Narrow Gauge Theaters in Farmington).

‘Whatcha wanna play?’ he shouted over to me.
‘How ’bout Every Day I have the Blues?’ I called back.
‘Sure,’ he said, ‘what key?’
‘Howz G?’ I asked.
‘G? Whatcha wanna play it G for?’

“He proceeded to educate me in front of the crowd, as I so richly enjoyed,” Rutberg said and remembered Kirkland’s words of blues wisdom: “That’s a low-down blues. We’ll play it in E.”

“I called off quite a few traditionals that night,” Rutberg remembers. “Eddie generously shared the stage. We all sang and traded licks. He played some harp too. He could blow the hell out of the harmonica.”

“Farmington has always been wonderful to Eddie,” Langdon said. “He was always well received here.” Kirkland played a benefit last summer for the Phillips Area Community Center.

“I thought, oh, jeez, he’s playing in Phillips, Maine. But the room was packed and everyone was very supportive,” she said. She talked with him every two to three days to make sure everything was set up. Langdon said she has been in shock since finding out about his death.

“It’s pretty awful when a person is torn from you. He was a humble, grateful, faithful man,” she said of him sadly. She said his funeral arrangements aren’t set yet, but they will take place in his hometown of Macon, Georgia, and she will be there. For now, she is receiving hundreds of messages of sympathy from all over the world. She will provide updates on the arrangements at Kirkland’s webite here.