No one really knows what caused 87-year-old bluesman Eddie Kirkland to U-turn his old Ford wagon smack in front of a Greyhound bus, east of Homosassa. He played the last show in his 82-year performing career – a private corporate cigar gig – and left Dunedin Brewery's parking lot at 1 a.m., Feb. 27. “Eddie never stayed in motels. Always slept in his car,” said guitar man Sarasota Slim, who provided Eddie’s backup band that night.
Eddie’s manager, Hedy Langdon, tried to explain the man’s addiction to the road. “Eddie couldn’t think till he got on the road. He would stop at a rest stop, close his eyes, then just get up and start driving until things came clear to him. The road was his life.” If so, then Eddie must have noticed he was going south on Highway 98 instead of north to his home in Macon, GA. First break in the median, the man they called “Gypsy of the Blues” whipped the wagon around. It was 8:30 a.m.
The Greyhound pushed the mangled mess 200 yards. The radio was playing full blast as passengers pulled the dying man from the wreck. “Loud radio,” said Hedy. “That’s Eddie. Just being himself.”
Two guitars were shattered. No big deal. “Once we played Jannus Landing in the ’80s and he felt his guitar was too light,” remembers bassist Vinnie Seplesky. “So he got another guitar, tore the back off it and nailed — not taped , not glued — NAILED it to his guitar. And the show rocked!”
Any stereotype of the classic American blues artist wilts next to the life of Eddie Kirkland, who spent over 30 years hanging around St. Petersburg’s healthy blues scene.
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2011.