Eddie Kirkland

Only one bluesman born on the island of Jamaica ever recorded alongside John Lee Hooker and traveled the road with Otis Redding: Eddie Kirkland. Over the years he performed feats of onstage gymnastics that still astonish observers, including balancing upside down on his head while continuing to play guitar on the television program Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. Yet nothing resembling imitation reggae rhythms ever intruded on his recordings. Raised near Dothan, Alabama, he relocated northward to Detroit in 1943. Five years later he began an association with Hooker that produced sessions for multiple companies, while Kirkland himself cut sides for RPM in 1952, King in 1953, and Fortune in 1959. In 1961–1962 the Prestige subsidiary Tru-Sound brought him to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, to make his debut album, It’s the Blues Man! The crisp R&B ensemble led by saxophonist King Curtis supported Kirkland’s piercing vocals, fierce guitar lines, and harmonica throughout the vigorous collection. After leaving Detroit for Macon, Georgia, in 1962, he joined Otis Redding’s organization as a backing musician and opening act. Redding arranged an introduction to Stax/Volt co-owner Jim Stewart, who responded enthusiastically to Kirkland’s raw dance number “The Hawg.” Released on the Volt label in 1963, the track appeared under the billing Eddie Kirk. At the start of the 1970s he began recording for Pete Lowry’s Trix imprint, and he later completed several albums for Deluge during the 1990s. Kirkland maintained a busy schedule well into the new century. While in Florida to play a concert in the Gulf Coast town of Dunedin, he suffered fatal injuries when the car he was driving struck a Greyhound bus near Crystal River on February 27, 2011. He was 87.