By Michael Hibblin
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-906796.mp3
Little Rock, AR – Arkansas Blues singer Calvin Leavy has died. Michael Hibblen of KUAR in Little Rock has more.
One of Calvin Leavy's best known songs was about the state prison in southeast Arkansas.
"They sent me to Cummins baby, down on Cummins Prison Farm..."
Leavy was jailed for the last two decades of his life on drug charges.
"Down there I started thinking, thought I'd tell you some of it in this song..."
Prison spokeswoman Dina Tyler says he died Sunday afternoon... likely of complications from diabetes.
I think there may had been some sad irony in that one of his more famous songs was Cummings Prison Farm which was recorded before he ever came to prison, and certainly before he was incarcerated at Cummings. He didn't spend much time at Cummings, less than a year, because of his ill health," Tyler said.
Leavy had been convicted in 1992, accused of running a drug ring in Little Rock.
As a result of his convictions, he was sentenced to life plus 25 years. In May of 2000, then Governor Huckabeen commuted his sentence to 75 years, which meant, had he lived, he would have been eligible for parole in just about a year," Tyler said.
Calvin Leavy was 70-years-old.