Blues singer Calvin Leavy, whose “Cummins Prison Farm” and other songs of struggle and failure seemed to anticipate a life of turmoil, has died in the Arkansas state prison system.
Arkansas prisons spokesman Dina Tyler says Leavy died Sunday afternoon, likely from complications from diabetes. Tyler says Leavy died in a Pine Bluff hospital with family at his side.
The 70-year-old Leavy, whose songs also include, “If Life Lasts Luck is Bound to Change,” had been locked up since 1992, when he was convicted of multiple drug-related counts in Little Rock.
His life plus 25 years sentence was commuted to 75 years by then-Gov. Mike Huckabee. Leavy began his sentence in the Cummins Unit, but was moved soon afterward because of his health.