Still as Tupelo Honey

Or
Back to the Roots
David Honeyboy Edwards, last of the first generation of Delta blues singers, really has a reason to sing the blues, having died of congestive heart failure at the age of 96. Edwards was there from the start of the blues movement, hitchhiking or hopping freight trains from gig to gig, playing street corners, picnics, and fish fries. Basically, he was a vagrant with a guitar. But unlike Kenmore Square’s Mixed Nuts, he made great music. And played an actual guitar, not a hand-drawn cardboard cutout. Edwards took his incessant whining about life’s trials and tribulations, accompanied by intricate fingerpicking and slashing bottleneck-slide guitar work, from the street corners to seedy Chicago nightclubs in the 1950s, and then was championed by pretentious snobs who pretended they’d always big fans during the blues revival of the 1960s, when he started recording on major labels. Despite lacking a prerequisite heroin addiction, Edwards was elected to the Blues Hall of Fame in 1996 and named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2002, a Grammy for blues album in 2008 and a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2010 before achieving the crowning glory of his career, a cameo appearance as himself in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

Baltimore Chopped

Peter Angelos’ tenure as owner of the Baltimore Orioles has driven many of the team’s fans and family to consider taking drastic measures. Mike Flanagan was more driven than most, shooting himself with a shotgun at the age of 59. Flanagan was reportedly despondent over his role in the ongoing disaster that the franchise has become, a stark contrast from the fundamentals-heavy minor league system that fostered the Oriole Way throughout the system. While lacking the panache of a self-immolating monk, something’s got to wake up a franchise that is wrapping up its 14th consecutive losing season after having a total of 13 from 1954, the team’s first season, through 1997, its last playoff appearance. An All Yankee Conference standout at UMass-Amherst, Flanagan was a consistent if unspectacular pitcher for the Orioles for 15 years, with his 1979 Cy Young Award a stunning departure. Flanagan hung around the Orioles front office after retirement, and was a popular broadcaster known for his quick wit – he started giving nicknames to players in the 1970s, such as John "Clams" Castino, which Peter Gammons reported in The Boston Globe, eventually inspiring Chris Berman to ruin sports highlights for everyone.

Imus in the Mourning

Fred Imus, occasional guest of big brother broadcaster Don, has died at the age of 69. He was found in his trailer in Tucson in his latest attempt to gauge the efficacy of his cleaning lady. He wrote the 1976 #1 country hit “I Don't Want To Have To Marry You” for Jim Ed Brown and Helen Cornelius, but mostly fixed old cars when not selling salsa and t-shirts. Don always credited Fred for some of his success, including the idea to involve his producer Bernard McGuirk more in the show, which panned out well when McGuirk started a riff on the Rutgers women’s basketball team that Don joined in on, which got him fired from WFAN and MSNBC. Despite his prickly, and pricky, nature, every one of Fred’s appearances ended with the brothers exchanging unironic “I love yous.”

Bubba Dumped

Bubba Smith, Dick Butkus’ life partner, has died at the age of 66. After a career at Michigan State that earned him a spot in the College Football Hall of Fame, the 6-foot-8, 300-lb Smith spent 9 seasons in the NFL, making two Pro Bowl teams and helping the Baltimore Colts to throw Super Bowl III to the New York Jets. Part of the All-Star lineup of the Miller Lite ads of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Smith quickly found himself stereotyped as intimidating black man for comic relief, most notably as florist turned cop Moses Hightower in Police Academy and too many of its too many sequels. Other gigs included Blue Thunder, co-starring Butkus; MacGyver, co-starring Butkus; Half Nelson, co-starring Butkus; Superdome, co-starring Butkus and as Tony’s duck-loving boxing coach on Taxi, 3 years after Butkus’ cameo.