Local blues singer Levon Lindsey dies of heart attack at 51

By Cori Bolger
cbolger@jackson.gannett.com

Lindsey

Blues singer Levon Lindsey was scheduled to sing at the 930 Blues Cafe in Jackson tonight, but his band will go on without him.

On Wednesday, Lindsey died of a heart attack while working for a trucking company near Opelousas, La. He was 51.

"The crowd really loved him," said 930 Blues Cafe owner Isaac Byrd. "He was an original blues singer. People got up and danced and felt good about themselves when he sang. We're going to miss him."

Members of the blues community respected his dedication to preserving the genre. Locals knew him as the big, laid-back guy who sang at the Subway Lounge in downtown Jackson and joked around a lot. Some considered him the Subway's star attraction.

Services Funeral arrangements are incomplete. Memorial donations can be sent in Lindsey's name to Peoples Funeral Home, 886 N. Farish St. in Jackson.

A year ago, Lindsey appeared in Last of the Mississippi Jukes, a documentary that chronicles the history of the Subway Lounge and the fight to save it. He continued to perform at festivals and casinos around the state with his band, The House Rockers.

Singing R&B and blues numbers in front of a toe-tapping audience every weekend at the Subway was one of Lindsey's greatest loves — aside from truck driving, bingo and good eatin'.

When the Subway closed its doors last year, Lindsey closed a 15-year chapter of his life.

Each weekend, Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon dropped her teenage daughters off at the Subway knowing that Lindsey would keep them safe.

"I would always feel comfortable that they would be looked after," she said. "(Lindsey) was just bigger than life, just the most generous entertainer. This is a tremendous loss for our community, and his talent will be missed."

Lindsey nurtured that talent singing in his church choir as a child growing up in Jackson. Later, he began singing the blues, said his mother Clottie Fields. He also joined the Job Corps. and trained as an auto mechanic. He has one son, Levon Jr., who is 23.

"He always kept busy with one thing or another," Fields said.

Playing bingo kept Lindsey busy, too. It was that game that connected Lindsey and his fiancee Helen Stuckey of Jackson 15 years ago at a local Bingo hall.

"We used to sit across from each other, and he would sit six tables away from me," Stuckey said. "God used to tell me all the time, 'That's going to be your man,' and I would say, 'He's a big man and I'm a little woman,' and the Lord kept telling me, 'That's going to be your man.' I would watch him play bingo and then I asked him for a ride home."

For the last year, Lindsey battled complications stemming from diabetes but continued to enjoy a quiet life on the road.

"He never had too much to say about people," said King Edward, another Subway Lounge regular. "If anything was wrong, he would keep it to himself and I would have never known."

Lindsey showed his versatility on stage. Depending on the mood he was in, he would play Elvis to gritty blues numbers. He often swapped singing duties with Abdul Rasheed, an additional vocalist who performs with The House Rockers.

"It's devastating to a degree for all of us that he has passed," Rasheed said. "Because we're playing at 9:30 tonight, it's going to be rough and the show must go on."

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