Jerry Jeff Walker
Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox musical artist
Jerry Jeff Walker (born Ronald Clyde Crosby; March 16, 1942 – October 23, 2020)<ref name=Nash>Template:Cite book</ref> was an American country and folk singer-songwriter. He was a leading figure in the progressive country and outlaw country music movement. He also wrote the 1968 song "Mr. Bojangles".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Early lifeEdit
Walker was born Ronald Clyde Crosby in Oneonta, New York, on March 16, 1942. His father, Mel, worked as a sports referee and bartender; his mother, Alma (Conrow), was a housewife.<ref name="NYT obit">Template:Cite news</ref> His maternal grandparents played for square dances in the Oneonta area<ref name="NYT obit"/> – his grandmother, Jessie Conrow, playing piano, while his grandfather played fiddle. During the late 1950s, Crosby was a member of a local Oneonta teen band called The Tones.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
After high school, Crosby joined the National Guard, but his thirst for adventure led him to go AWOL and he was eventually discharged.<ref name="NYT obit"/><ref name="WP obit">Template:Cite news</ref> He went on to roam the country busking for a living in New Orleans and throughout Texas, Florida, and New York, often accompanied by H. R. Stoneback (a friendship referenced in 1970's "Stoney").<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He first played under the stage name of Jerry Ferris, then Jeff Walker, before amalgamating them into Jerry Jeff Walker and legally changing his name to that in the late 1960s.<ref name="WP obit"/>
CareerEdit
Walker spent his early folk music days in Greenwich Village in the mid-1960s.<ref name="Larkin">Template:Cite book</ref> He co-founded a band with Bob Bruno in the late-1960s called Circus Maximus that put out two albums,<ref name="Larkin"/> one with the popular FM radio hit "Wind", but Bruno's interest in jazz apparently diverged from Walker's interest in folk music.<ref name="Larkin"/> Walker thus resumed his solo career and recorded the seminal 1968 album Mr. Bojangles with the help of David Bromberg and other influential Atlantic recording artists.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He settled in Austin, Texas, in the 1970s, associating mainly with the outlaw country scene that included artists such as Michael Martin Murphey, Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, Waylon Jennings,<ref name="NYT obit"/> and Townes Van Zandt.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> "Jerry Jeff's train songs" (such as Desperados Waiting for a Train) were cited in the lyrics of Jennings and Nelson's 1977 hit song "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On September 28, 1974, Walker appeared with Doug Sahm at Carnegie Hall's Main Hall.
A string of records for MCA and Elektra followed Walker's move to Austin, Texas,<ref name="Larkin"/> before he gave up on the mainstream music business and formed his own independent record label. Tried & True Music was founded in 1986,<ref name=AP>Template:Cite news</ref> with his wife Susan as president and manager.<ref name=UT>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Susan also founded Goodknight Music as his management company and Tried & True Artists for his bookings.<ref name=UT/> A series of increasingly autobiographical records followed under the Tried & True imprint, which also sells his autobiography, Gypsy Songman.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 2004, Walker released his first DVD of songs from his past performed in an intimate setting in Austin.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Walker married Susan Streit in 1974 in Travis County, Texas.<ref name=Nash/> They had two children: a son, Django Walker, who is also a musician, and a daughter Jessie Jane.<ref name="NYT obit"/> Walker had a retreat on Ambergris Caye in Belize, where he recorded his Cowboy Boots and Bathing Suits album in 1998.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He also made a guest appearance on Ramblin' Jack Elliott's 1998 album of duets Friends of Mine,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> singing "He Was a Friend of Mine" and Woody Guthrie's "Hard Travelin'".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Walker recorded songs written by others such as "LA Freeway" (Guy Clark), "Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother" (Ray Wylie Hubbard),<ref name="NYT obit"/> "(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night" (Tom Waits),<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and "London Homesick Blues" (Gary P. Nunn).<ref name="NYT obit"/> He also interpreted the songs of others such as Rodney Crowell, Townes Van Zandt, Paul Siebel, Bob Dylan, Todd Snider, Dave Roberts, and even a rodeo clown named Billy Jim Baker. Walker was given the moniker of "the Jimmy Buffett of Texas".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> It was Walker who first drove Jimmy Buffett to Key West (from Coconut Grove, Florida in a Packard).<ref name=Outsider>Template:Cite news</ref> The two musicians also co-wrote the song "Railroad Lady" while riding the last run of the Panama Limited.<ref name=Outsider/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
"Mr. Bojangles"Edit
Walker's "Mr. Bojangles" (1968) is perhaps his best-known and most-often performed song.<ref name=Nash/> It is about an obscure but talented alcoholic tap-dancing drifter who Walker had met who, when arrested and jailed in New Orleans, insisted on being identified only as "Bojangles".
Notable recordings of the song include a live version by his bandmate Bromberg on his album Demon in Disguise, a single by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band that charted at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971 (also released on their album Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy). and its inclusion in medley on the 1974 debut self-titled album by Jim Stafford.
Later years and deathEdit
Walker had an annual birthday celebration in Austin at the Paramount Theatre and at Gruene Hall in Gruene, Texas.<ref name=Nash/> The party brought some of the biggest names in country music out for a night of pickingTemplate:Clarify and swapping stories.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
He died from throat cancer on October 23, 2020, at a hospital in Austin, Texas, at the age of 78.<ref name="NYT obit"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Blackstock 2020">Template:Cite news</ref>
DiscographyEdit
AlbumsEdit
Source: AllMusic<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Year | Album | Chart positions | Label | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
US Country<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | US<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | AUS<ref name=aus>Template:Cite book</ref> | CAN Country<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | ||||
1967 | Circus Maximus | Vanguard | |||||
1968 | Neverland Revisited | ||||||
Mr. Bojangles | Atco | ||||||
1969 | Driftin' Way of Life | Vanguard | |||||
1970 | Five Years Gone | Atco | |||||
1970 | Bein' Free | ||||||
1972 | Jerry Jeff Walker | 208 | 48 | MCA | |||
1973 | Viva Terlingua | 160 | |||||
1974 | Walker's Collectibles | 141 | |||||
1975 | Ridin' High | 14 | 119 | ||||
1976 | It's a Good Night for Singin' | 18 | 84 | ||||
1977 | A Man Must Carry On | 13 | 60 | ||||
1978 | Contrary to Ordinary<ref group="upper-alpha">Contrary to Ordinary also peaked at No. 99 on the RPM Top Albums chart in Canada.<ref name=RPM>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |
CitationClass=web
}}</ref></ref> |
25 | 111 | 3 | |
1978 | Jerry Jeff | 43 | 206 | Elektra/Asylum | |||
1979 | Too Old to Change | ||||||
1980 | The Best of JJW | 57 | 185 | 21 | MCA | ||
1981 | Reunion | 188 | |||||
1982 | Cowjazz | ||||||
1987 | Gypsy Songman DoLP | Sawdust Records | |||||
1987 | Gypsy Songman | T&TM/Ryko | |||||
1989 | Live at Gruene Hall | ||||||
1991 | Navajo Rug | 59 | |||||
Great Gonzos | MCA | ||||||
1992 | Hill Country Rain | T&TM/Ryko | |||||
1994 | Viva Luckenbach | ||||||
Christmas Gonzo Style | |||||||
1995 | Night After Night | T&TM | |||||
1996 | Scamp | ||||||
1998 | Cowboy Boots & Bathing Suits | ||||||
Lone Wolf: Elektra Sessions | Warner Bros. | ||||||
1999 | Best of the Vanguard Years | Vanguard | |||||
Gypsy Songman: A Life in Song | T&TM | ||||||
2001 | Gonzo Stew | ||||||
Jerry Jeff Walker: Ultimate Collection | Hip-O Records | ||||||
2003 | Jerry Jeff Jazz | T&TM | |||||
2004 | The One and Only | ||||||
2009 | Moon Child | ||||||
2018 | It's About Time |
SinglesEdit
Source: AllMusic,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> unless otherwise stated.
Year | Single | Chart Positions | Album | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
US Country<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> | US | AUS<ref name=aus/> | ||||
1968 | "Mr. Bojangles"<ref group="upper-alpha">"Mr. Bojangles" also peaked at No. 51 on the RPM Top Singles chart in Canada.<ref name=RPM/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation | CitationClass=web
}}</ref></ref> |
77 | 22 | Mr. Bojangles | |
1972 | "L.A. Freeway" | 98 | 98 | Jerry Jeff Walker | ||
1973 | "Desperados Waiting for a Train" | Viva Terlingua | ||||
"Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother" | ||||||
1975 | "Jaded Lover" | 54 | Ridin' High | |||
1976 | "It's a Good Night for Singing"/"Dear John Letter Lounge" | 88 | It's a Good Night for Singing | |||
1977 | "Mr. Bojangles" (Live) | 93 | A Man Must Carry On | |||
1981 | "Got Lucky Last Night" | 82 | Reunion | |||
1989 | "I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight" | 70 | Live at Gruene Hall | |||
"The Pickup Truck Song" | 62 | |||||
"Trashy Women" | 63 | |||||
1994 | "Keep Texas Beautiful" | Single only |
NotesEdit
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- JerryJeff.com
- {{#if:Jerry Jeff Walker|Template:PAGENAMEBASE discography at Discogs|{{#if:Template:Wikidata|Template:Wikidata Template:PAGENAMEBASE discography at DiscogsTemplate:EditAtWikidata|Template:PAGENAMEBASE discography at Discogs}}}}
- [https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: 1222056
| name/{{#if:{{#invoke:ustring|match|1=1222056|2=^nm}} | Template:Trim/ | nm1222056/ }} | {{#if: {{#property:P345}} | name/Template:First word/ | find?q=%7B%7B%23if%3A+%0A++++++%7C+%7B%7B%7Bname%7D%7D%7D%0A++++++%7C+%5B%5B%3ATemplate%3APAGENAMEBASE%5D%5D%0A++++++%7D%7D&s=nm }} }}{{#if: 1222056 {{#property:P345}} | {{#switch: | award | awards = awards Awards for | biography | bio = bio Biography for }}}} {{#if: | {{{name}}} | Template:PAGENAMEBASE }}] at IMDb{{#if: 1222056{{#property:P345}} | Template:EditAtWikidata | Template:Main other
}}{{#switch:{{#invoke:string2|matchAny|^nm.........|^nm.......|nm|.........|source=1222056|plain=false}}
| 1 | 3 = Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning | 4 = Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning
}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:IMDb name with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|showblankpositional=1| 1 | 2 | id | name | section }}