Jerry Jeff Walker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jerry Jeff Walker (born March 16, 1942) is a country music singer.
Walker was born Ronald Clyde Crosby in Oneonta, New York. During the late 1950s, Crosby was a member of a local Oneonta teen band called The Tones. The band traveled to Philadelphia to audition for Dick Clark's "American Bandstand", but were turned down. Members of the band found Dick Clark's house and were able to get a recommendation to audition at New York City's Baton Records through the company's lead producer Sol Rabinowitz. The band was given a recording contract, but the studio wanted a quintet backed by studio musicians, which left Crosby and another member out of their recordings.
After high school, Crosby joined the National Guard, but his thirst for adventure led him to go AWOL and roam the country busking for a living in areas like New Orleans, Texas, Florida, and New York. He played mostly ukulele until Harriet Ottenheimer, one of the founders of The Quorum, got him settled on a guitar in 1963. He adopted his stage name "Jerry Jeff Walker" in 1966. He spent his early folk music days in Greenwich Village in the mid 1960s. He co-founded a band with Bob Bruno in the late 1960s called Circus Maximus that put out two albums one with the popular west coast hit "Wind", but Bruno's interest in jazz apparently diverged from Walker's interest in folk music. Walker thus resumed his solo career and recorded the seminal album "Mr. Bojangles" with the help of David Bromberg and other influential Atlantic recording artists. He settled in Austin, Texas, in the 1970s associating mainly with the country-rock outlaw scene that included artists such as Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, Waylon Jennings, and Townes Van Zandt.
"Mr. Bojangles" (written by Walker) is perhaps his most well-known and most-often covered song. It was about an obscure alcoholic but talented tap-dancing drifter, (not the famous stage and movie dancer Bill Robinson, as usually assumed). Bojangles is thought to have been a folk character who entertained informally in the south of the US and California, and some say he might have been one of the most gifted natural dancers ever. Authentic reports of him exist from the 1920s through about 1965. Artists from Nina Simone to Bob Dylan, Philip Glass to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, have covered the song. Walker has also recorded songs written by others such as "LA Freeway" (Guy Clark), and "Up Against the Wall Red Neck Mother" (Ray Wylie Hubbard).
A string of records for MCA and Elektra followed Jerry Jeff's move to Austin, before he gave up on the mainstream music business and formed his own independent record label. Tried & True Music was founded in 1986, with his wife Susan as President and manager. Susan also founded Goodknight Music as his management company and Tried & True Artists for his bookings. A series of increasingly autobiographical records followed under the Tried & True imprint. Tried & True also sells his autobiography called "Gypsy Songman". In 2004, Jerry Jeff released his first DVD of songs from his past as performed in an intimate setting in Austin, TX.
He has interpreted the songs of others like Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark, Keith Sykes, Paul Siebel, Bob Dylan, Todd Snider and even a rodeo clown named Billy Jim Baker.
He has a son, Django Walker, who is also a musician. He has a daughter Jessie Jane. In addition to his residence in Austin, Walker has a retreat on Ambergris Caye in Belize where he recorded his "Cowboy Boots and Bathing Suits" album in 1998.
Members of his band have varied over the years. The Lost Gonzo Band and the Gonzo Compadres have backed him in the past. Key members of his band have included John Inmon, Freddy Krc, Gary P. Nunn, Bob Livingston, Michael Clarke, Bobby Rambo, Mitch Watkins, Steve Samuel, David Bromberg and others.
[edit] Trivia
Some have called Jerry Jeff the Jimmy Buffett of Texas. Oddly enough, it was Jerry Jeff who first drove Jimmy Buffett to Key West (from New Orleans, Louisiana in a Packard).
Jerry Jeff has an annual birthday celebration bash in Austin, Texas with Mike Jak Balla. This party has become an enormous event in Texas and brings some of the biggest names in country music out for a night of picking and swapping stories under the Austin skyline. Jimmy Buffett attended the 2004 Birthday bash.
[edit] Discography
| Year | Album/CD | Record Label | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | Circus Maximus | Vanguard | with his band Circus Maximus |
| 1968 | Neverland Revisited | Vanguard | with his band Circus Maximus |
| 1968 | Mr. Bojangles | Atco #6594, Rhino #R2-71518 | Single recorded in Memphis June 7 and issued June 20, 1968 with Bobby Woods, Charlie Freeman, Sandy Rhodes, Tommy McClure, Sammy Creason, and a string orchestra. Re-issued on Rhino December 21, 1993. |
| 1968 | Mr. Bojangles | Atco #33-259, Rhino #R2-71518 | Album recorded July and August 1968 in NYC with David Bromberg, Gary Illingworth, Danny Milhon, Bobby Cranshaw, Jody Stecher, Donny Brooks, Ron Carter, Bill LaVorgna, and Jerry Jemmott. Issued September 25, 1968. Re-issued on Rhino December 21, 1993. |
| 1969 | Driftin' Way of Life | Vanguard | |
| 1970 | Five Years Gone | Atco | |
| 1970 | Bein' Free | Atco | |
| 1972 | Jerry Jeff Walker | MCA | |
| 1973 | Viva Terlingua | MCA | |
| 1974 | Walker's Collectibles | MCA | |
| 1975 | Ridin' High | MCA | |
| 1976 | It's A Good Night For Singing | MCA | |
| 1977 | A Man Must Carry On | MCA | double album |
| 1978 | Contrary to Ordinary | MCA | |
| 1978 | Jerry Jeff | Elektra/Asylum | the red, white and blue album |
| 1979 | Too Old to Change | Elektra/Asylum | |
| 1980 | The Best of JJW | MCA | greatest hits |
| 1981 | Reunion | MCA | |
| 1982 | Cowjazz | MCA | |
| 1987 | Gypsy Songman | T&TM/Ryko | |
| 1989 | Live at Gruene Hall | T&TM/Ryko | live recording |
| 1991 | Navajo Rug | T&TM/Ryko | |
| 1991 | Great Gonzos | MCA | greatest hits |
| 1992 | Hill Country Rain | T&TM/Ryko | |
| 1994 | Viva Luckenbach | T&TM/Ryko | live recording |
| 1994 | Christmas Gonzo Style | T&TM/Ryko | |
| 1995 | Night After Night | T&TM | live recording |
| 1996 | Scamp | T&TM | |
| 1998 | Cowboy Boots & Bathing Suits | T&TM | |
| 1998 | Lone Wolf: Elektra Sessions | Warner Bros. | |
| 1999 | Best of the Vanguard Years | Vanguard | |
| 1999 | Gypsy Songman: A Life in Song | T&TM | |
| 2001 | Gonzo Stew | T&TM | |
| 2001 | Jerry Jeff Walker: Ultimate Collection | Hip-O Records | |
| 2003 | Jerry Jeff Jazz | T&TM | |
| 2004 | The One and Only | T&TM | DVD |
