Goodbye to Jerry Jeff Walker, who died in Austin, Texas last Friday at the age of 78.
The song "Mr. Bojangles," written by Walker and recorded by him in 1968, was a pretty big hit song for Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1970. Others who've recorded it include: Chet Atkins, Harry Belafonte, David Bromberg, Garth Brooks, JJ Cale, Jim Croce, Sammy Davis Jr., John Denver, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Bobbie Gentry, Arlo Guthrie, Tom T. Hall, Whitney Houston, Billy Joel, Elton John, Frankie Laine, Lulu, Rod McKuen, Don McLean, MC Neat, Bebe Neuwirth, Harry Nilsson, Dolly Parton, Johnny Paycheck, Esther Phillips, Nina Simone, and Cat Stevens.
That's quite a list! And I edited out a lot of names. I read the list out loud to Meade and asked if you had to pick one to listen to right now, who would you pick. Meade's choice:
My choice — I especially enjoyed what seemed to me his conviction that the song is about him:
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59 comments:
"He grabbed his pants for a better stance — whoa, he jumped so high...He let go a laugh... shook back his clothes all around."
C'mon. Toobin stories are so last week.
I saw him play Madison in late 1975 at the Orpheum Theater. Leo Kottke was supposed to open for him but canceled at the last minute. Well at least Kottke was on the poster I used to own. A relatively unknown filled in: Tom Waits on his "Nighthawks At The Diner" tour. Waits actually stole the show.
He was amazing. I learned to love his music in Austin during law school, and I saw him play several years ago, when he was kind enough to play at a fundraiser for my son's middle school. Memory eternal!
Different song but more appropriate for this year’s politics:
Just pissin' in the wind
Bettin' on our losin' friends
Makin' the same mistakes we swear we'll never make again
We're pissin' in the wind
It's blowin' on all our friends
We're gonna sit and grin and tell our grandchildren
David Bromberg
Walker grew up in upstate New York but settled early on in Austin. This was my favorite in the early "70's and shows his sense of humor: link
J J Walker was an excellent song writer, without question. RIP
But my favorite song of his to listen to is L. A. Freeway - it however, was written by Guy Clark. Not too bad of a song writer either.
My college team was fading fast on TV yesterday, so I drifted over to the World Series game. Didn't see it all, but . . . . . . . man, that was a game.
It’s getting a bit overwhelming lately, the sheer number of music and sports legends from my past dying, just in the last few weeks ... makes me sad. :-(
"LA Freeway" has always been my favorite Jerry Jeff Walker song. His tribute to Skinny Dennis Sanchez in the song brings tears to my eyes.
Passed on seeing Jerry Jeff when I was in school at UW in the mid-70s because of his history of showing up too drunk to perform. And my friend who did go? Wanted their money back because he was too drunk to perform. But Viva Terlingua! is a great album.
Best Texas Country Album: Viva Terlingua, Jerry Jeff Walker.
"Bill "Bojangles" [from "jangler," meaning contentious] Robinson was the most famous of all African American tap dancers in the twentieth century." They say he liked to threaten people with his pearl-handled revolver.
'Struth, I can't think of a more famous black tap dancer, of any century.
People forget that Sammy Davis started as a Hoofer, with his family. He is mostly the one I think of performing this song. Thanks.
That Sammy version flies too close to the Shatner Rocket Man sun...
Fernandinande said... 'Struth, I can't think of a more famous black tap dancer, of any century.
Step'n Fetchit.
Speaking of Leo Kottke, tickets go on sale tomorrow for his April 20 concert at the Stoughton Opera House — http://www.stoughtonoperahouse.com/events/2020/4/16/leo-kottke
"Bill "Bojangles" [from "jangler," meaning contentious] Robinson was the most famous of all African American tap dancers in the twentieth century." "
But the song "Mr. Bojangles" can't be about him. The words don't fit. Also: "Walker said he was inspired to write the song after an encounter with a street performer in a New Orleans jail. While in jail for public intoxication in 1965, he met a homeless man who called himself "Mr. Bojangles" to conceal his true identity from the police. Mr. Bojangles had been arrested as part of a police sweep of indigent people that was carried out following a high-profile murder. The two men and others in the cell chatted about all manner of things, but when Mr. Bojangles told a story about his dog, the mood in the room turned heavy. Someone else in the cell asked for something to lighten the mood, and Mr. Bojangles obliged with a tap dance." (Wikipedia)
Still my favorite version: link
Also, we should give credence to his (J. J. Walker's) role in generating some of the best music television ever ~ "Austin City Limits".
Man that's a lot of great shows.
Sammy'performance reminds me of a more honest and simpler time. Sad.
I especially enjoyed what seemed to me his conviction that the song is about him
I always assumed it was about the tap dancer Bojangles Robinson. Turns out there was actually a guy in jail who did a little dance for all the guys in jail.
Interesting background on the song and Sammy Davis Jr here.
Bebe Neuwirth...did not expect that one (nor the Spanish Inquisition).
Sammy has a good voice but he is sooooo 'Vegas.'
He has a lounge lizard schtick that I just can't get out of my mind.
The best song he did was 'Candy Man.'
Sammy’s version is what I think of when I think of this song, and he did a version of it, with dancing, on the Flip Wilson show in the 70’s, that I still remember...,.seared in my memory like a John Kerry Vietnam incident....l
Another upvote for LA Freeway, that song takes up residence in your brain.
Mr Bojangles is simply a masterpiece and if he never wrote another song he’d be a legend for that one alone.
But my favorite song of his to listen to is L. A. Freeway - it however, was written by Guy Clark.
I like several of his recordings, and this is one of my favorites. The another is "One Too Many Mornings" written by Bob Dylan. "Navajo Rug" is up there too.
Not really the song I'd expect from a Band called gritty and dirty. More like sappy..
Oh, my God. I'd never seen that Chet Atkins version before. Brilliant.
I vote for the Country Gentleman.
I worked with Jerry Jeff Walker on numerous occasions, more than I can remember. I have to say that he was one of the biggest assholes the music industry ever vomited forth. A mean-ass drunk and a thoroughgoing jerk. And as for "Mr Bojangles": one of the worst songs to ever make it big. Smarmy, maudlin, fake-melancholy.
I also worked with Leo Kottke on numerous occasions. By contrast with that asshole Jerry Jeff Walkere, Leo was one of the nicest guys I ever encountered in the music business. He was also very, very funny, both on stage and in personal conversation.
A big part of my young adulthood gone. Well, he lived his life as he chose and had a surprisingly long run given the presumed effects of alcohol and the changes in the industry. I saw him play about five years ago and he was still having fun.
From my favorite "Desparados Waitin' for a Train"
"The day before he died I went to see him."
"Well, I was grown, and he was almost gone".
"We closed our eyes and we dreamed us up a kitchen"
"Played another verse to that old song....yeh Jack that Son of a Bitch is comin'"
That Son of a Bitch finally came.
Adios old pal. Had a beer when I heard the news.
Pachydermis
Bromberg's version tells the story. And is wonderful.
Jerry Jeff is an original. Too bad. RIP.
The David Bromberg version is the best.
" A mean-ass drunk and a thoroughgoing jerk.” That kind of explains how he ended up in the drunk tank with Mr Bojangles.
"And as for "Mr Bojangles": one of the worst songs to ever make it big.”
No it’s not. It’s a great song. Maybe a little overheard, and according to Bromberg, who used to perform it with Walker, Walker was sick of it. But it’s a great song. Not everybody wants to listen to music that is mostly designed to show of the musicianship of the performers. In fact most people don’t.
Went to a Jerry Jeff Walker and Jimmy Buffet concert held in a high school gym in Johnson City, TN c. 1975. Jimmy wore a lobster suit. Stood on the gym floor the whole time singing along with Jerry Jeff. Great night.
Viva Terlingua is a classic- a great live set recorded at a dance hall in Lukenbach Texas. Great songs throughout. Jerry Jeff was a genius at entertaining drunks.
It is one of those songs I first heard early in my life that stuck with me. I am now not quite sure which version- I think it was the Sammy Davis Jr. one listening to it right now- the voice sounds right to my ear.
Dylan's cover was included on the 1973 Dylan - that Columbia Records put out with no input from Bob (who had left the label for Asylum). All songs on the album are either covers or traditional songs. None were written by Bob. I believe that is because that while Columbia had a right to put out an album w/out Dylan's consent as performer they could not use anything he had written.
I admire those who know how to make the absolute minimum effort required for sufficiency and refuse to exert a single calorie of additional effort, so I have profound respect for the man who collected a lifetime of royalties by writing this chorus:
Mr Bojangles
Mr Bojangles
Mr Bojangles
Dance
Fernadenand,
How about the Nichols Brothers? Great as Bill Robinson was I think they were probably better. Certainly more athletic.
Here they are with the Glen Miller Band and Dorothy Dandridge dancing Chatanooga Choo-Choo.
Great number from the movie Sun Valley Serenade
Don't miss the music but the dancing starts at 4:49 and really cranks up about 5:59
https://youtu.be/V2aj0zhXlLA
Also, they reprise in Orchestra Wives, again with Glenn Miller https://youtu.be/fFv_PoZ2iP0 Bonus extra: Jackie Gleason pretending to play standup bass.
I can see why SD would think Mr Bojangles is about him. Not that he thinks it was written about him but that it describes his life. Started hoofing at about 5 years old with father and uncle, never had any schooling or real home.
John Henry
Somewhat off topic but when I was looking for the Nicholas Brothers, YouTube also recommended Larry Elgart - Hooked on Swing.
https://youtu.be/IYu4p0S4bZc
Big bands and jitterbugging from the 40s' Not much is better than this.
John Henry
I'd not heard the Chet Atkins version before. Very nice.
When it started they were showing a piano and I thought "Chet Atkins playing piano now?"
Then I saw he was playing guitar but it sounded like a piano.
John Henry
This song featured in a post you wrote about Justice Thomas.
Meade chose wisely, beautiful. And i agree with you on Sammy. I’m sure I saw it first on the smothers brothers or something, but never forgot it. I do love me some Sammy.
78 like Mac Davis and Helen Reddy. Same age as Biden.
John Denver's cover is best of all. By far.
Didn't hear that over the weekend. Sorry to hear that news. RIP. Many, many memories around that song and others by JJW.
I heard the first live performance of this song by Walker himself on WBAI-FM in NYC on Bob Fass's "Radio Unnameable" in November 1967. Fass was so taken with the song that he went on to play the recording of that performance multiple times each show for months and months afterwards. The same thing had happened with Arlo Guthrie's performance of "Alice's restaurant," sometime earlier in 1967.
Sammy is sublime. Beautiful performance. Chet actually singing a few words is equally sublime.
I like Sammy Davis Jr's version as well.
Meade chose wisely, beautiful. And i agree with you on Sammy. I’m sure I saw it first on the smothers brothers or something, but never forgot it. I do love me some Sammy.
78 like Mac Davis and Helen Reddy.
78 is the new 27
I agree with all of those above who’ve named David Bromberg’s as their favorite version, but I do recall having been brought to tears long ago when I saw Sammy Davis dance the part on TV (I think it was the Tom Jones Show, and Tom singing).
I’ve heard all those Roughcoat stories and I don’t doubt they’re true, but from a long distance I only cared about his work, which I loved. I think JJ would have signed up for rightguy’s epitaph — Jerry Jeff was a genius at entertaining drunks.
Can't believe that Jim Stafford's version didn't make the cut. It's still my favorite by far:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjEQEUkRAQU
I just remember back in high school in the late 60s/early 70s everybody mocking the "his dog up and died" line.
--gpm
@gpm — I’ve never seen it confirmed, but I always took the line in Commander Cody’s “Seeds and Stems” to be, umm, an hommage to Jerry Jeff. (Come to think of it, though, I’m not even 100% sure Bojangles was written first.)
BTW, does anybody else think, at least in that video, Chet Atkins bears a striking facial resemblance to GWB?
Goat ropers need love, too
Say goodbye to the landlord for me
Sons o' bitches always bore me
Throw out those L.A. papers
Moldy box of vanilla wafers
Adios to all this concrete
Gonna get me some dirt road backstreet
If I can just get off that LA freeway,
without being killed or caught
Down the road in a cloud of smoke-----
RIP, JJW
The best version of Mr. Bojangles is by David Bromberg. He worked with Jerry Jeff Walker and tells the story of how the song came to be. Worth a listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH5XmLXZPyo
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