Jerry Jeff Walker
| Jerry Jeff Walker | |
|---|---|
Jerry Jeff Walker, 2002
|
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Ronald Clyde Crosby |
| Also known as | Gypsy Songman |
| Born |
March 16, 1942 Oneonta, New York |
| Genres | Country, outlaw country |
| Occupation(s) | Country music artist |
| Instruments |
Electric guitar Acoustic guitar Harmonica |
| Years active | 1967–present |
| Labels | Tried & True Music |
| Associated acts |
Lost Gonzo Band Jimmy Buffett Django Walker Todd Snider Circus Maximus Lost Sea Dreamers |
| Website | www.jerryjeff.com |
Jerry Jeff Walker (born Ronald Clyde Crosby on March 16, 1942, in Oneonta, New York) is an American country music singer and songwriter. Best known for writing the song "Mr. Bojangles", Walker's prolific music career and widespread musical influence have made him an iconic fixture of the Texas country music scene.
Walker's maternal grandparents played for square dances in the Oneonta, New York, area, with his grandmother, Jessie Conroe, playing piano, and her husband playing fiddle. 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 (Jerry Russell) 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 New Orleans and throughout Texas, Florida, and New York, often accompanied by H.R. Stoneback (a friendship referenced in 1970's "Stoney"). 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 FM radio 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 outlaw country scene that included artists such as Michael Martin Murphey, Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, Waylon Jennings, and Townes Van Zandt.
...
Wikipedia