Gonzo Texas musician Jerry Jeff Walker dead at 78
By Charlie Haldeman
The writer of "Mr. Bojangles" and countless other folk and country songs was credited with more than music. He helped bring us some other well-known stars like Jimmy Buffett.
AUSTIN, Texas (KTRK) -- Jerry Jeff Walker, the vagabonding gonzo musician known as one of the founding fathers of modern Texas country music, has died after a years-long fight against throat cancer, according to the Austin American Statesman.
While Walker was familiar to Texans as the purveyor of the Lukenbach sound, he was known wider as the writer of the 1968 song, "Mr. Bojangles," a tune he penned after meeting a homeless street performer while in a New Orleans jail cell for public intoxication.
He was born Ronald Clyde Crosby in Oneonta, New York, on March 16, 1942 and began playing music in the area as a teen. He left home to roam the country in the 1960s and spent time in New York City's Greenwich Village, New Orleans and Key West, Florida, before migrating and settling in the Austin area in 1971, a region he became most widely associated with, as the live music capital began to earn its reputation.
He recorded mainstream country music albums for MCA and Elektra before setting out on his own independent label, Tried & True Music, according to his biography. The label and business enterprise was managed by his wife, Susan.
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