Tag: Jerry Jeff Walker

Jerry Jeff Walker – Mr. Bojangles

I’ve wanted to revisit Jerry Jeff Walker for a long time. I picked an easy one, but the song has always meant a lot to me. It’s for the personal connection that I picked this one. I first heard this song by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, but I love this version as well. Only a few songs can make me feel emotional, and this one does. The song gets me emotionally involved with the story, and then comes the line, his dog up and died. I can feel that, and it hurts every time. 

The inspiration for the song started in the mid-60s, before Walker was known. He was passing through New Orleans and ended up spending a night in a jail cell on a minor charge. While there, he met an older man who began talking to pass the time. The man said his name was Mr. Bojangles, not his real name, but as something he used to avoid giving his identity to the police.

During the conversation, the man talked about his life as a street dancer. He described performing for tips, moving from place to place, and how he used dance to get by. At one point, the mood shifted. He spoke about his dog that had died, and how that loss affected him. Then, almost as a way to break the tension in the cell, he started tapping and dancing a little. This meeting stayed with Walker.

After getting out, Walker wrote the song based on that encounter. He didn’t try to document the man exactly. Instead, he shaped the story into something broader, a character built from memory. The name itself came from the man’s habit of using it in place of his real one, which also echoed the stage name of dancer Bill Robinson, though the song is not about Robinson. I thought it was when I found out about Robinson. 

This song has stood the test of time. I hardly use that worn-out phrase, but it does. Just like some movies are classics, this is because of that story. It’s a great story song, and you get a full look at the characters. It’s some excellent songwriting in that. 

Walker was born in New York but drifted around the country in the 60s. In the early 1970s, Walker relocated to Austin, Texas, where he became part of the burgeoning outlaw country music scene. He helped define that genre. He was part of the Texas songwriters such as Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, and Townes Van Zandt. He is not technically a natural-born Texas singer-songwriter, but he is remembered by many as one. 

Walker recorded the first version of the song, and it peaked at #77 on the Billboard 100 in 1968. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded their version the next year, releasing it in 1970, and it peaked at #9 on the Billboard 100, #2 in Canada, and #2 in New Zealand in 1971.

Mr Bojangles

I knew a man Bojangles and he’d dance for you
In worn out shoes
Silver hair and ragged shirt and baggy pants
He did the old soft shoe
He jumped so high
He jumped so high
Then he’d lightly touch down

I met him in a cell in New Orleans
I was down and out
He looked to me to be the eyes of age
As he spoke right out
He talked of life
He talked of life
He laughed slapped his leg a step

He said the name Bojangles and he danced
A lick across the cell
He grabbed his pants a better stance
Then he jumped so high
He clicked his heels
He let go a laugh oh he let go a laugh
Shook back his clothes all around

Mister Bojangles
Mister Bojangles
Mister Bojangles
Dance

He danced for those at minstrel shows and county fairs
Throughout the South
He spoke with tears of fifteen years how his dog
And him traveled about
His dog up and died
He up and died
After twenty years he still grieves

He said I dance now at every chance in honky-tonks
For drinks and tips
But most o’ the time I spend behind these county bars
Hell I drinks a bit
He shook his head and as he shook his head
I heard someone ask him please

Mister Bojangles
Mister Bojangles
Mister Bojangles
Dance

Guy Clark – L.A. Freeway

In the past couple of years, I’ve been listening to more and more of the Texas style singer/songwriters and I can’t get enough. I keep looking for more but there are a few I always come back to…Guy Clark, Townes Van Zant, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Steve Earle.  In 1975 Guy Clark released this song on his first album Old No. 1 and eventually released 13 studio albums. 

In the 1960s, Guy Clark tried his luck in the California music scene. He also built and repaired guitars and had a shop in San Francisco in 1969. In 1971 he was signed as a songwriter by Sunbury Music in Los Angeles, he decided to relocate to the company’s Nashville office in 1971. His arrival helped usher in a migration of new songwriting talent to the city.

Clark wrote this song while living in Los Angeles in the late 1960s. He and his wife, Susanna Clark, lived in a small, rundown apartment, and they felt out of place in the city. They wanted to leave Los Angeles and return to Texas, where he felt more at home.

The idea for the song reportedly came to Clark while he was driving on the freeway, scribbling lyrics on a paper bag. The line “pack up all your dishes, make note of all good wishes” showed his desire to escape the chaotic nature of L.A. at the time.

Jerry Jeff Walker was the first to record the song on his self-titled album in 1972. Walker’s version of this song peaked at #98 on the Billboard 100 so Walker popularized it. 

L.A. Freeway

Pack up all your dishesMake note of all good wishesAnd say goodbye to the landlord for meThat son of a bitch has always bored me

Throw out them LA papersAnd that mouldy box of vanilla wafersAdios to all this concreteGonna get me some dirt road back streets

If I can just get off ofI’ll be down the road in a cloud of smokeTo some land I ain’t bought, bought, bought

And it’s, here’s to you old skinny DennisThe only one I think I will missI can hear that old bass singingSweet and low, like a gift you’re bringing

Play it for me one more time, nowGot to give it all you we can nowI believe every thing you’re sayingAnd just to keep on, keep on playing

If I can just get off of this L.A. freewayWithout gettin’ killed or caughtI’ll be down the road in a cloud of smokeTo some land I ain’t bought, bought, bought

And you put the pink card in the mailboxLeave the key in the front door lockThey’ll find it likely as notI’m sure there’s somethin’ we have forgot

Oh Susanna, don’t you cry, babyLove’s a gift that’s surely handmadeWe got somethin’ to believe inDon’t you think it’s time we’re leavin’?

If I can just get off of this LA freewayWithout gettin’ killed or caughtI’ll be down the road in a cloud of smokeTo some land I ain’t bought, bought, bought

If I can just get off of this LA freewayWithout gettin’ killed or caughtDown the road in a cloud of smokeTo some land I ain’t bought

So pack up all your dishesMake note of all good wishesAnd say goodbye to the landlord for meThat son of a bitch has always bored me

Circus Maximus – Wind

I blog because I like to talk to everyone about the artists I and they featured that day. Sometimes, the conversations go elsewhere and not long ago I happened to catch a conversation between CB and Phil from the Cactus Patch. They mentioned Circus Maximus which featured Jerry Jeff Walker. I pay attention to all the conversations, even if they don’t involve me, and pick up some good songs that way.

I started to listen to their music. I liked their debut album which has intricate musical arrangements that border a free-form type of music. It flows like jazz and dips into psychedelic. It also has a little of The Guess Who in it.  It’s a piece of music from the psychedelic rock era that fits into the landscape of the 1960s. Their members included Jerry Jeff Walker, Bob Bruno, David Scherstrom, Gary White, and Peter Troutner.

Jerry Jeff Walker was probably the most famous to come out of the band. In the early 1970s, Walker relocated to Austin, Texas, where he became part of the burgeoning outlaw country music scene. He helped define that genre. He was part of the Texas songwriters such as Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, and Townes Van Zandt. You know his most famous song very well, Mr Bojangles. That song was made popular by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

While Circus Maximus did not achieve mainstream commercial success, they gained a cult following within the psychedelic rock scene of the late 1960s. The song is called Wind, which was on their debut album released in 1967. The album was played on the progressive FM radio stations.

Wind

You say that once knew for sure
But now you’re walkin’ into shore to wonder*
The more you learn the less you know
The more you move the more you go to nowhere*
You ask a bird as she flies by
Just where she’s at she says, where the wind blows*
Ask her by that what she means
She says she doesn’t know
But as she flew away she seemed to say

Chorus:

The wind is love is the wind
Wind is my love
Who knows the wind
Who knows my love
Where blows the wind
The wind is my love
You say you staggered to your room
Sleep by day and plot by noon
Your conscious plight
Pack your dreams, you move away
Decide to eat and live by day
And leave the night
City sun blinks in your eyes
You shade your face and realize
a lonely crowd
Then at once you feel the smile
And then the ice warm air moves by
She says the breeze provokes her sigh
Chorus

You say you found another spring
Another joy or human thing
Called lovers
You play your role as a comedy
Refreshing well the tradgedy
Your living
Lovers shore, or so you say
Like the wind love blew away
But as she left she seemed to say

Chorus

…

Jerry Jeff Walker – Pissin’ In The Wind

Pissin’ in the wind, bettin’ on a losing friend
Makin’ the same mistakes, we swore we’d never make again
And we’re pissin’ in the wind, but it’s blowing on all our friends
We’re gonna sit and grin and tell our grandchildren

I heard this song as a kid…where and when I can’t tell you but it came back to me as soon I started to play it. There was no way country radio would have played this back in 1975 so I sure as hell didn’t hear it there. You know what is really odd? I’ve been blogging for 7 years and never have I had a song with “piss” in the title…and this is the second song TODAY I’ve written up with that word in the title. I decided against posting them back to back so I picked another song to follow this post.

I had forgotten about this song until Randy and CB brought up Jerry Jeff Walker. You know his most famous song very well, Mr Bojangles. That song was made popular by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. When I get into something…I usually fall hard for it. That is the reason you have seen weeks of Texas songwriters. The writing is so consistently good.  Walker was not Texan born but he settled in Texas in the 1970s and stayed there for the rest of his life.

This song is funny and different. He used a Dixieland clarient in a country song which is a wonderful mixture. Needless to say, this is not one of his serious songs but I love the loose feel of it. On top of that, he throws a fun jibe at Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind.

The song was on the critically praised album Ridin’ High. The album charted at #14 on the Billboard Album Charts in 1975.

Pissin’ In The Wind

Pissin’ in the wind, bettin’ on a losing friend
Makin’ the same mistakes, we swore we’d never make again
And we’re pissin’ in the wind, but it’s blowing on all our friends
We’re gonna sit and grin and tell our grandchildren

About the time I called this guy it was four in the morning
Teach me the words to the song I was humming

He just laughed and he said that the ole grey cat is sneakin’ down the hall
But all he wants to know is who in the hell is paying for the call

Chorus

Now this Nunn called me up, it was eight in the morning
Wanted to know how in the world am I doin’
He just laughed and he said get together boy, and fall on by the house
Some Gonzo buddies would like to play anything your’s picking now

Chorus

Now we worked and we suffered and struggled
Makin’ our record till we got it right
Now we’re waiting on the check to come sneaking down the hall
Like that old time feeling
That we never should have ever put the record out at all

Chorus

That the answer my friend is just pissin’ in the wind
The answer is pissin’ in the sink

….