Tag: Mr. Bojangles

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

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – Mr. Bojangles

I admit that the part when the dog “up and died” it hits me.”Mr. Bojangles,” written by country music artist Jerry Jeff Walker.

It was based on a homeless man Jerry Walker met in a New Orleans jail. The man referred to himself as “Mr. Bojangles” and regaled Walker with various stories about his life and then created a depressing mood in the cell when he talked about his dog, who had died. When one of the other men requested for someone to cheer everyone up, “Mr. Bojangles” hopped up and performed a tap dance.

“Mr. Bojangles” was the nickname used by Bill Robinson, a black tap dancer who appeared in many movies in the 1930s, including with Shirley Temple in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. After Robinson’s success, many black street dancers became known as “Bojangles.”

The song peaked at #9 in the Billboard 100 and #2 in Canada in 1971.

Some of the many artists to record this song include Bob Dylan, Harry Nilsson, John Denver, Nina Simone, Sammy Davis Jr., and Neil Diamond.

 

From Songfacts

This was written and originally released by the singer/songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker, who wrote the song in the mid-’60s and recorded it in 1968. Walker left his home in upstate New York and traveled the country playing music. He spent some time in New Orleans, where one day he was a bit tipsy and made a public display trying to convince a young lady that love, at first sight, was real. This landed him in jail, where his cellmate was an older black man who made a living as a street dancer and told Walker all about his life.

In his book Gypsy Songman, Walker tells the story: “One of the guys in the cell jumped up and said, ‘Come on, Bojangles. Give us a little dance.’ ‘Bojangles’ wasn’t so much a name as a category of itinerant street entertainer known back as far as the previous century. The old man said, ‘Yes, Hell yes.’ He jumped up and started clapping a rhythm, and he began to dance. I spent much of that long holiday weekend talking to the old man, hearing about the tough blows life had dealt him, telling him my own dreams.” 

Walker moved on to Texas, where he sat down to write: “And here it came, just sort of tumbling out, one straight shot down the length of that yellow pad. On a night when the rest of the country was listening to The Beatles, I was writing a 6/8 waltz about an old man and hope. It was a love song. In a lot of ways, Mr. Bojangles is a composite. He’s a little bit of several people I met for only moments of a passing life. He’s all those I met once and will never see again and will never forget.”

Walker wrote another verse to the song but didn’t perform it because he couldn’t fit it all in. This verse was about the three wives the man in jail told him about.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band version starts with a spoken intro called “Uncle Charlie And His Dog Teddy.”

Jerry Jeff Walker told American Songwriter Magazine May/June 1988 that the success of this showed that songs needn’t conform to rules. He explained: “‘Bojangles’ broke all the rules. It was too long, was 6/9 time, about an old drunk and a dead dog. They had so many reasons why it didn’t fit anything. It would have never been a song if I had been living in Nashville and tried to take it through there. I recorded it in New York. I’ve always had my record deals through New York or L.A.”

According to Jerry Jeff Walker’s confrere Todd Snider, Jerry Jeff was known for a time as “Mr. Blowjangles” because of his raging cocaine habit. Todd quotes Jerry Jeff as saying: “A line of cocaine will make a new man out of you – and he’ll want some too.”

Mr. Bojangles

I knew a man, Bojangles and he danced for you
In worn out shoes
Silver hair, a ragged shirt and baggy pants
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, clicked his heels and stepped
He said his name, Bojangles and he danced a lick
Across the cell
He grabbed his pants, a better stance
Oh, he jumped so high
Then he clicked his heels
He let go a laugh
He let go a laugh
Pushed back his clothes all around
Mr. Bojangles
Mr. Bojangles
Mr. Bojangles
Dance
He danced for those in minstrel shows and county fairs
Throughout the south
He spoke with tears of fifteen years how his dog and him
Traveled about
The 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 the time I spend behind these county bars
He said I drinks a bit
He shook his head
And as he shook his head
I heard someone ask him please
Please
Mr. Bojangles
Mr. Bojangles
Mr. Bojangles
Dance