Jerry Jeff Walker Dies at 78
Jerry Jeff Walker, the Texas-based musician and songwriter best known for writing “Mr. Bojangles,” died Oct. 23.
Walker was 78 and has been battling throat cancer, American Songwriter magazine reported.
“JERRY JEFF WALKER FOREVER,” his friend and acolyte Todd Snider, who often played “Bojangles” in concert and in 2012 recorded Time as We Know It: The Songs of Jerry Jeff Walker, wrote on Facebook.
“Hate to hear Jeff is gone,” Mark Chestnutt said on Facebook, while Kix Brooks took to Twitter to remember Walker as “one of the great Lone Star badasses.”
Considered a foundational figure in outlaw country and revered for his songwriting, Walker also recorded songs by others including Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother” and Guy Clark’s “Desperadoes Waiting for a Train.”
He was a “guiding light in Austin and Texas music in general,” said a post on “Austin City Limits’” Twitter feed.
“His voice is in my bones,” Gretchen Peters tweeted. “I feel like part of my teenager-hood is gone. RIP Jerry Jeff Walker.”
10/24/20
