How a runaway National Guardsman became the Jimmy Buffett of Texas
In short: Before he was a legend of the outlaw country movement, Ronald Clyde Crosby was a young man on the run. From busking in New Orleans to headlining Carnegie Hall, his journey from a New York teen band to the heart of Austin's music scene redefined American folk and country.
Born in Oneonta, New York, in 1942, the man who would become Jerry Jeff Walker began his musical life in a local 1950s teen band called The Tones. His early years were shaped by a family lineage of musicians, including grandparents who played piano and fiddle for area square dances. However, his path to stardom was anything but conventional; after joining the National Guard, he went AWOL, leading to a discharge and a nomadic life busking across New Orleans, Texas, Florida, and New York.
By the late 1960s, Walker had transitioned from a wandering performer to a central figure in the progressive and outlaw country scenes. After a stint in Greenwich Village and a brief collaboration with Bob Bruno in the band Circus Maximus, he settled in Austin, Texas, during the 1970s. There, he became a cornerstone of a movement alongside icons like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Townes Van Zandt. His influence was so profound that his 'train songs' were even referenced in the 1977 hit 'Luckenbach, Texas'.
Walker’s repertoire was a tapestry of folk and country, featuring his 1968 masterpiece 'Mr. Bojangles'—a song inspired by a tap-dancing drifter he met in New Orleans—and covers of works by Guy Clark and Tom Waits. Even as he moved away from mainstream labels like MCA and Elektra to found his own independent label, Tried & True Music, in 1986, his connection to the craft remained. Whether performing at Carnegie Hall in 1974 or recording in Belize in 1998, Walker remained a definitive voice of the American West until his death from throat cancer in 2020.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Jerry Jeff Walker
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