Jerry Jeff Walker

Music to soothe the soul.

In high school, I became a huge fan of Jerry Jeff Walker. You could say the album with the song L.A. Freeway spoke to me:

Pack up all your dishes
Make note of all good wishes
Say goodby to the landlord for me
That sum-bitch has always bored me
Throw out them old LA papers
And that moldy box of vanilla wafers
Adios to all this concrete
Gonna get me some dirt road back street

As a son of north Texas, Los Angeles was terra incognito to me but, in the early ‘70s, I imagined it to be smoggy, overcrowded and bumper-to-bumper with cars. As a budding environmentalist and wannabe iconoclast, I liked the idea of simpler. Of dirt road back streets. I liked the idea of escaping all of that and never looking back. Dallas wasn’t Los Angeles, but it was close.

Mr. Bojangles was the first Jerry Jeff Walker song that came to my attention. It told of a vagrant being locked up in a Louisiana jail cell and some of the stories he would tell to the other inmates. If I were a real reporter when I interviewed Jerry Jeff for the Richardson High School newspaper, I would have asked if that was a lived experience, or if he just made it up.

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

Of course the verse that never failed to bring a tear to my eyes was the section about Bojangles’ dog. I think it is the “after 20 years he still grieves” part. Jerry Jeff, being the consummate performer he was, made you believe that it was all true. You could see him with Mr. Bojangles in the cell in New Orleans. Imagine him getting unruly enough on Bourbon Street to come to the attention of the local constables and wind up in the hoosegow needing to sober up after a night of honkytonking.

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

But the song that was the anthem of my youth and the one all of us high school underage drinkers would belt out at Cardinal Puffs bar off Greenville Avenue in north Dallas after slurping down one too many Pabst Blue Ribbons was Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother. Written by Ray Wylie Hubbard, but made wildly popular by the ex-New Yorker Jerry Jeff Walker after he featured it on his breakout album Viva Terlingua. According to Ray Wylie, Redneck Mother was a lived experience he had in Red River, New Mexico. Jerry Jeff brought it to life.

He was born in Oklahoma
His wife's name's Betty Lou Thelma Liz
He's not responsible for what he's doing
'Cause his mother made him what he is

And it's up against the wall, Redneck Mother
Mother, who has raised her son so well
He's thirty four and drinking in a honky tonk
Just kicking hippies' asses and raising hell

We’d sing this song with such fervor and gusto I think with each rendition we’d be partially sobered up. So, we’d throw another quarter in the jukebox, order another PBR and we’d have to start again.

Jerry Jeff Walker’s style was considered “alternative” country. It was crossover country music that could be enjoyed by hippies and rednecks alike. Those of us who frequented Cardinal Puffs weren’t either one of those categories. We were just underage Texan teenagers sporting cowboy boots and hats and hoping word wouldn’t get back to our coaches or parents.

But this is the song I love to hear and sing to these days. It’s called Hill Country Rain from his 1972 album simply titled, Jerry Jeff Walker. It was easy to imagine Jerry Jeff in Luckenbach, Texas, “with Waylon and Willie and the boys” living this experience.

Sometimes I just wake up hummin', feelin' like the world is right
Wanna jump right up and walk outside, take in the mornin' light
Feelin' music runnin' through me, makes me wanna dance
Clap my hands and dance

Sometimes it just takes a lady to smile and make my day complete
That's the feeling you make me tap my feet
Some clappin' some tap your feet
Feelin' like you know you're lucky with every single change
Clap my hands and dance

People tell me, "Take it easy, you're living too fast"
"Slow down now, Jerry, take it easy, let some of life pass"
But I don't know no other way, got to live it day to day
If I die before my time
When I leave, I'm leavin' nothin' behind, no, no
When I leave, I'm leavin' nothin' behind

'Cause I got a feelin', somethin' that I can't explain
Like running naked in that high Hill Country rain
Oh, I ain't worried 'bout tomorrow, I'll get by best I can
Lovin' is my will to live, it makes me laugh, wanna sing and dance
Wanna clap my hands, clap my hands, yeah

I got a feelin', somethin' that I can't explain
Like running naked in that high Hill Country rain
I got a feelin', woo, somethin' that I can't explain
Like dancing naked in that high Hill Country rain

Jerry Jeff Walker died of throat cancer, among other ailments, a little under a week ago. He was 78. I had no idea his real name was Ronald Clyde Crosby, but I think he made the right choice in terms of stage names. ‘Jerry Jeff Walker’ fitted his persona.

Walker emerged from New York's Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s and he was a founding member of the band Circus Maximus. He moved to Texas in the 1970s and in 1972 scored a hit with his version of the Guy Clark song "L.A. Freeway."

And I am so glad he did.

Sometimes I just wake up hummin’….

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Two Jerry Jeff Walker songs for your listening pleasure. “M is for the mudflaps on my pick up truck. . .”

Also, *New* AAR Clyde Dildine sent me this archival footage of the Project RAFT events I wrote about yesterday. At least that’s what he claims they are, I haven’t viewed them yet. . .