Singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker, best known for composing "Mr. Bojangles" in 1970, passed away on Friday at the age of 78. No cause of death has been released although Walker had been suffering from health problems over the past several years.
Born Ronald Clyde Crosby in upstate New York, he would become part of the Greenwich Village folk music scene in the 1960's before migrating south to Austin, Texas to become part of the outlaw country movement. Although Walker spent a good part of his career interpreting the songs of others, hundreds of artists have covered "Mr. Bojangles" while The Nitty, Gritty Dirt Band and Sammy Davis, Jr. got big hits with the two very different versions of a sad story about a tap dancing drifter. "Mr. Bojangles" is part of the Great American songbook and Walker wrote a chapter. In which case, let us hear Walker's seldom heard original. R.I.P.
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