| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| lemonade kid |
Posted - 13/03/2012 : 19:18:51
JERYY JEFF WALKER
The psychedelic CIRCUS MAXIMUS, Mr. Bojangles, to Jerry & The Lost Gonzos, and his patented cowboy jazz...too damn talented for one man!
I saw him live in '78 in Phoenix...what a show!
LA Freeway..ever been lost there? Play it LOUD!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2zE9cot3jY
Jerry Jeff Walker (born March 16, 1942) is an American country music singer and songwriter. He is probably most famous for writing the song "Mr. Bojangles.[1
Jerry Jeff Walker, Roky Erickson, and Doug Sahm
at Raul’s precursor Gemini’s Club, 1977
Enough talent…And enough crazy to fill a stadium.
Walker was born Ronald Clyde Crosby in Oneonta, New York.[2] His maternal grandparents played for square dances in the area, with his grandmother, Jessie Conroe, playing piano, and her husband playing fiddle. During the late-1950s, Crosby was a member of a local Oneonta teen band called The Tones. The band traveled to Philadelphia to audition for Dick Clark's American Bandstand, but were turned down. Members of the band found Dick Clark's house and were able to get a recommendation to audition at New York City's Baton Records through the company's lead producer Sol Rabinowitz. The band was given a recording contract, but the studio wanted a quintet backed by studio musicians, which left Crosby and another member (Jerry Russell) out of their recordings.
After high school, Crosby joined the National Guard, but his thirst for adventure led him to go AWOL and roam the country busking for a living in New Orleans and throughout Texas, Florida, and New York, often accompanied by H.R. Stoneback (a friendship referenced in 1970's "Stoney"). He played mostly ukulele until Harriet Ottenheimer, one of the founders of The Quorum, got him settled on a guitar in 1963. He adopted his stage name "Jerry Jeff Walker" in 1966. He spent his early folk music days in Greenwich Village in the mid-1960s. He co-founded a band with Bob Bruno in the late-1960s called Circus Maximus ...
...that put out two albums, one with the popular west coast hit "Wind", but Bruno's interest in jazz apparently diverged from Walker's interest in folk music. Walker thus resumed his solo career and recorded the seminal album "Mr. Bojangles" with the help of David Bromberg and other influential Atlantic recording artists. He settled in Austin, Texas, in the 1970s associating mainly with the country outlaw scene that included artists such as Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, Waylon Jennings, and Townes Van Zandt.
[
"Mr. Bojangles" (written by Walker) is perhaps his most well-known and most-often covered song.[2] It was about an obscure alcoholic but talented tap-dancing drifter, (not the famous stage and movie dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, as usually assumed, nor was it about New Orleans blues musician Babe Stovall), a friend of Walker's. In his autobiography 'Gypsy Songman', Walker makes it clear the man he met was white. Further, in an interview with BBC Radio 4 in August 2008, he pointed out that at the time the jail cells in New Orleans were segregated along color lines, so his influence could not have been black. Bojangles is thought to have been a folk character who entertained informally in the south of the US and California, with authentic reports of him existing from the 1920s through about 1965. Artists from Neil Diamond to Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Philip Glass, David Bromberg, Tom T. Hall, Jim Stafford, Sammy Davis Jr., Lulu (New Routes), Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and recently Robbie Williams, have covered the song. Walker has also recorded songs written by others such as "LA Freeway" (Guy Clark), "Up Against the Wall Red Neck Mother" (Ray Wylie Hubbard), "(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night" (Tom Waits) and London Homesick Blues (Gary P. Nunn).
A string of records for MCA and Elektra followed Jerry Jeff's move to Austin, Texas, before he gave up on the mainstream music business and formed his own independent record label. Tried & True Music was founded in 1986, with his wife Susan as President and manager. Susan also founded Goodknight Music as his management company and Tried & True Artists for his bookings. A series of increasingly autobiographical records followed under the Tried & True imprint. Tried & True also sells his autobiography called "Gypsy Songman". In 2004, Jerry Jeff released his first DVD of songs from his past as performed in an intimate setting in Austin.
He has interpreted the songs of others like Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Keith Sykes, Paul Siebel, Bob Dylan, Todd Snider and even a rodeo clown named Billy Jim Baker. Some have called Jerry Jeff the Jimmy Buffett of Texas. Oddly enough, it was Jerry Jeff who first drove Jimmy Buffett to Key West (from Coconut Grove, Florida in a Packard). Walker and Buffett also co-wrote the song "Railroad Lady" while riding the last run of the Panama Limited.
Jerry married the former Susan Streit in 1974 in Travis County, Texas.[2] They have two children: a son, Django Walker, who is also a musician and a daughter, Jessie Jane. In addition to his residence in Austin, Walker has a retreat on Ambergris Caye in Belize where he recorded his "Cowboy Boots and Bathing Suits" album in 1998.
Walker has developed a style of music he calls "Cowjazz". The poignant “Eastern Avenue River Railway Blues,” is one of the best examples of this music. The song sounds like a cross between Bob Dylan and Harry Chapin, with lyrics that refer to the industrial area between Cincinnati's Eastern Avenue and the Ohio River, just south of the tony Mount Adams area.
Members of his band have varied over the years. The Lost Gonzo Band and the Gonzo Compadres have backed him in the past. Key members of his band have included John Inmon, Freddie Krc, Gary P. Nunn, Bob Livingston, Michael Clarke, Bobby Ray Rambo, Mitch Watkins, Steve Samuel, David Bromberg, Chris Gage (of Albert and Gage, Austin, TX), Brad Fordham and others. He is presumably the "Jerry Jeff" in the song Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love) when Willie Nelson sings,"Between Hank Williams pain songs / Jerry Jeff's train songs."
Jerry Jeff has an annual birthday celebration bash in Austin, Texas at the Paramount Theatre and at Gruene Hall in Gruene, Texas.[2] This party has become an enormous event in Texas and brings some of the biggest names in country music out for a night of picking and swapping stories under the Austin skyline. Jimmy Buffett attended the 2004 Birthday bash. His son Django also often accompanies him at these parties.
A classic...Pissin' In The Wind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZDBXm11WXY&feature=related
Jaded Lover...a toe tapper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg4ttXb9q1M&feature=related
Desperados...such a great cover by Jerry, he made it his own.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGxSuU9ymYw&feature=related
Pot Can't Call The Kettle Black...from Jerry Jeff's "Ridin' High" LP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re3-xo9bRc8&feature=related
Night Rider's Lament...my all time favorite Jerry Jeff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7xw1Q7hwco&feature=related
And some fine 60's Circus Maximus...
WIND
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-aBYqVAYNo&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=AVGxdCwVVULXfmiUZXs2qgdTGkoe8KmWdZ
Come Outside, Believe In It
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdd3WQZm1oU&feature=related
________________________________________________
We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers-
-thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses.
Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
|
| 3 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| lemonade kid |
Posted - 18/03/2012 : 22:48:48
Right...it was Bruno's "WIND" we all heard played on underground FM radio...beautiful. But Jerry Jeff was a big part and a founding member with Bruno. It was Bruno's desire to go more into the jazz rock direction that led Jerry Jeff & Bruno to wish to part ways...jerry was more psych folk rock.
Contractual complications were such damn trouble for the many innocent musicians back in the day. There was no real groundwork yet for others to follow.
________________________________________________
We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers-
-thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses.
Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
|
| sometimesmylifeissoeerie |
Posted - 18/03/2012 : 20:37:49
Bob Bruno was the leader of Circus Maximus, and that's his picture in the center of both of their LPs. He wrote most of their songs, and on "Wind" sings it, wrote it, played the piano solo,and played the 12 string electric guitar solo (which I've transcribed).
They changed their name to CM because they were house band at the Electric Circus. Bruno actually was still into rock after CM broke up, but his recording contract destroyed his recording career, and he wasn't allowed to make any recordings for years afterwards.
He started a power rock trio, and used to rehearse in the same studio as Jimi Hendrix in NYC. They used to share joints during breaks. One time his band was so loud, Hendrix had to come in and ask them to lower their volume, because he was recording an LP!
They wound up playing clinics for Ampeg, while Bruno was involved in the Black, free jazz movement at the same time.
I email him now and then. |
| lemonade kid |
Posted - 13/03/2012 : 19:26:10
CIRCUS MAXIMUS
The band, originally called the Lost Sea Dreamers (Vanguard Records insisted on a name change, as the initials "LSD" were considered too linked to the drug culture), was formed in 1967 by Bob Bruno and Jerry Jeff Walker. Bruno's song "Wind", from their eponymous first album, became a minor hit in the United States, particularly through airplay on "progressive" FM radio stations. This track was also a great favorite on Dick Summer's seminal "Night Light" program on WBZ-AM in Boston.
In late December 1967, they performed in an unusual pair of "Electric Christmas" concerts together with the New York Pro Musica, an ensemble devoted to performing early music. The 80-minute performance in New York City (rehearsed in the nightclub Electric Circus where Circus Maximus were in residence much of that month, but performed at Carnegie Hall) included a light show by Anthony Martin and electronic music by Morton Subotnick; the groups performed both together and separately. The material performed together included a reworking of 14th-century composer Guillaume de Machaut's "La douce dame jolie" as an English-language song "Sweet Lovely Lady" and a Bruno original "Chess Game" that, unbeknownst to Bruno himself but noted by John White, director of the Pro Musica, strongly echoed the "Romanesca", a piece first written down in 16th-century Spanish lute books.[2]
The concert was not a critical success. Donal Henahan, writing in the New York Times, said that it "fell somewhat short of being the total-environmental trip that was promised… the night summed up most of the esthetic ideas now in the air: incongruity, simultaneity, games theory, the put-on, the parody, the Trip… and the effort to create a 'Total Environment' in which all the senses can come into play." Henahan opined that the concert's commercial success showed a break-down in the separation of classical and popular audiences.[3]
Bruno's interest in jazz apparently diverged from Walker's interest in folk music, and by July 1968, the band had broken up and Walker was appearing at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village, sharing a bill with Joni Mitchell.[4] Bassist Gary White went on to write Linda Ronstadt's first solo hit, "Long, Long Time."
Robert Shelton included the Circus Maximus album Neverland Revisited in a November 1968 list selected to represent "the breadth… of today's rock".[5]
* Jerry Jeff Walker, rhythm guitar and vocal (credited on first album as "Jerry Walker")
* Bob Bruno, lead guitar, organ, piano, vocal
* David Scherstrom, drums
* Gary White, bass
* Peter Troutner, vocal and tambourine; also some guitar work
ALBUMS...
* Circus Maximus, Circus Maximus, Vanguard VRS-9260 (mono) and VSD-79260 (stereo) (1967)
1. Travelin' Around (Bob Bruno)
2. Lost Sea Shanty (Jerry Jeff Walker)
3. Oops, I Can Dance (Jerry Jeff Walker)
4. You Know I've Got The Rest Of My Life To Go (Bob Bruno)
5. Bright Light Lover (Bob Bruno)
6. Chess Game (Bob Bruno)
7. People's Game (Jerry Jeff Walker)
8. Time Waits (Bob Bruno)
9. Fading Lady (Jerry Jeff Walker)
10. Short-Haired Fathers (Bob Bruno)
11. Wind (Bob Bruno)
* Circus Maximus, Neverland Revisited, Vanguard VSD-79274 (1968)
1. Hello Baby (Bob Bruno)
2. How's Your Sky, Straight Guy Spy (Bob Bruno)
3. Come Outside, Believe In It (Jerry Jeff Walker)
4. Parallel (Bob Bruno)
5. Trying To Live Right (Jerry Jeff Walker)
6. Lonely Man (Bob Bruno)
7. Mixtures (Jerry Jeff Walker)
8. Negative Dreamer Girl (Jerry Jeff Walker)
9. Neverland (Bob Bruno)
10. Neverland Revisited (Bob Bruno)
11. Hansel and Gretel (Jerry Jeff Walker)
NEVERLAND...1968
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wADej1kPLk
Trying To Live Right
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NjGdqCDIw8&feature=related
________________________________________________
We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers-
-thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses.
Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
|
|
|
