2020 Claims Another One-Jerry Jeff Walker

I cannot believe no one posted his VERY best song (though I think it was a cover of Guy Clark.... not sure)

 
JJW was one of the blizzard of "Texas Music" that blew into my music world in the 1980s. Steve Earl. Townes Van Zandt. JJW. Billy Joe Shaver. Robert Earl Keen, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, then Cody Johnson, Charlie Robison, Wade Bowen, Ray Wylie Hubbard, who paved the way into Cross Canadian Ragweed, Pat Green, Randy Rogers band, Reckless Kelly, Whiskey Myers, Chris Knight, Jamey Johnson and a host of others. AFAIAC, this is the ONLY real music today. It is not "country" in the sense that it has nothing to do with the FM playlists and the corporate crap that comes out of Nashville and is played on the radio. I mean the kind of vomitus like Fla GA line, Blake Shelton, Luke Combs and that stuff... I swear that junk sounds like "Foreigner" with a twang.

I fell in love with punchy lyrics, songs about REAL life and not idiotic stuff about bouncing around in the fields ogling the farm girls (half these guys grew up in the city and were in punk bands, and would not know half the stuff they warble about). Jerry Jeff was great, in that he knew what he wrote about. His most famous hit actually came from busking around drunk in New Orleans for years. This dude was just someone he met in the drunk tank. While I don't advocate living a life of utter profligacy, there is a freedom and an ability to see life without all the glitz and add ons that came to me, at least, from living almost a year on the road, though I was not into booze and drugs...., just travelling.

I am going to miss Gonzo. I really am
 
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