Texas music legend Jerry Jeff Walker died on Friday, Oct. 23 following a three-year battle with throat cancer.

Walker, 78, is best known for writing the classic story song “Mr. Bojangles.” He was one of the founding figures of the Austin, Texas “outlaw” country scene, a top showman and the host of the TNN television series The Texas Connection.

He was born Ronald Clyde Crosby in Oneonta, New York, in 1942 and performed in a number of local teen combos in the 1950s. After going AWOL from the National Guard, he became a folk troubadour, traveling to Florida, Louisiana and Texas.

In 1965, he was arrested for public intoxication in New Orleans and spent the night in a drunk tank with an itinerant street performer named “Bojangles.” While performing in Washington, D.C. the following year, the musician changed his name to Jerry Jeff Walker.

Relocating to New York City, he formed the house band at the Electric Circus nightclub. Dubbed Circus Maximus, the band recorded two albums for Vanguard Records in 1966-67.

After the band’s demise, Walker resumed working in the Greenwich Village folk scene. He fashioned a song based on Bojangles and used it as the title tune of his 1968 solo debut LP. Walker introduced “Mr. Bojangles” at the Newport Folk Festival, and the song became a minor pop chart entry for him that summer. In 1970, the song became the first top-10 hit of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. That version is now in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

“Mr. Bojangles” has gone on to become one of the most recorded titles in the BMI repertoire. Among its hundreds of versions are those by Harry Belafonte, Nina Simone, John Denver, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Frankie Laine, Johnny Paycheck, Bobbie Gentry, Tom T. Hall, Harry Nilsson, Sammi Smith, Nancy Wilson and Walker’s Newport Folk Festival cohort David Bromberg. It was a key feature of Sammy Davis Jr.’s nightclub act for decades.

Jerry Jeff Walker took Jimmy Buffett to Key West in 1970. They co-wrote “Railroad Lady,” which later became a Lefty Frizzell country single. Buffett remained in Florida.

In 1971, Walker moved to Austin. He and his Lost Gonzo Band became mainstays of the movement variously described as “alternative country,” “outlaw country” and “progressive country.” Their freewheeling, rollicking shows became wildly popular.

Jerry Jeff Walker became a songwriting connoisseur. He popularized such Texas classics as Ray Wiley Hubbard’s “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother,” Billy Joe Shaver’s “Old Five and Dimers Like Me,” Guy Clark’s “L.A. Freeway” and “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” Jesse Winchester’s “Mississippi You’re on My Mind,” Willie Nelson’s “Pick Up the Tempo,” Gary P. Nunn’s “London Homesick Blues (Home with the Armadillo),” Michael Martin Murphy’s “Backsliders Wine” and Rusty Weir’s “Don’t It Make You Wanna Dance.”

Following three LPs for Atco, he signed with MCA Records in 1972. Viva Terlingua was issued the following year. Regarded as a classic, the album earned a Gold record and became his biggest seller. He issued 10 other collections on MCA before forming his own Tried and True imprint in 1986.

Following in the footsteps of Nashville’s John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker became a model of do-it-yourself career success. He maintained a fan base of 50,000, communicating via regular newsletters, annual record releases and enthusiastic tours.

His partner in the business was his wife. Walker had married Susan Streit in 1974 and given up his hard-partying vices in 1978. She became his manager and booking agent. Merchandise, tour promotion and publicity were also handled in-house.

Live at Gruene Hall (1989), Navajo Rug (1990), Hill Country Rain (1992), Cowboy Boots & Bathin’ Suits (1998) and many more releases polished his reputation as a record maker. Walker also continued to write, with “Sangria Wine,” “Gettin’ By,” “Gypsy Songman,” “Hairy Ass Hillbillies,” “Pissin’ in the Wind,” “Hill Country Rain” and “Leavin’ Texas” becoming particular audience favorites. He also wrote a tribute to an enduring baseball legend, “Nolan Ryan.”

In 1991, he began hosting the series The Texas Connection on TNN. The show continued for a second season in 1992.

Walker presided at annual fan-club gatherings coinciding with his birthday in March and Labor Day in September. In 1999, he published his autobiography, Gypsy Songman: A Life in Music.

By then, Jerry Jeff Walker had become a musical inspiration for a generation of younger troubadours such as Nanci Griffith, Townes Van Zandt, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Robert Earl Keen, Todd Snider and Jack Ingram. During his career, he released more than 40 albums, including live recordings and compilations.

He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2017. Walker donated his career’s archive to Texas State University. His final album appeared in 2018.

Jerry Jeff Walker is survived by wife Susan, daughter Jessie Jane McCarty, son Django Walker, two grandchildren and a sister. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

Record, film and TV producer Bill McEuen died on Sept. 24 in Kona, Hawaii at age 79.
He is best known as the producer and mastermind behind The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s landmark 1971 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken. The record featured the group collaborating with legends of old-time country music. It is now in the Grammy Hall of Fame and is considered to be a foundational work of what became known as Americana Music.

McEuen also produced the Dirt Band’s 1970 hit “Mr. Bojangles,” which is in the Grammy Hall of Fame as well. He managed the group for a time and arranged for it to become the first American band to tour the Soviet Union (1977).

Among his other clients were Pee Wee Herman, Steve Martin, LeRoux, Robert Shimmel, The Sunshine Company, John McEuen and the pre-Allman Brothers rock group Hourglass.
Bill McEuen produced four comedy albums for Steve Martin, which sold an estimated 10 million units. He also produced the comedian’s million-selling 1978 hit single “King Tut,” as well as Martin’s movie The Jerk.

McEuen’s Aspen Film Society company also produced the films Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Big Top Pee Wee, The Man with Two Brains, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Lonely Guy, Cold Dog Soup and The Big Picture, as well as a number of television specials.

He owned the Aspen Recording Society studio. He is the older brother of recording artist John McEuen, formerly a member of the Dirt Band.

William Eugene “Bill” McEuen is survived by his wife Alice and his brother John McEuen.

Rocker Roy Head, who later forged a long career in country music, died Monday morning (Sept. 21) at age 79.

Head is best known for his 1965 pop/rock hit “Treat Her Right.” He was a wild, unpredictable showman whose stage performances were legendary. Between 1974 and 1986 he placed 24 singles on the country charts.

He grew up in East Texas, influenced by the musicians in the Black community around him, his mother’s Ernest Tubb records and the weekly broadcasts of The Louisiana Hayride.

Head recorded a few rockabilly tunes, then broke through with the R&B barn burner “Treat Her Right.” The single rose to the upper reaches of the charts, prevented from hitting No. 1 by The Beatles’ “Yesterday.”

The song became a big country hit for Barbara Mandrell in 1971. “Treat Her Right” was also covered by Jerry Lee Lewis, Billy “Crash” Craddock, Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Mae West, Robert Plant, Tom Jones, Otis Redding, George Thorogood, The Box Tops, Doug Sahm, Sandy Nelson, Joe Stampley and Los Straightjackets.

Head’s version was heard on the soundtracks of the 1991 movie The Commitments and Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

“Apple of My Eye” was the follow-up top 40 hit in late 1965. A string of releases on Back Beat, Scepter and Mercury ensued in 1966-71. Future rock star Johnny Winter got his start in Head’s band The Traits.

It was during this time that Roy Head built his reputation as a microphone-slinging, frantic, manic, back-flipping, leg-splitting stage wild man. Vocal shrieks and enthusiastic shouts accompanied his gymnastic dancing. Head’s offstage exploits were equally colorful, and Head’s re-telling of them was invariably embellished.

When his pop/rock career faded, Head turned his attention to country music.
He made his debut on the country charts with Mickey Newbury’s tune “Baby’s Not Home” in 1974. The following year, he scored his first country hit, “The Most Wanted Woman in Town.” It cracked the top 20 and became a top 10 hit on the Canadian country charts.

Head had his two biggest country hits in 1977-78, “Come to Me” and “Now You See ‘Em Now You Don’t.” Both were top 20 hits on ABC/Dot Records.

Other notable singles included his country versions of Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night” (1978) and Loggins & Messina’s “Your Mama Don’t Dance” (1983). Roy Head remained a Houston music legend into the 1990s and beyond. He retained his reputation as an electrifying showman into his senior years, and continued to be an entertaining raconteur.

Son Sundance Head was a finalist on American Idol in 2006, then won on The Voice in 2016. That led to the top 10 country hit “Darlin’ Don’t Lie” and a remake of his father’s “Treat Her Right” as a duet with Blake Shelton.

Roy Head was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of fame in 2007. He is survived by his wife Carolyn, son Jason (Sundance), daughter-in-law Misty, and three grandchildren. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

Belmont University professor William “Bill” Pursell was known for his Music Row session work, his pop instrumental hits and his classical works as a pianist/composer.

He passed away at age 94 last Thursday, Sept. 3. Pursell’s death was due to COVID-19-related pneumonia, according to the Associated Press.

Pursell was raised in Tulare, California, in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley. He began playing piano at age 3 and was trained to be a concert pianist. At age 15, he was sent to Berkeley to continue his music studies.

After high-school graduation, he was awarded a scholarship to study at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. Pursell’s education was interrupted by World War II, during which he was the arranger for the U.S. Air Force Band.

In 1949, he began attending the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. While earning his B.A. and M.A., he studied under renowned classical composer Howard Hanson.

He toured as a jazz and R&B musician until Eddy Arnold suggested he move to Nashville in 1960. In the studios of Music Row, Pursell soon emerged as a key sideman in the new country style known as The Nashville Sound.

He played keyboards on records by Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Chet Atkins, Joan Baez, Marty Robbins, Dan Fogelberg, Johnny Paycheck and more. During this period, he also began teaching music history and theory at Vanderbilt University.

Bill Pursell’s easy-listening piano performance of “Our Winter Love” became a pop hit in 1963. It was followed by “Loved” and “Stranger.” All three tunes appeared on his debut LP for Columbia Records. It was followed by two other Columbia collections, 1964’s Chasing a Dream and 1965’s A Remembered Love. He next recorded Bill Pursell at the Piano: The “In” Sound of Country and Western Music for Spar Records in Nashville.

During this period, Bill Pursell increasingly emphasized his classical training. He became a regular soloist with The Nashville Symphony. He composed piano sonatas, overtures, symphonies, preludes, concertos, tone poems and operas.

He also composed theme music for Six Flags Over Georgia, Cypress Gardens and Circus World, as well as ad jingles and incidental music for films and television productions. His work as an arranger led to Grammy Award nominations in 1974 and 1978.

Pursell reemerged on disc with the 1976 pop LP Bill Pursell and The Nashville Sweat Band. It spawned a British disco hit titled “Now.”

He joined the faculty of Belmont University’s new music school in 1980. Among his students over the years to come were Brad Paisley and Trisha Yearwood. Belmont premiered his opera, Crooked River City, in 2016. He retired the following year at age 91.

The University Press of Mississippi published Crooked River City: The Musical Life of Nashville’s William Pursell in 2018. Written by Terry Wait Klefstad, it profiled one of Nashville’s most eclectic musical personalities.

Bill Pursell is survived by his daughter, Laura Pursell, son Bill Pursell and stepdaughters Ellen Spicer and Margaret Pursell. He was preceded in death by daughter Sharon Pursell in 2012 and wife Julie Pursell in 2018. Donations to the William Whitney Pursell Scholarship in Composition can be made to the Belmont University School of Music.