9 Questions with Jerry Jeff Walker

by Laura Acuff (Tolentino)

Country music icon Jerry Jeff Walker loves the Lone Star State. He has called Austin home since 1971 and helped revive Luckenbach—recording his best-selling album to date, Viva Terlingua, in the town's old dance hall. But he isn't a native.

The 66-year-old songwriter, who will travel to downtown Bryan on Saturday to headline the city's Texas Reds festival, originally hailed from New York. He recorded his first few albums there but headed south after finding the Greenwich Village scene didn't quite fit. In Luckenbach, he eventually found a scene and a band that would allow him to play his music, his way.

Before Walker's move to Texas, his most successful release had been Mr. Bojangles -- a song that wouldn't peak until the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's remake hit shelves a few years later. (It also would become a hit for Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond.) However, with the release of Viva Terlingua in 1973, Walker became known as a pioneer for progressive country music.

Since that album, which went gold, Walker has released more than two dozen other offerings, some new and some consolidations of older releases. Through his four-decade career, he has published an autobiography, Gypsy Songman, and experimented with other genres such as jazz and pop.

Nowadays, Walker caters mainly to steadfast fans through his Web site, www.jerryjeff.com, and his own label, Tried and True Music. He recently spoke with Spotlight.

1. What prompted your move to Texas?

I wasn't playing anyplace particular. I was doing mostly singer-songwriter shows, because I couldn't find a band that I wanted to play with the way I wanted to play, and a lot of songwriters were going through that. Willie [Nelson] was doing that. Michael [Martin] Murphy was doing that. We were songwriters. We were looking for a band to play things the way we do.

You know, just because you're making an album in the studio doesn't mean you have a band or you even liked the way it was done if the musicians weren't right, so I decided to come back down through [Texas] and see what was happening here and play with some of the bands. And that's where we wound up playing and living and recording.

2. How would you describe your journey from your first band back east to your success in Texas?

My heart lay with folk music, but I couldn't seem to figure out how to make money playing for about 50 people. I had to figure out a way to get out there, so when I wrote the song Mr. Bojangles, that was a steppingstone. But I was still playing to 200 people in gymnasiums. It sounded like crap and wasn't really intimate, so I had to figure out where to go.

So I came back to Texas and started realizing I was going to have to play in dance halls, so I went in that direction. I just kind of wandered around. I guess, as they say, if you throw enough stuff against the wall, some of it sticks. You're just trying to mix it up and follow your instincts, unless you want a job. I didn't want a job. I got lucky a lot. During my wanderings, things happened and I got lucky, but at least I was trying. I was always throwing stuff against the wall.

3. How did you end up at Luckenbach?

It sat around empty for a long time, with just being a post office, more or less, where people picked up their mail. There wasn't much happening there, and [Texas folklorist] Hondo Crouch always liked going over there because he sat in the trees. It was quiet, off the main highway.

So he bought it with the idea that the post office would pay the mortgage and then he'd figure out other ways to make money, and then they took the post office with them when they sold it. So he had to start thinking of things right away, and I said I could chip in to do a concert and get people's attention down there. And that place was overrun, and they had a good time, so then I did my recording there.

4. Did you have any idea how Luckenbach would affect your career?

Well, I also affected Luckenbach. I gave them part of their identity by getting people to come down there. All I did was make my recording down there, and then that recording helped me. It was the idea that I wanted to be someplace comfortable to record -- not in a studio.

I wasn't expecting anything. I was just making a record. I wanted to be comfortable. I never did anything just thinking it was going to be a success. You don't write a four-minute song about an old drunk dancer and a dead dog in a 6/8-waltz time and think you're going to have a hit.

I was doing it to tell my story. That's kind of just what I do is just do it. I didn't have any idea that anything was going to be famous. I don't know what famous is. If I could create a feeling on the record of having fun and then go out and play it, too, that was good to me.

5. Talk a little about the success of Viva Terlingua.

It was fun. I think for a lot of people who weren't in Texas, it felt like they were home for a minute when they played the record, and for the people who were in Texas, they felt like it was a good representation of them. Then it just kind of went everywhere.

6. How did you respond to changing technologies during your career?

1980 was still the beginning of all this switching around, so I just figured I'd lay back. I just took time to be with my family, clean myself up. I'd been running myself ragged with shows and concerts, so I just decided to let it fall. My thing was just to keep playing and writing songs through it all and just keep it based on how I play and what I do.

So as times and technology changed, it didn't change what I played. [Now] I'm trying to decide if the next album is even going to be an album or if I should just make it at my house and sell it over the Internet. I could play in my pajamas.

7. Now that you have your own label, how is that different from being signed with a major label?

I don't have to ask anybody what I'm doing. Monty Python said that once about how they did their own projects. They said, "We never had to run jokes by anybody. We just did them to make ourselves laugh." Record companies can basically tell you they don't like the record, and they won't put it out if they don't want to.

And the second thing is, you find out who your real fans are and where they are. You get a lot more feedback. You kind of know how you're doing. I never knew when I was in the record company. I never knew what was happening.

8. What's your next career goal?

I don't know. I just want to write good songs and have a few good places to play them.

9. Through the years, what has kept you doing what you do?

We always say we're paying for the travel; the music is free. When you're onstage and starting to do what you do, it just feels like it always did. You feel rejuvenated.

And I think that's the point of doing it at all. There was something you connected with right away. That's why pro athletes don't want to stop doing what they do. I did a show with Bob Hope when he was about 90, and he could barely communicate backstage, and when he went on he was funnier than hell. Juices go off, so that's what makes it fun to be up there doing it.

published in The Eagle