Gypsy Songman

📖 The Scoop

This biography of country-folk songwriter and performer Jerry Jeff Walker is written in collaboration with Earl Casey and Philip Finch, with the foreword by Larry L. King and introduction by Jimmy Buffett. Last year Jimmy Buffett was on the bestseller lists for months. One of Buffet's chapters is about Jerry Jeff Walker, who practically changed the course of Buffett's career.

A brilliant entertainer, well-read and outspoken, Walker is Austin's poet laureate and a pal to fellow musical outlaws Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. Walker writes poetically of the night he penned his great hit song, "Mr. Bo Jangles," as he sat with "Bo" in a New Orleans jail. ("Mr. Bo Jangles" became Sammy Davis Jr.'s theme song.)

This a fascinating, riveting and fun-to-read study of a budding star in the wild and crazy 1960s and 1970s, a ramblin' singer living on the edge, a true modern-day minstrel who changed his identity and his life through youthful happenstance. And it is the story of a man who, with the aid of wife Susan, matured into a respected singer-songwriter who now earns a mint with his own recording company, Tried and True Music. Walker today is a rebel with several causes.

Two presidents, Clinton and Bush, have named Walker among their favorite singers. Jerry Jeff Walker truly has a great story to tell -- about a generation lost, about America. Walker routinely packs in the fans wherever he and his Lost Gonzo Band play. His furiously loyal cult-fan mailing base includes more than 50,000 addresses.

Genre: Biography & Autobiography / Music (fancy, right?)