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 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 areas like New Orleans, Texas, Florida, and New York. 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-rock 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. It was about an obscure alcoholic but talented tap-dancing drifter, (not the famous stage and movie dancer Bill Robinson, as usually assumed). Bojangles is thought to have been a folk character who entertained informally in the south of the US and California, and some say he might have been one of the most gifted natural dancers ever. Authentic reports of him exist from the 1920s through about 1965. Artists from Nina Simone to Bob Dylan, Philip Glass to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, have covered the song. Walker has also recorded songs written by others such as "LA Freeway" (Guy Clark), and "Up Against the Wall Red Neck Mother" (Ray Wylie Hubbard).
A string of records for MCA and Elektra followed Jerry Jeff's move to Austin, 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, TX.
He interpreted the songs of others like Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark, Keith Sykes, Paul Siebel, Bob Dylan, Todd Snider and even a rodeo clown named Billy Jim Baker.
His son, Django Walker, is also a musician. In addition to his residence in Austin, Walker had a retreat on Ambergris Caye in Belize where he recorded his "Cowboy Boots and Bathing Suits" album in 1998.
Members of his band varied over the years. The Lost Gonzo Band and the Gonzo Compadres have backed him in the past. Key members of his band included Craig Hillis - guitarist and arranger on Viva Terlingua, John Inmon, Freddy Krc, Gary P. Nunn, Bob Livingston, Bobby Rambo, Mitch Watkins, Steve Samuel, David Bromberg and others.
Morning Song To Sally
Jerry Jeff Walker Lyrics
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I thought of you, hmmmm.
Remembering your laughing eyes and all we said
I love you too, hmmmmm.
As all my thoughts of you pass 'fore my face a thousand times,
The way they race my heart I cannot say all in lines.
We kissed goodbye so smooth it turned me 'round
And now sometimes our cool returns to put me on
And slightly down, hmmm.
It seems our love was destined to be caught in other nets
But the love I feel for you Id chance again without regrets.
Standing on the road has been my song before, hmmmmm
And now somehow I'm forced to see me there once more
And that's this song,hmmmm
My waking thoughts of you are just extensions of my dreams
Without you here beside me I'll never know just what they mean
As the morning light stretched in across my bed,
I thought of you, hmmmm
Remembering your laughing eyes and all we said
I love you too, hmmmm
As all my thoughts of you pass 'fore my face a thousad times
The way they race my heart I cannot say it all in lines.
In "Morning Song To Sally," Jerry Jeff Walker expresses his feelings for a past love. As he wakes up in the morning, he remembers the moments he shared with Sally. He thinks of her laughing eyes and all they said to each other. Walker's thoughts of Sally are so strong that they race his heart, and he cannot put them all into words.
Despite their intense love, the couple decided to break up. The goodbye was smooth, but Walker still feels its weight on him. He acknowledges that their love was fated to be caught in other nets, but he would risk it all again to be with Sally. Walker reflects on standing on the road, which has been a common theme in his songs, but this time, it is forced upon him. The song itself is his waking thoughts of Sally, which are just extensions of his dreams. Without her by his side, he will never understand the true meaning of his feelings.
The lyrics of "Morning Song to Sally" are a beautiful representation of love that was lost but remained powerful. The song speaks to the feeling of being unable to move on and the pain of not having the one you love by your side.
Line by Line Meaning
As the morning light stretched in across my bed
At the sunrise, I woke up and looked at the sunlight entering my room.
I thought of you, hmmmm.
I immediately thought of the person I love and miss.
Remembering your laughing eyes and all we said
I recollected the happy moments we have shared together.
I love you too, hmmmmm.
I realized that I still have love for that person.
As all my thoughts of you pass 'fore my face a thousand times,
I start daydreaming of different scenarios in which we could have been together.
The way they race my heart I cannot say all in lines.
I can’t explain how strongly I feel for that person with words alone.
We kissed goodbye so smooth it turned me 'round
When we parted, everything was perfect and left me feeling dizzy.
Round and round, Hmmmmmm
This memory keeps going round and round in my head.
And now sometimes our cool returns to put me on
From time to time, when I think of that person, I start feeling down.
And slightly down, hmmm.
It’s a minor sadness, but it’s still there.
It seems our love was destined to be caught in other nets
Our love wasn’t meant to last, it was taken away from us by external factors.
But the love I feel for you Id chance again without regrets.
But if I had the chance to do it all over again, I would still choose to love you.
Standing on the road has been my song before, hmmmmm
I’m used to being on the road, this is not the first time I’m feeling this way.
And now somehow I'm forced to see me there once more
But this time, I feel stuck in this situation.
And that's this song,hmmmm
That’s why I wrote this song, to express my feelings of longing and sadness.
My waking thoughts of you are just extensions of my dreams
When I’m awake, I continue to daydream about that person.
Without you here beside me I'll never know just what they mean
But because they’re just dreams, I’ll never know what could have been if that person was still here with me.
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: JERRY JEFF WALKER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind