Well what I heard on that record just blew me away. Side one was mostly studio music and featured one of my favorite songs of Jerry Jeff's to this day "Desperados." It was only years later that I found out he had also written the song "Mr. Bojangles", which had been a hit for him on the pop charts. The thing was that alongside of those country folk songs, he was also playing music that sounded suspiciously like Rock and Roll, but with a hearty country twang.
Now as part of their Vanguard Visionaries series Vanguard Records has released Jerry Jeff Walker with ten songs reflecting all aspects of his repertoire. Although he only released two albums originally with Vanguard, the material on them provides examples of every type of music that he has recorded over the course of his career. From the more typical folk/country sound of "Morning Song To Sally" to the highly unexpected "Lost Sea Shanty" with its very San Francisco Bay area sound, complete with jangling guitar, pop vocal harmonies, and incessant tambourine.
He's not responsible for what he's doing, his mother made him what he is
I'm quite sure how I feel about that song, but it doesn't seem to have played a big part in his career. Thankfully, the disc gets back onto more recognizable ground soon enough and you start to hear the country boy in his voice start coming through. "No Roots In Ramblin'" is a definite precursor to later material like. But, it's on "North Cumberland Blues" that we hear the Country/Rock sound that would become his signature.
There's the obvious comparison that can be made with Gram Parsons and The Flying Burritos, but Jerry seemed to have a lighter attitude towards the music then Gram ever did. Than again perhaps he wasn't carrying the personal baggage that Parsons lugged around with him until it ended his life. Walker's influence seems to have been overshadowed by Parson's glamorous death, which was unfair for both of them.
Perhaps people held Jerry Jeff's commercial success against him, as if somehow scoring a hit with "Mr. Bojangles" (included on this disc and still a great song as far as am I concerned) excluded him from exerting an influence on the music that followed in his wake. But listening to the diversity of sound and the quality of the music that's on Jerry Jeff Walker it's hard to see how anyone could make that case.
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