However, that doesn't stop me from feeling that Jerry Jeff Walker gets unfairly overlooked and often forgotten about when people talk about the various influences on popular music today. He paved the way for people like Hank Williams Jr., and most of the Country/Rock bands that have played since that time. He may not have been the first to do things, but he was the one who provided the valuable transition between the pioneers and people like Charlie Daniels.
Besides, without Jerry Jeff we would have never met:
"It's up against the wall you Redneck Mothers/Mothers who have raised their sons so well/He's thirty-five and drinking in a honky-tonk/ Just kicking hippies asses and raising hell/ M is for mother/O is for the oil she gave me for my hair/T is for T-bird/H is for Haggard/E is for the eggs she serves me for breakfast/and R is for `Redneck.'" "Redneck Mothers" by Jerry Jeff Walker
Jerry Jeff Walker is a unique figure in the annals of popular music in that he has successfully managed to have a career while playing music that never was easy to drop into any category. He was too Rock-and-Roll for Country purists and who ever heard of a pedal steel guitar in Rock music. The thing is that there turned out to be a huge audience for that type of music and he's never looked back since.
Like any true visionary he's carved out his own path to success and it suits him just fine, and it's given music fans all over something to be grateful for. The songs on Jerry Jeff Walker in the Vanguard Visionary series will give you a good enough indication of what type of music he plays today that if for some reason its the first of his albums you buy, I can pretty much guarantee it won't be the last.
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