Jerry Jeff Walker — Oneonta, New York Origins

Jerry Jeff Walker — Ronald Clyde Crosby — was born on March 16, 1942, in Oneonta, New York, a small city in the Catskill Mountains, making him one of the more geographically unlikely figures in Texas music mythology. He drifted south after years of itinerant folk singing, eventually landing in New Orleans where he wrote 'Mr Bojangles' in 1966, reportedly inspired by a street performer he encountered in a New Orleans jail after being arrested during Mardi Gras. The song, recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and later by Sammy Davis Jr., became one of the most covered songs of the 1970s.

Walker settled in Austin, Texas, in the early 1970s and became a founding figure of the progressive country scene centred on the Armadillo World Headquarters — the movement that encompassed Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and the cosmic cowboy aesthetic of the Texas Hill Country. His Viva Terlingua! album (1973), recorded live at a party in the tiny border town of Luckenbach, Texas, is one of the great live country albums and captured the loose, communal spirit of the Austin scene at its peak.

Oneonta, New York, has no specific Walker landmark. His Texas life — the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Luckenbach, the Hill Country — is the geography of his musical career. He died in Austin in May 2020. His wife Susan Walker has maintained his legacy and the couple's Tried and True Music publishing operation.