“Country music singer Jerry Jeff Walker, the man behind “Mr. Bojangles,” died Friday after a battle with throat cancer. He was 78.
“”He was at home until an hour before his passing,” his wife of 46 years, Susan Walker, told the Austin American-Statesman. “He went very peacefully, which we were extremely grateful for.”
“Born Ronald Clyde Crosby in New York in 1942, Walker cut his teeth in the folk music scene of Greenwich Village in the ’60s. After spending a night in a New Orleans drunk tank in the mid-60s, Walker wrote “Mr. Bojangles,” which would go on to become a hit and attract several covers by other famous artists including Bob Dylan, Harry Belafonte and Sammy Davis Jr.”
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