Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Timeless Single: Mr. Bojangles

SEPTEMBER 1970 - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: “Mr. Bojangles (Prologue: Uncle Charlie And His Dog Teddy)” b/w “Mr. Bojangles (Liberty 56197) 45 single is released in the US.

NOTE: The 45 was released in two iterations with same catalog#

"Mr. Bojangles / " b/w "Uncle Charlie Interview #2 / Spanish Fandango"

"Mr. Bojangles" is a song penned and first performed by Jerry Jeff Walker for his 1968 album of the same name. It has since been covered by numerous artists, notably the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, whose 1970 recording from the album Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy became a single, peaking at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s single starts with an interview featuring Uncle Charlie, titled "Prologue: Uncle Charlie and his Dog Teddy," which also opens the song on the album. Initially, the B-side included another Uncle Charlie interview from the album, but as the song gained popularity, it was replaced with a version of "Mr. Bojangles" without the interview. Jeff Hanna, the band’s guitarist, sang most of the lead vocals, with Jim Ibbotson providing harmony, swapping roles for the final verse.

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RECORD WORLD, October 3, 1970 – FOUR STAR PICKS

NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND-Liberty 56197

MR. BOJANGLES (Cotillion/Danel, BMI) "Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy" introduce the group's fine version of Jerry Jeff Walker's classic.

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THE ORIGINS OF THE SONG

This was written and originally released by the singer/songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker, who wrote the song in the mid-'60s and recorded it in 1968. Walker left his home in upstate New York and traveled the country playing music. He spent some time in New Orleans, where one day he was a bit tipsy and made a public display trying to convince a young lady that love, at first sight, was real. This landed him in jail, where his cellmate was an older black man who made a living as a street dancer and told Walker all about his life.

In his book Gypsy Songman, Walker tells the story: "One of the guys in the cell jumped up and said, 'Come on, Bojangles. Give us a little dance.' 'Bojangles' wasn't so much a name as a category of itinerant street entertainer known back as far as the previous century. The old man said, 'Yes, Hell yes.' He jumped up and started clapping a rhythm, and he began to dance. I spent much of that long holiday weekend talking to the old man, hearing about the tough blows life had dealt him, telling him my own dreams."

Walker moved on to Texas, where he sat down to write: "And here it came, just sort of tumbling out, one straight shot down the length of that yellow pad. On a night when the rest of the country was listening to The Beatles, I was writing a 6/8 waltz about an old man and hope. It was a love song. In a lot of ways, Mr. Bojangles is a composite. He's a little bit of several people I met for only moments of passing life. He's all those I met once and will never see again and will never forget."

According to Jerry Jeff Walker's confrere Todd Snider, Jerry Jeff was known for a time as "Mr. Blowjangles" because of his raging cocaine habit. Todd quotes Jerry Jeff as saying: "A line of cocaine will make a new man out of you - and he'll want some too."

Walker has said he was inspired to write the song after an encounter with a street performer in a New Orleans jail. While in jail for public intoxication in 1965, he met a homeless black man who called himself "Mr. Bojangles" to conceal his true identity from the police. He had been arrested as part of a police sweep of indigent people that was carried out following a high-profile murder. The two men and others in the cell chatted about all manner of things, but when Mr. Bojangles told a story about his dog, the mood in the room turned heavy. Someone else in the cell asked for something to lighten the mood, and Mr. Bojangles obliged with a tap dance.

Jerry Jeff Walker told American Songwriter Magazine May/June 1988 that the success of this showed that songs needn't conform to rules. He explained: "'Bojangles' broke all the rules. It was too long, was 6/9 time, about an old drunk and a dead dog. They had so many reasons why it didn't fit anything. It would have never been a song if I had been living in Nashville and tried to take it through there. I recorded it in New York. I've always had my record deals through New York or L.A."

ORIGINAL ADVERTISEMENT - Cash Box (January 9, 1971)