1942–2020 · American singer-songwriter · wrote and first commercially recorded the song
Born Ronald Clyde Crosby in Oneonta, New York, Walker played the Greenwich Village folk circuit before settling in Austin and becoming a central figure in progressive and outlaw country alongside Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. He wrote “Mr. Bojangles” after meeting a street performer during a 1965 stay in a New Orleans jail — a homeless man who used the name to keep his own from the police, having borrowed it from the entertainer Bill Robinson. Walker recorded it at Phillips Recording in Memphis on 7 June 1968 and Atco released the single on 20 June. It reached No. 77 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed his signature song for the rest of his life; he died in Austin in 2020.