Who recorded it first
Mr. Bojangles
Not a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band original — Jerry Jeff Walker wrote it and cut it for Atco in 1968, and even he wasn’t first on tape
Most people meet “Mr. Bojangles” through the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, whose recording reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. But the band was covering a song Jerry Jeff Walker had both written and released two years earlier: he cut it at Phillips Recording in Memphis on 7 June 1968 and Atco issued it as a single on 20 June 1968. That original crept only to No. 77 on the Hot 100. There is also an earlier tape still: Wikipedia and the Handbook of Texas both report that Austin folksinger Allen Wayne Damron sang it at the Chequered Flag’s 1967 opening and that the live recording made him the first artist to record the song — so “the first recording” and “the first commercial record” are not the same thing here.
The record
The first commercial record
Released Recorded at Phillips Recording in Memphis, Tennessee on 7 June 1968 and released by Atco Records as a 7-inch single on 20 June 1968 (catalogue 45-6594), backed with “Round & Round”. The song also gave its title to Walker’s 1968 Atco album Mr. Bojangles (SD 33-259), which carries a different, separately recorded version cut at Atlantic Recording Studios in New York that summer.
Charted No. 77 on the Billboard Hot 100, with twelve weeks on the chart; No. 51 on Canada’s RPM Top Singles.
How we know
Wikipedia records the session precisely: Walker cut the single at Phillips Recording in Memphis on 7 June 1968 with Bobby Woods, Charlie Freeman, Sandy Rhodes, Tommy McClure, Sammy Creason and a string orchestra, and Atco released it on 20 June — see Mr. Bojangles (song) ↗.
The physical artefact survives in the catalogue: MusicBrainz lists the Atco 7-inch, catalogue 45-6594, dated 1968-06-20, carrying a 3:43 recording — Atco 45-6594 on MusicBrainz ↗.
The earlier tape is not folklore. The Handbook of Texas states that a live recording of the song cut during Allen Wayne Damron’s 1967 opening performance at the Chequered Flag made him the first artist to record it — Damron, Allen Wayne ↗.
Music historian Michael Corcoran adds the detail that Walker had written the song at Damron’s apartment earlier that year and had yet to record it, and that the opening-night recording was released on a 45 sold only at the club — Chequered Flag wasn’t the finish line ↗.
Mr. Bojangles (song) on WikipediaKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
What people get wrong
“Mr. Bojangles” has three famous performances and one author, which is exactly the recipe for a muddled credit. Here is the order of events.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Their recording, released on Liberty in 1970, reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became the definitive popular version — but it is a cover of a record already two years old.
Jerry Jeff Walker
Recorded at Phillips Recording in Memphis on 7 June 1968 and released by Atco Records on 20 June 1968 (45-6594). It reached only No. 77 on the Hot 100.
Jerry Jeff Walker
Walker wrote it after meeting a street performer in a New Orleans jail in 1965. He is both the author and his own original recording artist.
Allen Wayne Damron
Wikipedia and the Handbook of Texas both state that a live recording made at Damron’s 1967 opening night at Austin’s Chequered Flag was the first recording of the song, predating Walker’s own. It was issued only on a 45 sold at the club, so it is not the first commercial release — but it complicates any flat claim that Walker recorded it first.
Sammy Davis Jr.
His 1972 recording for Portrait of Sammy Davis Jr. became a signature showpiece, performed at the White House in 1973 — a third act often assumed to own the song.
Jerry Jeff Walker wrote “Mr. Bojangles” and released the first commercial recording on Atco on 20 June 1968; the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1970 hit is a cover, and an Austin live tape from 1967 is reported to be earlier than either.
Context
Why the cover swallowed the original
Walker’s Atco single was not ignored — it spent twelve weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at No. 77. But a No. 77 record in 1968 is a record most of the country never hears. When the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band put their version on Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy for Liberty in 1970, it went to No. 9, and a top-ten placing is the kind of exposure that overwrites everything behind it.
Then the song kept getting bigger without Walker attached to it. Sammy Davis Jr. recorded it for his 1972 album Portrait of Sammy Davis Jr. and turned it into a showpiece he performed at the White House in 1973, which added a third famous claimant to a song with only one author. The tangle is worth untangling because the song’s whole subject is a performer nobody remembers by name.
The chronology, step by step
- 1965 — Walker meets a street performer using the name “Mr. Bojangles” while jailed in New Orleans, and writes the song about him.
- September 1967 — Allen Wayne Damron performs it at the opening of the Chequered Flag folk club in Austin; the live recording is reported as the first recording of the song, issued on a 45 sold at the club.
- 7 June 1968 — Walker records his own version at Phillips Recording in Memphis with Bobby Woods, Charlie Freeman, Sandy Rhodes, Tommy McClure, Sammy Creason and a string orchestra.
- 20 June 1968 — Atco Records issues the single (45-6594), backed with “Round & Round”. It reaches No. 77 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 51 in Canada.
- 1969–1970 — the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band record their version; Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy appears on Liberty Records in 1970 and the single reaches No. 9 on the Hot 100.
- 1972 — Sammy Davis Jr. records it for Portrait of Sammy Davis Jr., and performs it at the White House in 1973.
A No. 77 record and a No. 9 record are the same song. Only one of them becomes the memory.