Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Mr. Bojangles

This is not the version you may remember, but it is the 1968 original by Jerry Jeff Walker who wrote the song about a homeless white man:


Dylan covered the song in 1973 and someone seemed adamant about making Mr. Bojangles into a black man: Link  Why?

33 comments:

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Is that true?

I've always had assumed it was about a black man.

chickelit said...

Per wiki:

Walker has said he was inspired to write the song after an encounter with a street performer in a New Orleans jail and that the song does not refer to the famous stage and movie personality Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. Walker said while in jail for public intoxication in 1965, he met a homeless white 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. link

YoungHegelian said...

@Lem,

I always assumed he was an old white guy.

chickelit said...

I've always had assumed it was about a black man.

Perhaps you should reflect on preconceived notions of tap dancers.

I heard the song many times growing up (the NGDB version) and I never assumed it was about a black man. Maybe that's why my jaw dropped when I saw that Dylan video.

deborah said...

I think the first 45 I ever bought was the Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band version. Still a great song. I never thought of him as black.

chickelit said...

@Deb: I think my first 45 was "Purple Haze/Foxy Lady -- yes I went for the hard stuff.

Sadly, iTunes doesn't seem to sell the original version by JJW.

bagoh20 said...

Speaking of white men who can dance and jump so high, I think Rand Paul will be the next President.

chickelit said...

Jerry Jeff Walker seems like a strange duck in that he never really become more widely known. He reminds me of someone else I can't put my finger on. I've always been attracted to his songs -- I saw him when I was 15 and heavy into metal.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

I always loved Sammy's version. Not Dylan's. Both were Jewish.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

I just always liked the song. I think it is universal.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

April Apple, interesting initials you have.

But I think you have answered your question by asking the question.

Unknown said...

Don't worry. AA is not my real name.

deborah said...

Obama-hugger! Wash your mouth out with soap.

I sincerely doubt it, bago.

Unknown said...

Hillary-Hugger.
The end result.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Perhaps you should reflect on preconceived notions of tap dancers.

There is a preconceived notion of tap dancers?

The tap dancers that come to immediately to mind are Shellie Temple and a black dancer/actor that did a movie with Billie Cristal.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Sorry I wasn't here to answer before.

Former prosecutor McCarthy got twitter atwitter with impeachment talk. Obama's repeated lying amounts to fraud he said.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

I also remember singing in the rain, white guy tap dancing the roof off.

deborah said...

Gregory Heins(sp). That's cute movie. Heins died young.

deborah said...

The closing of La Noonan's article today:

"The new president—and this was a key historic moment—decided not to act on the accumulated presidential wisdom of the ages, which is: Get the other party in on all big things. Give them a stake in it, use them for cover, show you have bipartisan juice, that you are truly national and not only the leader of one party, show you can wield your mighty power across the aisles. Get them bragging they passed it, with your leadership. Make them co-own it so that when certain parts don’t work, and certain parts won’t, they have deep motives to help you fix it.

Instead, a perfect storm of misjudgment, immaturity and lack of historical perspective, and a perfect storm of shortsighted selfishness (it’s all ours, it’s not even a little bit yours) brought forth a perfect storm of a health-care disaster."

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

I think I had assumed the dancer to be black because the singers I've heard sing the song, Nina Simone and Sammy Davis Jr. were black so I assumed that they sang about a fellow black.

There, I plead guilty. take me to racism jail. I'm sure trooper will bail me out ;)

YoungHegelian said...

@lem,

There, I plead guilty. take me to racism jail

Admit it: you're the kind of guy who thinks white people don't pick cotton.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

If you ever wonder how is that the political left and right differ so widely, this tweet tells part of the story.

Kevin Halvarsson‏@Kevinhalv
@AnderTheSwede @redsteeze @wilw Don't bother. Americans know nothing of the world outside their borders. They don't know true freedom.

Liberal Progressives are contemptuous of their own country. Its very sad. Contemptuous of the freest country in the world.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Admit it: you're the kind of guy who thinks white people don't pick cotton.

I only believe what I watch on Television ;)

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Even Scarlett O'Hara picked cotton!

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Admit it: you're the kind of guy who thinks white people don't pick cotton.

Wait a minute... is that Urban Dictionary code for something?

I'm at a disadvantage here... Give me my InternetCare.

Its my right Dammit!

Chip Ahoy said...

I was fascinated with cotton in the area around Shreveport. I couldn't wait to explore a field of it.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

I lived near a cotton field in the Dominican Rep. for a short time. I saw people picking cotton. I never picked it though. Or I don't recall picking it.

That field, west of the baseball field, used to be cotton country.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

I left out the link.

Oviedo, Pedernales, DR

Unknown said...

I hope so, Bagoh. I just read a news link at 9 news.com (local news) and NBC did a poll of 1000 people with Hillary and Christie.
Hillary is ahead 44 to 35. Gee golly I wonder why the left are so desperate to push the angry rino fat man on us?

I guess the other phrase is racist. Whatever.

Puzzling that Obama, a young inexperienced pol can be supported to the top-- While any young fresh GOP need not apply. We always go for the old crotchety media pre-select and then wonder why we lose.

Mitch H. said...

Does anybody in the US still pick cotton by hand? They've been running mechanical pickers for decades now, and picking by hand is nobody's idea of a fun time.

(I honestly don't know - the mechanical pickers aren't particularly efficient or effective, I remember getting into tussles with field reps over whether we should be saving the yield monitor data for machines engaged in "scrapping" - running the pickers a second time over a field after a couple weeks, to catch the bolls missed by the first pass. I suppose it might be more effective in some situations to just send transient workers with bags through the field to clean up after the picker rather than run the machine a second time over the same ground.)

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

As God is her witness...

chickelit said...

“Dylan covered the song in 1973 and someone seemed adamant about making Mr. Bojangles into a black man: Link Why?”

Nowadays there’s a name for that: cultural appropriation.