Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Jimbo's story about Emmet Kelly's nephew (on the latest Poet's Eye thread) started me thinking about Bojangles again. When Jerry Jeff played it for me in 1966 sitting on the back porch of the Rubaiyat Club in Dallas, I thought, like most people, that the tune was about Bill Robinson, the original Bojangles. But after several trips to New Orleans it began to dawn on me that Jerry Jeff had of course never met Bojangles. To begin with, Jerry Jeff is just several years older than I am and Bojangles died when I was one year old, so it's unlikely that a four year old Jerry Jeff could have been in a cell with him. But on the streets of New Orleans are many black tap dancers that work for tips. Each will tell you that his name is Bojangles. I have found in general in my travels that people who are down and out many times have some dubious claim to fame. It helps them validate themselves.

There was a guy in Dallas several years ago riding around in a limo and running up bar tabs and claiming to be Larry McMurtry. haha

When my dad was fifty years old he married the seventeen year old daughter of the original Bozo the Clown. Well that lasted about six weeks until the girl came to her senses or dad took the nose off, I don't know which. But the guy was really Bozo and he had a registered trademark and a patent on the suit and he franchised Bozos all over the country. Too bad Bill Robinson didn't have a franchise on Bojangles.

Lrod's Mr. Bojangles