MUSIC

Jerry Jeff Walker returns for a night of heart-tugging ballads, toe-tapping melodies, and plenty of down-home fun on Saturday, January 7th, 2012 at 8pm, as he continues his longstanding tradition of kicking off the New Year at The Grand. Start your New Year with favorite tunes “L.A. Freeway,” “Mr. Bojangles,” “Sangria Wine” and more as this Lone Star legend takes to the stage.

Jerry Jeff has lived - and is living again - the troubadour's life. Lots of musicians talk about the road; Jerry Jeff really is the kid who rode his thumb out of his hometown in upstate New York to such exotic destinations as Key West, Canada and New Orleans, finally settling in Texas. In Austin, Walker found the creative community that let him mix folk, rock, country, and “anything else that caught his ear.” By the time he went to the tiny Texas Hill Country town of Lukenbach in 1973 to record “Viva Terlingua,” Jerry Jeff Walker’s iconic status was firmly established.

He's played for four or five presidents, toured in Lear Jets and bought second homes in New Orleans and Belize (the fruits, in part, of having penned an American pop standard, "Mr. Bojangles"). His band of musicians, known variously as the Lost Gonzo Band and the Gonzo Compadres, have been an indispensable part of the endless caravan.

Jerry Jeff still sees the world with a troubadour's eyes. His songs are the way he makes the world make sense, how he passes on stories of the people he meets, the way he feels on a given morning. He has come full circle, back to his solitary singer-songwriter roots.

You might say he was heading this way all along.

Come to The Grand and start your own New Year’s tradition with music legend Jerry Jeff Walker!