Mr. Bojangles Lyrics

"Mr. Bojangles" is a popular pop song written and recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker in 1968 and covered by many other artists. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band took the song to #9 on the Billboard pop chart in 1971. The song was inspired by an encounter with a street performer in the New Orleans First Precinct jail and refers to neither the famous stage and movie dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson nor the New Orleans blues musician Babe Stovall. According to Walker, a murder on the 4th of July weekend in 1965 precipitated the arrest of all the street people in the area. In the crowded cell, a disheveled homeless old man began to talk to Walker, who had been arrested earlier for drunkenness. The man told various stories of his life, but the tone darkened after 'Mr Bojangles' recalled his dog who'd been run over. Someone then asked for something to lighten the mood, and the man obliged with a tap dance. Walker mentions that all the men in the cell had nicknames to prevent easy identification by the police. The dancer's nickname was 'Mr Bojangles'. In his autobiography 'Gypsy Songman', Walker makes it clear that the man he met was white. Further, in an interview with BBC Radio 4 in August 2008 he pointed out that, at the time, the jail cells in New Orleans were segregated by color.