Walker mellows into middle age

Posted: Saturday, January 19, 2002

Everyone has to grow up sometime - even Jerry Jeff Walker. Notorious for drug and alcohol excesses that gave rise to nicknames like "Jacky Jack" and "JJ Snowdrift," Walker partied through the '70s like Texas's own gonzo Peter Pan.

But now the man behind the quote "The only way to know how much is enough is to do too much and then back up" is 60, sober and centered.

"I still think anything worth doing is worth overdoing, but there's certain boundaries that come with what you can do. I should be watching what I eat and working out because I'm at the point that I need to," Walker said, cradling a phone in Austin, sipping coffee and working early morning rust out of his voice.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't still get a little lonely for Luckenbach every now and then.

At A Glance

Who: Jerry Jeff Walker

Where: Amarillo National Center

When: After SuperBull tonight

How Much: Concert admission included with SuperBull tickets of $20 and $24

Information: 378-3096 or any panhandletickets outlet

"You think maybe this is a phase you're going through, and maybe you really should be doing something else. Like Jimmy Buffet. He makes a fortune selling $40 ashtrays with parrots on them. I guess I never was smart enough to think up a deal like that. Music's what I'm supposed to be doing. I'll be doing it as long as people want me too - hell, I'll probably do it even longer than that."

If the artist formerly known as New Yorker Ronald Clyde Crosby hasn't packed up a guitar, gone AWOL from respectability and headed south to Texas, his life would still be marked by the '70s, he said.

"I'd have been a bartender on some island with a beer belly, gold chains, a big, bushy moustache hustling some eight-time divorcee."

But like Buffett, Walker has mellowed into middle age along with his fans. After the big labels ditched him in the '80s, he called on those fans, and 50,000 of them answered, signing up for a mailing list to buy his self-published cassettes.

Now they buy his Tried and True music on the Internet at www.jerryjeff.com and sometimes rent his vacation home in Belize.

Gigs keep him and his Lost Compadres Band flush and attract new fans to the fold.

"I'll get people in their 60s and 70s at the shows, and people in their teens and 20s. The people in the middle who don't know why they're there, and some people who just followed the line of cars," Walker said.

Lubbock's Lloyd Maines produced his latest record of what Walker calls "Cajun folk-rock cowboy stories" titled "Gonzo Stew."

"I do the Jimmy Rogers yodeling thing, a salute to rodeo cowboys, a song about my wife's love of candles, songs about New Orleans. I also do a rap version of (Roger Miller's) 'Dang Me.' It's not in one place like some Diamond Rio record that sounds like 11 singles stuck together. I just go in any direction I want to."

Plans are under way for a new album in the spring full of standards like "My Funny Valentine" and "How Deep Is The Ocean." The new sound comes in the wake of last year's sudden departures of longtime bandmates drummer Freddie "Steady" Krc and lead guitarist John Inmon. Inmon's being replaced by Austin legend Mitch Watkins, who used to play in Lyle Lovett's Large Band.

"Things happen for a reason. This was a positive change, even though it was tumultuous for us. Everyone's happier now. Change can be good."

Even if that means you have to do Pilates and watch your cholesterol count. "If I don't do those things I'm not gonna be able to play music, and I have to play music. It sure beats going to the golf course and whacking a ball around for five hours."