Jerry Jeff Walker: 1968 Psychedelic Folk Rocker

When most folks think about Jerry Jeff Walker's musical repertoire, songs like "Mr. Bojangles," "Back Against the Wall Redneck Mother," and "Little Bird" probably come to mind. However, most folks, me included until recently, probably did not know that Jerry Jeff Walker was in a psychedelic folk rock act called Circus Maximus back in the late 1960s. These gentlemen were so avant garde that they even did an arrangement of 14th century French composer Guillame de Machaut's "La douce dame jolie."

(Side note: Machaut happens to be my favorite medieval composer, though he is not widely known today. In fact, I asked a tour guide at Reims Cathedral in France about him a few years ago, and the tour guide gave me a blank look despite the fact that Machaut actually lived and died in Reims. If you happen to enjoy music composed more than a century before explorer Cabeza de Vaca bumbled his way through Texas, I would recommend Machaut's "Le Remede de Fortune.")

One of the songs Jerry Jeff penned in his Circus Maximus days is called "Trying to Live Right." The vocals have a distinct Jim "The Lizard King" Morrison flavor, and Bob Bruno's organ is not dissimilar from that of Ray Manzarek on "Soul Kitchen" or "Peace Frog." Dig this, y'all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBidu-BNSbA