Texas outlaw music legend Jerry Jeff Walker has passed away at the age of 78, according to a report from KTRK-TV in Houston.
Walker passed away Friday from cancer-related complications, the report said. He was first diagnosed with throat cancer in 2017, Pitchfork reports.
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The musician is widely known for his first hit 1968 song, “Mr Bojangles," which he wrote after meeting a homeless street performer while in a New Orleans jail cell for public intoxication.
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Walker moved to Austin in the early 1970s and soon reinvented himself as a “Lone Star country-rocker,” according to his website.
He had made several records for MCA and Elektra before forming his own independent record label, Tried & True Music, in 1986.
Walker’s album catalog is now composed of 33 records total.
He is survived by his wife, Susan, his son, Django and a daughter, Jessie Jane.
To learn more about Walker, visit his website here.
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