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Reports: Texas outlaw music legend Jerry Jeff Walker dead at 78

Walker died from cancer-related complications late Friday

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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.

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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