On The Wild Side Of Life Minute-With Mister Jerry Jeff Walker’s Music In Mind

CD Review

By Zack James   

Great Gonzos, Mister Jerry Jeff Walker,

The 1980s, the early 1980s, were a tough time to try and weather the financial doldrums of the alternative newspaper industry (much like today, in 2017, the whole print press and journal industry is going down with the ship in the digital age). That was the age of Ronald Reagan, a time when the night-takers took their revenge in big gobs, those who almost got kicked in the ass for good back in the 1960s except we forget the first rule of a power struggle whether down on the corner boy block or in order to take state power-if you are going to take on the big guys you had better be ready to go all the way down and dirty or just back off.

As if to put paid to that “victory” those who would in earlier times come through and supported such ventures as truth-teller alternative media took a dive, waved the white flag and fell into line (a straight and narrow line that even the latest polls have shown they never have backed away from, have passed on that “keeping their heads down” to their kids, hell, their grandkids, Jesus) the money dried up and the publication that Seth Garth had been the film critic for in good times and bad for over a decade The Eye had put him on short rations, had almost reduced him to the free-lancer status he had started out in the business doing. To alleviate their dilemma, maybe to draw one last breathe would have been a better way to put it Benny Gold the long time editor had begged Seth to take a long swig at the then emerging outlaw country music scene that was starting to bust out of Nashville, started getting up a head of steam in Texas, Austin, really and places like Colorado, Iowa and the like.    

Seth Garth, for those who didn’t remember the name from when what he had to say about some song, album (tapes in those days really), or a performer carried weight via the distribution of The Eye on the coasts and with some strongholds in the center of the country too or were too young to know who he was could give, to use and expression from his corner boy days which he had never given up, a rat’s ass about country music, the Nashville Grand Ole Opry stuff. Held his nose whenever anybody mentioned that George Jones had not shown up at a concert for the millionth time or that Loretta Lynn had the vapors and was a “no show” at one of her performances. Yeah could give a rat’s ass no question. Moreover having just started the process of divorcing his third wife (three wives and a brood of kids, all young) he was in a sullen funk about starting all over like some rookie chasing ambulances and cop cars for a fucking story. Was trying, seriously trying, to decide whether he might link up with his old corner boy Johnny Blade who was now out of stir after doing a nickel for his last armed robbery and start pulling a few quick haul bank robberies. That larcenous heart of his that he had held in check for a number of years now was beginning to come to the fore. Seth after all was the guy back in the day who had perfected the “clip,” had designed the plans for the neighborhood midnight creeps in Mayfair swell houses that kept the boys in clover through high school.

In the end though, at least for the public prints, Seth decided that he would give the outlaw country scene a quick run through to see if circulation would rise and The Eye would stop bleeding away financially. So he held his nose and headed to Austin (he refused to go to Nashville where some of the guys he was supposed to check out still had connections enough to draw work if the “outlaw” thing was running a little to the lean side). He first ran into a guy named Townes Van Zandt who was a true outlaw, could have given a fuck about Nashville just wanted to write his lyrics, drown his sorrows in liquor and chase young honeys, the younger the better. But Townes with his downer lyrics, his lusts and his short-handed way of talking when he was not singing was not going to help himself out of his miseries never mind a left-leaning newspaper in need of a big circulation jump.         

So Seth pushed on, had a nice interview with Willie Nelson but the guy was almost too big by then, hell, he was playing Northern venues to sell-out crowds, radio stations were ready to switch formats if they could get a hook from him. Same with Kris Kristofferson who was getting acting jobs as well as drinking the state of California dry. Then Big Bill Bloom who had made a career out of big bang folk lyrics that everybody in the 1960s was chewing on (or chewing on partially because while everybody knew maybe three verses of his stuff they could not go the distance on the whole song, half the time Seth couldn’t) called Seth to tell him that he had heard that The Eye was on the ropes (The Eye always gave Big Bill great build-up reviews although a couple of times Seth had nixed his work but Benny had nixed his nix) and that he was working the outlaw country racket. Did Seth know about a guy, Jerry Jeff Walker, who just then was out of jail but who was a great performer, wrote great lyrics and had a pal, a guy named Guy Clark, who wrote stuff for him?             

Seth told Big Bill that he had never heard of the guy, was moreover worried about that “just out of jail” bit even if he was an outlaw but when Big Bill said he could make the connections Seth in desperation said he would go for it. And strangely enough they connected, connected when Seth was able to see that Jerry Jeff was just another larcenous corner boy except down Texas way and out West they called them good old boys. Seth was the guy who gave Jerry Jeff’s first concert out of jail a big play. Got him a connection to a big record producer and even got him his first gig north of the Mason-Dixon line. Got him into Harvard Square for crying out loud. The crowd almost all old folkies and raw college kids with dates went crazy for a real outlaw country singer. For a while, maybe a year, The Eye got by but the Reagan era was in deep throttle and once Jerry Jeff became old news everybody went back to keeping their heads down. And Seth became once again a freaking free-lancer with no place to go but down.