Jerry Jeff Walker (born Ronald Clyde Crosby; March 16, 1942, Oneonta, New York, United States) is an American country music singer and songwriter. He is best known for writing “Mr. Bojangles“.

Walker’s maternal grandparents played for square dances in the Oneonta area, with his grandmother, Jessie Conroe, playing piano, and grandfather playing fiddle. During the late 1950s, Crosby was a member of a local Oneonta teen band called The Tones.

The band traveled to Philadelphia to audition for Dick Clark‘s American Bandstand, but were turned down. Members of the band found Dick Clark’s house and were able to get a recommendation to audition at New York City‘s Baton Records through the company’s lead producer Sol Rabinowitz. The band was given a recording contract, but the studio wanted a quintet backed by studio musicians, which left Crosby and another member (Gerald T. Russell) out of their recordings.

After high school, Crosby joined the National Guard, but his thirst for adventure led him to go AWOL and roam the country busking for a living in New Orleans and throughout Texas, Florida, and New York, often accompanied by H.R. Stoneback (a friendship referenced in 1970’s “Stoney”). He played mostly ukulele until Harriet Ottenheimer, one of the founders of The Quorum, got him settled on a guitar in 1963. He adopted his stage name “Jerry Jeff Walker” in 1966.