Nina Simone - Mr. Bojangles
Saw these guys on "Bluegrass Underground" on PBS yesterday....
50 years later, and only one original member is missing, due to his passing .......
Nice one LT. I secretly listened to country on my transistor radio through the sixties but when Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's
Will the Circle Be Unbroken came out in the early '70s I didn't really know the giants who were guesting on their own old songs on that record. Doc Watson, Maybelle Carter, Jimmy Martin, Roy Acuff, Earl Scruggs and Merle Travis; they were mostly new to me. If you listen to many of my previous posts in this thread you know those are the folks I still listen to today.
There's a recording of Jimmy Ibbotson reminiscing with John McEuen, both NGDB members, about playing with the songwriter, Jerry Jeff Walker night in and night out. I couldn't find it to play here but found
this interview of the two of them, Ibbotson and Walker, telling stories about that and other stuff between singing a few old songs unrehearsed. A real rough version of Bojangles starts at 7:12.
I was going to play my favorite version which is John McEuen's instrumental, "Mr. Bojangles (Suite)" from his
Acoustic Traveler album. Put [
www.youtube.com] in front and this is the link to that[/watch?v=pj9oQoikC4Y].
But in the interview, Jerry Jeff Walker says his favorite version is Nina Simone's which I don't remember hearing before. So here it is instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4jBSc1uxx8