Jerry Jeff Walker reflects on Steve Goodman and himself: ‘Most of us, if we’ve lasted, I think we’re characters, and we bring that to our songs’ This interview of Jerry Jeff Walker, who died Oct. 23, 2020, was conducted by phone by Clay Eals on June 30, 2003, for the book “Steve Goodman: Facing the Music” (2007, ECW Press, in updated fourth printing). [There’s a story about your giving Steve a three-quarter guitar, same as the one that’s on the cover of a Bonnie Gentry LP.] I think I did give him a little Martin. I think it was in New York. I used to carry this little guitar. I’d give them to everybody. I gave Arlo (Guthrie) one, I gave Emmylou Harris one. Like Marty Robbins played, those little three-quarter jobs? They were neat little guitars. I called them car guitars. A lot of times, I’d give it to them, but they couldn’t buy a case for it. They’d have to carry it around on a string. I always figured guitars that were out got played more. [Describe Steve Goodman.] Technically, he was a lot better than a lot of us singer/songwriter types were. Arlo and Prine and I were strummers, and Steve was a fingerpicker. He presented his songs well. Most of us, whatever our personalities, if we’ve lasted, like Buffett and Prine and myself, I think we’re characters, and we bring that to our songs, and Steve had a good sense of humor, like most songwriters do. A friend of mine said, “We’re the ones with the personalities,” not the stars that can’t say anything but go out and have to be hand-fed their songs. In the songwriting community, we’re all characters, and we carve out our little niches, and he showed his humor, he showed his intellect — a smart guy, as opposed to somebody who sang — and presented it, put the whole package together when he played and sang, from his arrangements to what he chose. We don’t have the singer/songwriter coming out of folk music with that kind of knowledge of history and how the song is constructed. Like “City of New Orleans,” a history of trains and America and that sort of thing, that you weave a little something together that gives you more

1 than just the surface song. It became folk music, and we learned the craft first, and we learned from the variety of music. I don’t know what attracts people to the depth of music. I always thought when we discovered folk music, we discovered a whole lot of stuff. (Bob) Dylan said we could never dream it up, that life is so wild with murders and earthquakes, the things that the folk music was about, that we said that was real stuff, so we had to dig in to try to top it. When I did “Mr. Bojangles,” I was writing a folk- story philosophy song. “City of New Orleans” was that type of song. Through a story, you go around, and you get a little sense of a bigger thing going on outside of life. It’s like hearing some tales of your great-great-grandfather coming from someplace and starting with nothing and doing this or doing that. And you think, “Wow, boy, we think things are weird.” Went through the Depression or the Dust Bowl things and hear stories of human struggle and survival. That’s what folk music was. I’m kind of getting off to the side. The one thing that ties this is, he did “The Dutchman.” I’d always liked the song, but sometimes it takes me a long time to decide if I’m going to do it, and I wound up doing it later. Everybody said, “Oh, you did a Steve Goodman song.” “Well, it’s really a Michael Smith.” I’ve never met him. I had a song called “My Old Man” about a fiddler player traveling around, passing through some towns, and the Clancy Brothers did it on one of their albums, and I went to buy their album to hear how they did it, and I wound up hearing them do “The Dutchman,” with a little concertina. I just kept it in my mind. I learned it from there. Later, when I was looking for a song to fill up an album, a lot of times that’s what I’ll do, I’ll just have them around, and then if I’m looking for something, I’ll take a pass at a song, and the band will say, “Let’s do that,” and that’s how it got into my rotation. Then I went to do a Caribbean album in Belize, when I was down by the water. The other night, I was down with some people fishing, and we went to a seaside restaurant for dinner. I took my guitar along. I said, “We’re right by the water. I should do ‘The Dutchman.’” [How does it go over when you do it?] I usually place it in some sort of setting. Listening rooms are a lot more fun. If I’m with 2 more elderly couples or people seem to be in the audience, that’s when I do it, where it makes sense to me. I always say it’s about growing old together, covering each other. One of them goes, and how much they lean on each other. [Did you know early on that Steve Goodman was sick?] I didn’t know early on, but when he was playing after his chemo and his hair was falling out (in 1983-1984), I thought it was something he was going to go through and then play some more. I thought, “Why wouldn’t he wait?” By then I’d had to do some of the same thing. I had neck surgery and fusion, and I had dates on the book, and I had to go play, and I had to go early, and I played with a neck brace on. I’d say, “I don’t want you to take pictures,” and they’d run up, and I would take my hat off and block ’em. “I don’t want to be photographed this way. I’m doing what I have to do, but I really didn’t want to go do it,” but they were things that people had planned for for a year, so I got out there, and I said, “I didn’t think I’d be doing this at this point.” I don’t know. Maybe he just felt, “I want to play music as long as I can play it.” It’s a mixture of doing it, but you want to be doing what you do. When I would play, I would actually play better than I thought I felt when I played. When I got through, I said, “I don’t know how I just did all that.” [You get energized by being on stage.] Well, jumping up and down and moving my vertebras wasn’t good for it, but it brings joy to your system, and I said, “There’s therapeutic joys in music,” so in that sense, down the road, I was thinking about it. The Texas Playboys are the oldest group in Texas playing. They were Bob Wills, then they were Texas Playboys, and all of them have played and played and played. Now, most everybody in the band has been in the band playing when they passed away, right after the show. They were still actively involved in the band when they died. It’s like four of them that are gone. So you think, “Well, they’re doing something that they do all the way.” A football player friend of mine, I was telling him one day, I was sore from traveling. He said, “Well, but y’know what, you’re still suiting up. Most of us are sittin’ on the bench.” So we have the opportunity to do something that we do for as long as we can do it. In that sense, it makes people wonder why we do it. Why does Paul 3 McCartney still tour when he’s got more money than he needs? I think he says, “Music is part of my life. When I’m playing, I’m doing what I’m better at than anything.” [Did Steve’s leukemia change the way you viewed him?] Only in the sense that I thought he was playing out there with his disease exposed, and you wonder. But I think that he would only do it as long as he thought he was doing it well. If you walk off and feel good and the crowd had a good time, you go, “Hey, I did my job, and I contributed,” and it makes you feel good to make people feel good. His humor was part of his life. Well, you have to keep looking at whatever cards you’re dealt and how you present them. [Why do you think Steve Goodman was not a household name?] I can remember people saying Bob Dylan would never amount to anything. He’s too wordy and too smart. But he’s probably more known for the songs that are the simpler versions. He’s more known for “Blowin’ in the Wind” than he is for “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” Steve’s probably more known for “You Don’t Have to Call Me Darlin’ Darlin’,” which was a throwaway. I’m known for “Pissin’ in the Winds” and “Redneck Mother” and things of that sort. They were humorous in sense. But I heard an interview with Merle Haggard, and the interviewer was saying, “You’re a star,” and he said, “No, when you start out, all you’re thinking about is ‘Can I keep playing as long as I want to, and can I afford the band, and can I keep playing.’ ” So I think in one sense you start doing that. How the notoriety comes out, there’s probably formulas for it, but we weren’t going to play by those formula rules. I’m always surprised when good, talented people make it through that crap. Vince Gill is a very talented, smart guy, but the Tim McGraws and Kenny Chesneys, I don’t think they can play or sing, but they get in the factory, and the factory makes them stars. That’s why there’s a certain security in the fact that you know your craft. You know you can write, you know you can play, and you know you can present them, and you can do them. Maybe Steve, in fairness, was too short, too. He didn’t want to make a move that you’d want to make that might make you famous. You gotta go to New York or L.A. or Nashville to do it. There’s certain rules. Maybe you don’t want to live there. 4 Prine moved down to Nashville. So it’s partly being where the business is and where songs are being recorded. You make career moves. He chose where he wanted to live, and that was probably less a career move. I’m sure as I get older, I’ll see some things I could have done. I was twice invited to go to Europe in the 1970s when we were at the height of “Redneck Mother” and that stuff. They said, “You go over and do the Redd Sullivan Show, and you tie up Europe.” Now I go over there on vacation, and people like Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show are playing sold-out arenas, and they aren’t even gigging here. They went there and did it. I thought, “I could have done that real quick.” Now I think I’d like to take my guitar and play over there once in awhile. But I never went. So you make career moves that can do some stuff. With “City of New Orleans,” Willie (Nelson) just grabbed it out of the air. He’s pretty famous for grabbing stuff at the last minute. When he did “Pancho and Lefty,” his daughter said they were looking for one more song for the record. She went down to her house, got the album, came back and played it, and he cut it, and it was a hit. So somebody else put “City of New Orleans” in front of Willie, and he just did it. If anyone of a certain stature could carry some things into the mainstream where they can only go so far as a cult thing, Willie could do it. With “Mr. Bojangles,” I wasn’t particularly trying to make top-40 records. I wouldn’t be the one. It was covered by many other people before the Dirt Band did it. I’ve got 35 albums out, and those other songs are in people’s lives that you don’t know about, but they come and support the shows and do this stuff. So Steve’s other work would mean a lot to people who already knew “City of New Orleans” was a good song. [And still would if he were alive.] So he’d be out gigging and playing. There’s quite extensive singer/songwriter work right now that I’m just starting to get back into. I’m going to go less and less with the band because you have to do a lot of extra stuff to keep the band in money and hotels and buses and stuff. It’s a bigger tour than for me to pack my guitar case and go on the road. I get to talk more and tell stories, which people who have only stood in big crowds like. That’s how I started, so that’s what I’ll probably end up doing at the end.

5 [What other things that Steve Goodman did stand out for you?] I certainly think that the dignity with which he carried himself out at the end was an example. Prine’s been doing that with his throat cancer. And I’ve got a pretty funky bad back. I’ve had two back surgeries. I’m working it and keeping it in perspective so I can keep playing, but I enjoy the playing when I’m actually there doing it. We always say, “We’re paid for the travel. The music’s free.” Once you’re there, it’s really a good thing. I just think the intelligence and pride with which he took in being a songwriter, that stand- up kind of singer/songwriter is held in high esteem in our group. You know when you’re doing it that you’re going your own way. He could have just rolled off the back of “City of New Orleans.” Somebody else is going to start calling, “What else has he got?” and that also gives you a little more calling card when they put your poster up. That does give you more viability to keep doing what you’re doing at folk festivals and these sort of things. If mine is “Mr. Bojangles,” that’s fine. [I’m glad you did your own book. “Gypsy Songman.” As Steve said, you’ve got to do it while you can.] What I found was while I was writing, I’d never written any prose, but it led me to the fact that I could finally tell some stories. I knew “Bojangles” was going to have the story, and then I ought to put in the lyrics, and then it began to dawn on me that I could place these lyrics throughout the book. I could lead up to “I went here, went here, went here. Then I had this experience that led to this song.” So Ray Benson tells me, “So your book is just really elaborate liner notes.” But the poetry that’s in the lyrics is still the things that as a writer, I could write. So that became the thread to me of how to set the book up, to try to lead every story into. Like I do when I perform. I start telling stories, and then something happens, and then I say, “Here’s the song I’m headed for, right over here,” and then I do it. I always say I have a song for every story, so the stories lead me to them. Good luck with the Steve book. I’m glad you’re doing it. For more info on Jerry Jeff Walker, visit jerryjeff.com. For more info on “Steve Goodman: Facing the Music,” visit clayeals.com. 6