'Mr. Bojangles' Writer, Jerry Jeff Walker, Dies Of Throat Cancer - NPR

Country legend Jerry Jeff Walker poses backstage at a country music festival in 2009.

Country legend Jerry Jeff Walker poses backstage at a country music festival in 2009.

Country music singer Jerry Jeff Walker, the man behind "Mr.

"He was at home until an hour before his passing," his wife of 46 years, Susan Walker, told the Austin American-Statesman.

After moving to Austin in 1971, Walker had an outsize impact on the country music scene there, helping to create genre known as "outlaw country" — a sort of blend between rock and folk — which was also popularized by Willie Nelson and others around the same time.

"Other than Willie, Jerry Jeff is the most important musician to happen to Austin, Texas, I would have to say," Ray Benson of the country group Asleep at the Wheel told the Tennessean.

In a 2018 interview with the Statesman, Walker noted that he and his wife had done pretty well for two people who didn't know much about the music business