Portrait of Jerry Jeff Walker

Birthday profile

Jerry Jeff Walker

Jerry Jeff Walker, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (died 2020)

Born
March 16, 1942
Died
October 23, 2020
Zodiac sign
Pisces
Birth year
1942

About Jerry Jeff Walker

Jerry Jeff Walker was an American country and folk singer-songwriter. He was a leading figure in the progressive country and outlaw country music movement. He is best known for writing the 1968 song "Mr. Bojangles". He first played under the stage name of Jerry Ferris, then Jeff Walker, before amalgamating them into Jerry Jeff Walker and legally changing his name to that in the late 1960s. Walker thus resumed his solo career and recorded the seminal 1968 album Mr. He co-founded a band with Bob Bruno in the late 1960s called Circus Maximus that put out two albums, one with the popular FM radio hit "Wind", but Bruno's interest in jazz apparently diverged from Walker's interest in folk music.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Jerry Jeff Walker was born

Jerry Jeff Walker was born in 1942. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1942

  • #1 song"White Christmas" – Bing Crosby
  • Top movieCasablanca
  • Best-selling bookThe Song of Bernadette – Franz Werfel

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst Negro League World Series
  • Top headlineBattle of Midway becomes turning point of WWII in the Pacific
  • Technology milestoneEnrico Fermi achieves first nuclear chain reaction
  • Defining fadRationing and war bonds
  • Notable inventionNapalm
  • World population2.35 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population134.9M

1942 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Jerry Jeff Walker's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19422026
Gas$0.20$3.45/gal
Average home$5,600$435,000
Average income$3,800$67,500
Minimum wage$0.30$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.27$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population134.9M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.