By Don Jacobson
Once upon a time, Jerry Jeff Walker ushered in the spirit of a musical movement with the cry, “Up against the wall, redneck mother!” And all the cool kids in the South, indeed the whole country, responded to this satire of hippie-bashers by getting rip-roaring drunk, lighting one up, and buying the album Viva Terlingua! by the hundreds of thousands, securing Jerry Jeff’s place in the world of cosmic country music.
Nowadays, though, it seems Walker is the one doing the bashing.
Apparently upset that a tiny Texas record label, Palo Duro Records, did a tribute album to the Luckenbach, Texas, music scene without sufficiently cutting him in, the ol’ gypsy songwriter has slapped the upstarts with a lawsuit demanding that Palo Duro quit distributing its album Viva! Terlingua! Nuevo! Songs of Luckenbach Texas, which was released in October.
Palo Duro’s Chris Thomas says the company has voluntarily done so for the time being, but insists he’s done nothing wrong and will fight like a redneck mofo to get it back on the shelves. He says that Walker was properly notified but refused to take part in the new live recording, even though several members of the original Lost Gonzo Band, which backed him on the classic live 1973 recording, showed up for the tribute (one report says Walker was never invited).
The details are lost in a “he said, she said” kind of haze. Thomas says Palo Duro complied with legal requirements of copyright statutes. When Walker refused to grant permission to use his original compositions for the record (unlike fellow legends Guy Clark and Ray Wylie Hubbard), Palo Duro resorted to a “compulsory license” provision of the law, which allows for previously released songs to be covered on a new record without express permission . . . if the new producer sends out a “timely notice” to the original artist and includes a writing credit.
Jerry Jeff says he never got a notice. Palo Duro says he did. Now the federal courts will decide, another chapter in the long and boring book called “It Used To Be About the Music.”
On one level, Walker might have a point. Even though his name is not exploited and is nowhere to be found on the album except in the songwriters’ credits, “Viva! Terlingua! Nuevo!” is very similar to the title of the 1973 album. So is the premise of covering his famous “cosmic country” songs live in Luckenbach. Walker says he was “dumbfounded” by the similarities between the new album and his original.
But on the other hand, I think anyone who listens to the album can tell it’s not just about Viva Terlingua, but, as the album’s full title suggests, also more generally about the tiny town’s musical influence. For instance, it includes the reading of a poem written by Hondo Crouch, the iconoclastic Texan who basically recreated the town around his dance hall and general store in the 1970s.
What I don’t get is why Jerry Jeff held out on letting these guys cover his songs in the first place. It was a chance for new Texas bands like the McKay Brothers, Morrison-Williams and Two Tons of Steel to follow in his footsteps and advance the alternative country cause, which is still small and fragile enough to be shaken by a nasty lawsuit like this from one of its founders. Looking at and listening to the album, it doesn’t seem to me like Palo Duro is trying to pass it off as Walker himself, or steal his revenue stream. This is a heartfelt salute to a time, an era, and a place that greatly influenced all of alternative country music.
The lawsuit also smells a bit of hypocrisy. Walker himself has made a lucrative living out of being a cover artist, and in fact is known as a masterful interpreter of others’ work. Even on Viva Terlingua, his own meal ticket, he had a bunch of cover songs, including Michael Martin Murphey’s “Backslider’s Wine” and Guy Clark’s “Desperadoes Waiting For a Train.” So why wouldn’t he just let this tiny label sell covers of his songs, and get nine cents a sale in royalties to boot? Does he really think anybody who’s searching for the classic original will be confused and instead buy this album, which doesn’t even have his name on it except in the small print? Can he not tell the difference between an homage and a rip-off? It’s painfully evident that every artist on this record worships him and all things Luckenbach – Waylon, Willie and the boys. It just doesn’t seem to me like they’re trying to cash in or commit fraud, as Walker alleges in his suit.
Maybe it goes all the way back to Jerry Jeff’s song, “Mr. Bojangles,” which didn’t sell much for him as a singer but went gold for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band a few years later – the ultimate case of a Jerry Jeff cover doing way better than the original. Whatever the reason, his resort to the legal system to stifle some upstart indies who seem to want nothing more than to celebrate his legacy is puzzling. It sounds like something only a real redneck mother would do.
Posted on November 29, 2006