I was at the show where he met Jerry Jeff. I worked at the venue, the New Daisy Theatre on Beale Street in Memphis. We booked him as an opener for a few hundred bucks. He came out in front of all those Texas country fans, a young kid, long hair, barefoot, in a tie die T-shirt. His album wasn't out and virtually nobody knew him but the crowd ate it up like ice cream. He talked a lot then too. He opened with something like "I am SO happy to be here tonight. If I wasn't on this stage I would be right down there in the front row... well, not in the front row with those fascists, but maybe the fourth or fifth row." The crowd just roared, including the front row.
FORGETTING THE words to his own song is so familiar.one night in corpus christi,i had the pleasure of sitting up all night in a bar with jerry jeff and i asked him to play one more chance.he did,forgot the words and i tutored him through the song.Uncle Walt's Band was up all night too.I was so in awe of the man I didn't even play any of my songs for him,a mistake I'll always regret,cause I'm still unknown and broke.That was 1979 at Coopers Alley.
