It was 1974 and I (along with millions of others) fell in love with, not only spiders but snakes too.

Huh??

I was a young pup (yes, there was a day I was a young pup) working at a radio station in Winner, S.D. when a single came in called 'Spiders and Snakes'. Well, this is gonna be weird, I thought to myself. And it was. Weirdly good!

Jim Stafford went on to sell, oh, a couple million or so copies of that record and I was hooked.

I've always loved the creativity of artists, the ones who can string words together, twist them a little here and there, make them rhyme and most of all, make them make sense! Two of the best, in my opinion, were the legendary Roger Miller and Mr. Jim Stafford. Both had great, great songs and many with great titles, Jim with songs like 'My Girl Bill', 'Your Bulldog Drinks Champagne', 'Wildwood Weed' and 'Cow Patti'. I won't even try to explain them, but suffice to say I loved them all.

Jim hosted his own television show in the mid-1970s and was one of the artists who appeared regularly on The Tonight Show, as well as many other shows. And he never failed to entertain! If Jim Stafford walked out from behind the curtain, you knew something good was going to happen.

 

Now, on a more personal note, while I loved (and still love) those great songs I mentioned above, it's Jim's version of the Jerry Jeff Walker penned classic 'Mr. Bojangles' that perhaps I love most of all. Give it a listen below.

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