After I posted the “eefing” video yesterday, @missbethd sent me a few links on Twitter to videos about a man named Jesco “The Dancing Outlaw” White. I had never heard of him, but the video clips sent me searching. What I found was an amazing story that starts with a PBS station in West Virginia that attempted to do a documentary on a well known Appalachian dancer named D. Ray White.

When the PBS station showed up in the rural Boone County, WV hollow to speak with the White family, the crew quickly found out some sad news. The old man whose life they wanted to document had died years earlier. The family took the crew to his grave, but what happened next eventually created a cult following of White’s son Jesco who was determined to follow in his famous father’s footsteps as a dancer.

Jesco’s life took a wild turn veering into brief stardom. He even appeared on Roseanne. He was the dancer shuffling around in Beck’s video for Loser. A few country songs even mention Jesco by name. But sadly, like his father, Jesco never seemed to reap the financial success of fame. In the PBS documentary from 1991, for example, you can see the Whites still lived in the same tin can trailer their father did, and I show you some video of the father being interviewed on the front porch. According to Wikipedia, Jesco’s friends raised money in 2007 so he can afford water and fire wood through the winter.

One of the links @missbethd shared was to a Nashville Scene article describing him being kicked out of the Ryman after a drunken performance back in October.

I also show you some video of Jesco as he looks today and a sad look at Jesco’s state of mind. The 10 minutes I edited down from the much longer focus on today’s Morning Browser is sloppy and leaves out a great deal, so below I added links to the video clips I shared if you are interested in this story.

• Legend of D. Ray White Pt I - a look at the father who PBS intended to focus on in their 1991 documentary
• Legend of D. Ray White Pt III
• Jesco White - a look at the White family from 1991
• Jesco - a look at Jesco years ago
• The World According to Jesco White - a look at jesco today
• Nashville Scene article - describing Jesco being kicked out of the the famous Ryman Auditorium back in October of 2008
• Jesco White - his Wikipedia entry