Mojo Nixon, Roots-Rocker Known For Novelty Songs, Dies on Outlaw Country Cruise
by Best Classic Bands Staff
Mojo Nixon in 2020 (Photo via Outlaw Country West cruise)
Mojo Nixon, an American musician known for such novelty songs as “Elvis is Everywhere” and “Don Henley Must Die,” died today (February 7, 2024), one day after he performed with his band the Toadliquors on the Outlaw Country Cruise. The week-long, sold-out cruise departed Miami on Feb. 4. The news of his death at age 66 after suffering a cardiac event, was announced on his Facebook page in the same irreverent manner in which he was known:
August 2, 1957 — February 7, 2024
Mojo Nixon
How you live is
how you should die.
Mojo Nixon was full-tilt, wide-open
rock hard, root hog, corner on two wheels + on fire…
Passing after a blazing show, a raging night, closing the bar, taking no prisoners
+ a good breakfast with bandmates and friends.
A cardiac event on the Outlaw Country Cruise is about right… & that’s just how he did it.
Mojo has left the building.
Since Elvis is everywhere, we know he was waiting for him in the alley out back.
Heaven help us all.
Nixon had officially retired from recording, but he was a regular host on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country channel with his show “The Loon in the Afternoon.” He was known for his bawdy humor and bombastic personality on-air and on his recordings. His song, “Debbie Gibson is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child” reached #16 on Billboard‘s Modern Rock chart. He signed off each segment of the show yelling “Outlaaaaw Country!”
In 1990, the roots-rock singer-songwriter released the song “Don Henley Must Die.” It begins with the lines “He’s a tortured artist/Used to be in the Eagles/Now he whines/Like a wounded beagle/Poet of despair!/Pumped up with hot air!/He’s serious, pretentious/And I just don’t care.”
Two years later, Nixon was in Austin, Texas, performing on his 35th birthday with his band the Toadliquors at the Hole in the Wall, a small music club just across the street from the University of Texas campus. Much to his surprise, Henley showed up and jumped onstage, joining in on the chorus: “Don Henley must die, don’t let him get back together with Glenn Frey!”
As Nixon, a longtime host on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country channel, later recalled, “So I said, ‘Whaddya want? You wanna fight? You wanna debate?’ And he said, ‘I want to sing the song, especially the part about not getting together with Glenn Frey.'” He did, and the crowd went wild. “To quote my drummer, he must’ve had balls bigger than church bells to do that.”
Nixon officially retired from the music business in 2004, playing what was intended to be his last live show at the Continental Club in Austin. His first comeback was in 2006 when he came out of retirement in support of Kinky Friedman’s bid to become governor of Texas.
When asked about the “perfect song,” Nixon cited “Tie My Pecker To My Leg.” Who sings it? “I do!” When asked what the music he plays on Outlaw Country means to him, he said, “The heart and soul of the hillbilly subconscious buckdance-arama-dirtfloor deliverance manifold destiny-fornication nation.”
3 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationA voice and personality that will truly be missed by some and again, not by some. Mojo you were that poet who didn’t know it, who sang his rhymes a little out of time. Your time has come and gone. And my money is on you against Elvis in the back alley. RIP MOJO.
NOOOOOOOO!!!!! Not Mojo!!!! Man, this sucks! Still bummed after losing Wayne Kramer and now this?! Mojo was one in a million for sure. A true original. His irreverent personality will be missed.
Many years ago, probably in 1985 when i first heard about him, Mojo and Skid came thru Baton Rouge to play a show. I was there and gave Mojo a live Howlin Wolf tape i had acquired (and it still peels the paint off cars in the parking lot if played loud enough). Next record Mojo and Skid put out, there’s a song “I’m Gonna Dig Up Howlin Wolf and Put His Head On My Guitar”. I think i might have had something to do with that…..