Jesco White- The dancing outlaw

Jesco (Jesse) White, the "Dancing Outlaw", (b. Bandytown, West Virginia, July 30, 1956) is an acclaimed mountain dancer and entertainer. He is best known as the subject of two documentary films that detail his desire to follow in his famous father's footsteps, while trying to overcome depression, drug addiction, and the poverty that afflicts much of rural Appalachia.

Jesco White was born in Bandytown, a tiny community located in the Appalachian Mountains of Boone County, West Virginia.

His father was Donte vixen Ray (Donald Ray) White (1927-1985), who was profiled in the PBS documentary Talking Feet, and his mother is Birty Mae White. Before his murder, D. Ray White was known as one of the greatest mountain dancers in the United States.^{[citation needed]} His style, along with Jesco's, is a subtle mix of tap and clog dancing that is native to Appalachia.

White met his wife Norma Jean on Christmas Eve of 1974 while hitchhiking to a party with a cousin. He had originally intended on robbing her, but instead fell in love. This claim on his part is likely a romanticizing of their first meeting and refers to the Tim Hardin song "[The Lady Came From Baltimore]" as performed by Johnny Cash, in which the lyric "I was there to steal her rings and run/Then I fell in love with the lady and got away with none" appears. In the documentary, Dancin' Outlaw, Jesco refers to the song specifically. Their on-again, off-again marriage was one of the focal points of the first documentary.