1
Fredda told me she drove cross-country, from Tallahassee to Los Angeles, listening to "It's Too Late to Stop Now" and "'A1A." I knew the Van Morrison live album, but "A1A"?
You know, the Jimmy Buffett album.
But I didn't know. To me Jimmy was a sideshow on ABC Records, a one hit wonder with the soft rock "Come Monday."
But why is it called "A1A"? Fredda couldn't believe I didn't know the highway that ran up the Florida coast. And then she started quoting songs like "Door Number Three" and "Life Is Just a Tire Swing" and I realized this was a Florida thing. It became clear that Jimmy Buffett was the patron saint of Florida. But growing up in the northeast, I was clueless.
The Fredda bought "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes," and suddenly Jimmy Buffett was everywhere, with his anthem "Margaritaville." It turned out the rest of the nation was just a couple of years and a couple of changes behind Florida. Buffett was on his way to becoming an institution.
Then I found "Son of a Son of a Sailor" in the promo bin and bought it for her, and even though the hit was "Cheeseburger in Paradise," it was the opening cut, the title track, that reached me. And only months later I found Jimmy's very first live album in the aforementioned promo bin and bought it for Fredda, but that's when I got hooked. "You Had to Be There" opened up with "Son of a Son of Sailor," but this take was loose in a way the studio version was not. It lived, it breathed, Jimmy joked about his broken leg, it became my favorite version of the song. But what really closed me was "A Pirate Looks at Forty."
"Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The cannons don't thunder, there's nothing to plunder
I'm an over forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late"
I was too young for the Summer of Love in San Francisco. I was too young for a lot of stuff, and then, suddenly, I was too old. It's a very strange transition. They ask for your ID and then they just wave you through without looking. You're dying to be twenty one, but once you pass that threshold no one cares about you, no one is paying attention, you're on your own.
And by time I was listening to "A Pirate Looks at Forty" it was the late seventies, which were very different from the early seventies. In the early seventies we licked our wounds from the war, we went back to the land. In the late seventies it became about hedonism and money, and I felt lost in the past. I'm still lost in the past. I never bought a leisure suit, my values were embedded back in the sixties and early seventies, I was a man out of time, still am.
Then we went to see Jimmy at the Greek. I had no idea. It was a club I was unaware of. There were routines to certain songs. "Fins to the left, fins to the right"... You either had to disdain the whole thing or join right in, and really there was no choice, I bought every album thereafter.
2
Not long after Irving Azoff summoned me to his office, he called to hire me to help Jimmy have a hit record. It was 1989. Jimmy was doing boffo at the b.o., but was only selling 300,000 records.
So I flew down to Key West and... Jimmy wanted nothing to do with me. I was the enemy. Took me a while to realize this. Turns out Jimmy had already cut the entire album, with a new backing crew, which he played with that night at the very first Margaritaville, and he told me he wasn't changing a single note.
Hmm... I was paid to do what?
It took two days for Jimmy to find a time to meet me. And when I got in the cab and proffered the address the driver said, "Oh, Jimmy Buffett's house." Everybody in Key West knew Jimmy, he was the unofficial mayor, he drove the town via his music and lifestyle, I suddenly realized what I was up against.
So we sat in his living room and b.s.'ed about music and the business and... Jimmy ultimately relaxed, once he realized I was not going to tell him what to do and after a few hours I left.
Then I went to Jimmy's studio where Elliott Scheiner played me the entire record. I didn't hear a hit. But I was stunned that Jimmy had laid out all this money by himself, didn't wait for the record company to cough up the dough. That may happen today, but back in '89, that was unheard of. That's how rich Jimmy Buffett was.
3
Took a while for the mainstream to really catch on to Jimmy Buffett. He'd had hits, but they didn't realize he was building an empire. You had to be there to get it, go to a show, visit Margaritaville, buy into the lifestyle, and once Jimmy started to broaden his endeavors to more restaurants and hotels and ultimately retirement villages, never mind writing books, the script flipped. Suddenly Jimmy was not competing with anybody else. He was in a separate category, above the rest. He may have been selling fun, but there was an intelligent, savvy businessman underneath it all, and when you make that kind of money, outside your own bailiwick, you get recognized, you gain respect.
Buffett knew and hung with everybody. Not only musicians, but politicians, business people... Jimmy was on his own tier.
But it all came from the music.
And Jimmy's shows were guaranteed sellouts. Peter Grant may have delivered Led Zeppelin ninety percent of of the gross, but Jimmy was getting in excess of a hundred percent of the gross. How can that be, you ask? Well, not only was every seat sold, these attendees drank prodigiously and purchased merch and...that's the way it was for decades.
I saw Jimmy again. Once at Blackbird Studios, but I didn't let him catch my eye, I didn't let on who I was.
And then at a gig down San Diego way.
But a couple of years back Jimmy e-mailed me and picked up like we were buddies, like we'd been through the war together. In a world where everybody forgets they even met you, never mind your name, I was stunned. And instead of keeping his distance, Jimmy was intimate. And I recorded a podcast with him and his long time compatriot Mac McAnally and he held nothing back, little did I know he already had skin cancer.
And the thing about Jimmy is you wanted his lifestyle. It was superior to that of the traditional rock star. He had boats and planes, was living for adventure, jetting around the world. Sure, he had money, but he wasn't hoarding it, he was spending it. He was always looking forward. Tom Freston told me an amazing story about traveling with Jimmy in Africa and getting in trouble, the kind where what your name is and how much money you have doesn't matter. They escaped, but it wasn't clear they were going to. Jimmy wasn't resting on his laurels, he kept on pushing. Jimmy had two clubs, the parrotheads who went to the shows, true believers, and then his running buddies. That's the group I wanted to belong to. Honestly, I don't know a single rock star who played at a higher level with better friends and Jimmy didn't even boast about it. But if you were paying attention...
And Jimmy gave back. I remember him telling me in Key West that he was flying to Tallahassee the next day to save the manatees.
And now Jimmy Buffett is gone.
4
This is really strange, the changing of the guard, the turning of the generations. It's been happening for thousands of years, but we didn't think it would happen to us.
And what united us baby boomers was the music. Many sold out, lived behind gates, but they still showed up at the gig. Look at the grosses for the classic rock acts. It's a pilgrimage. It's beyond nostalgia. It's your life.
And David Bowie died before his time, Glenn Frey too, but now they're dropping like flies, on a regular basis, and all you can do is take notice and soldier on, and some may live in denial but for me it's an indication that the end is near. For me, our music, our memories...most of it's going to be gone.
So you need to enjoy every sandwich, as Warren Zevon said. You've got to grab on to life. Because you don't want to have any regrets.
Meanwhile they keep dying, Jack Sonni, who played guitar with Dire Straits, and Bernie Marsden, guitarist and one of the songwriters of Whitesnake in just the last few days. And at this point there is little hoopla, it's expected. But Jimmy Buffett?
Jay texted me last night. He thought I already knew. I didn't. We went back and forth about Buffett and then I went online. It was too early, literally only one hit popped up on Google. It was a weird limbo. Jimmy had passed, but it hadn't penetrated the public yet. And then there were a few more stories and a bunch of tweets and I didn't know how I was going to fall asleep.
You see Jimmy was so alive. Really. Not resting on his laurels. Still making new music. And despite some interruptions due to illness, still playing live. Jimmy was a beacon, a god, and then he was cut down like a mere mortal. How do you make sense of this, how do you put it in a slot?
I couldn't. And it took me a long time to fall asleep, and it was hard to stay asleep, and when I awoke everybody knew, but there were two camps, those who really knew and those who didn't. Those who had been there and done that, gone to the shows, played the records while relaxing, who knew the whole game, and those who only remembered "Margaritaville." I'm happy that Jimmy is getting the obituary of kings, with good placement, depth and analysis, but none of that will bring Jimmy back. He's gone. Another rocker, but like I said above, Jimmy was different, unique, he was more than a musician.
So today, before I went out I put on sunscreen. I was scared straight. But how many more years have I got left? Whenever I say that people laugh and tell me I'll be here for a long time, but my father died at seventy. And Christine McVie didn't even make it to eighty. And Jimmy's death was a reality check, is a reality check. First and foremost, we're on a conveyor belt, and we're gonna fall off sooner or later. Everything we hold dear is ultimately irrelevant. The accoutrements, you know, what you strived for in business, the accumulation of property and money, irrelevant. They say Jimmy Buffett was a billionaire, but that didn't stop cancer, it doesn't care.
And now what happens? Does the Margaritaville brand survive, carrying Jimmy's legacy with it, or does Jimmy fade into the rearview mirror, like even the heroes who sold out arenas back in the day and passed away?
But there's that Buffett pull. Did you read that story about the Margaritaville retirement village in "The New Yorker"?
"Retirement the Margaritaville Way - At the active-living community for Jimmy Buffett enthusiasts, it's five o'clock everywhere": tinyurl.com/3k4wup77
If you went to summer camp you'll be more than intrigued. That's what I always tell people, I'd give up everything to go to a permanent summer camp. That's what the Margaritaville retirement community sounds like, summer camp. This is not the right wing Villages, many residents living on fixed incomes. No, the people who live at Margaritaville have assets, they may not even live in Margaritaville full time. But they're active, they have fun, what's not to like?
That's what Jimmy was selling. Fun with a brain. Conscious, not mindless. With a wink of the eye. As upfront as Buffett was, he was still sly, still unknown, unpredictable, you never knew what he'd do next. And he kept on doing it. And it was all built on the music.
5
The best place to dive in is "Songs You Know by Heart," the definitive greatest hits album from 1985. Listen and you'll get it, but you won't get all of it.
Read about "Songs You Know by Heart" here: tinyurl.com/mryu79ke
Play the album on Spotify here: tinyurl.com/2svh47k8
But I still want to single out some tracks.
On the very first Barnaby album there was "The Captain and the Kid."
"I never used to miss the chance
To climb up on his knee
Listen to the many tales
Of life upon the sea"
Then:
"He died about a month ago
While winter filled the air
And though I cried I was so proud
To love a man so rare"
Jimmy was the kid, the youngster, but now he's the oldster, the captain, and the lyrics fit perfectly.
1973's "A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean" was full of gems, the building blocks of the Jimmy Buffett canon and lifestyle. There's the humorous "The Great Filling Station Holdup," "Grapefruit-Juicy Fruit" and "Peanut Butter Conspiracy." As well as the heartfelt, deep "He Went to Paris," a Buffett classic. And then there's the piece-de-resistance, "Why Don't We Get Drunk."
"Why don't we get drunk and screw
I just bought a waterbed, it's filled up for me and you"
Waterbeds aren't even a thing anymore. But screwing certainly is. And even though "Why Don't We Get Drunk" was never a hit, it was a regular feature in bars across the land, it played on jukeboxes for the hipsters and the cowboys, you heard it and maybe didn't even know who did it, but you knew it.
1979's "Living and Dying in 3/4 Time" had the breakthrough, "Come Monday," as well as "Pencil Thin Mustache" and "God's Own Drunk."
"A1A"? What can I say. It contains the songs I listed above as well as "Stories We Could Tell" and "Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season," which will give you a glimpse into Florida life, back before Miami went nuclear and the politics shifted right and New Orleans was sinking.
And then came "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes," and Buffett became a star. I focus on the songs from before this line of demarcation because Buffett was hungry, doing it to less than spectacular results, but giving it his all. Maybe if the records had come out on Warner Brothers or Columbia...but they didn't, but they're still there on wax, and digitized for modern day consumption.
And then there was "Coconut Telegraph," the title song delineating how the word spreads, I use the term to this very day.
And Jimmy ultimately returned to the charts with 2004's "License to Chill," the cover of Hank Williams's "Hey Good-Lookin'," went to number eight on the country chart with the help of Clint Black, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, Toby Keith and George Strait.
But one afternoon on SiriusXM I heard my favorite modern day Jimmy Buffett song, a cover of Hawaiian Henry Kapono's "Duke's on Sunday."
"Music playing happy songs, everybody's getting along
Dancing in the sunshine, sippin' on that rosé wine
Good times will set you free
Oh, this is the place to be
On the beach at Waikiki, that's where you'll find me
Here on the southside, Beach Boys paradise
Duke's on Sunday
Duke's on Sunday
Duke's on Sunday"
You can get it just from the lyrics. This is what Jimmy Buffett was selling, music and alcohol and conversation and fun. The weight of the world off your shoulders. Relaxed, free, the real me...and you.
6
I couldn't listen to Jimmy's music last night, or even this morning. The feeling was still raw. He's so alive in this music, but then again he's gone.
Jimmy is famous for his financial success, a brand with credibility that was well-managed and succeeded. He could do what the Wall Street titans could not, which is why they wanted to be in business with him, which is why they respected him.
And it's not only the money, Jimmy had his fingers in the literary world, he wrote and recorded the music for the film version of Tom McGuane's "Rancho Deluxe." This was the last hurrah of hip literary fame. McGuane was a star. As was Ann Beattie. Those days are through, now people only care about how many books you sell, and so much of it is genre tripe, but McGuane and Beattie were going for reality, they were in search of a truth that no one seems to care about anymore, even though they're still writing, in near obscurity outside the literary world.
Ultimately Jimmy married Jane and Tom McGuane became his brother-in-law, ergo the connection. And when I was in Key West Jimmy and Jane were separated. But they got back together...
That's the kind of story we like, one of true love and persistence. Jimmy carried on. He became a star, but did not forget who he was.
Pretty good for a boy from Alabama.
Fins up!
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