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James William "Jimmy" Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is an American singer–songwriter, author, actor, and businessman.
He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle, and the often humorous things he has experienced throughout his life.
Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett has recorded hit songs including "Margaritaville" (ranked 234th on the Recording Industry Association of America's list of "Songs of the Century") and "Come Monday".
He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads".Aside from his career in music, Buffett is also a best-selling writer and is involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best known songs, "Cheeseburger in Paradise" and "Margaritaville".
He owns the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant concept with OSI Restaurant Partners (parent of Outback Steakhouse), which operates the chain under a licensing agreement with Buffett.Music careerBuffett began his musical career in Nashville, Tennessee during the late 1960s as a country artist and recorded his first album, the folk rock Down to Earth, in 1970.
During this time Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans.
Country music singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition in November, 1971.
Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach bum persona for which he is known.
Following this move, Buffett combined country, folk, and pop music with coastal as well as tropical lyrical themes for a sound sometimes called "gulf and western".
Today, he is a regular visitor to the Caribbean island of Saint Barts and other islands where he gets inspiration for many of his songs and some of the characters in his books.Buffett's third album was the 1973 A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean.
Living & Dying in 3/4 Time and A1A both followed in 1974, Havana Daydreamin' appeared in 1976, followed by 1977's Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, which featured the breakthrough hit song "Margaritaville".With the untimely death of friend and mentor Jim Croce in September 1973, ABC Dunhill tapped Buffett to fill his space.
Earlier, Buffett had visited Croce's farm in Pennsylvania and met with Croce in Florida.During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money from his tours than his albums and became known as a popular concert draw.
He released a series of albums during the following twenty years, primarily to his devoted audience, and also branched into writing and merchandising.
In 1985, Buffett opened a "Margaritaville" retail store in Key West and then in 1987, the Margaritaville Cafe was opened.
During the 1980s Buffett played at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
He briefly changed the name of the band from "Coral Reefers" to the "Coral Reef Band" to suit the HLS&R's request as they thought "Reefers" was a drug related reference.
HLS&R is a charity event that provides student grants to children and young adults who compete in agriculture contests (FFA).Two of the more out-of-character albums were Christmas Island, a collection of Christmas songs, and Parakeets, a collection of Buffett songs sung by children and containing "cleaned-up" lyrics (like "a cold root beer" instead of "a cold draft beer").In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a short-lived musical based on Wouk's novel, Don't Stop the Carnival.
Broadway showed little interest in the play, (following the failure of Paul Simon's The Capeman) and it only ran for six weeks in Miami.
He released an album of songs from the musical in 1998.In August 2000 Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band played on the White House lawn for then President Bill Clinton.In 2003, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan Jackson for the song "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere", a number one hit on the country charts.
This song won the 2003 Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year.
This was Buffett’s first award of any kind for his music in his 30 year career.Buffett's album, License to Chill, released on July 13, 2004, sold 238,600 copies in its first week of release according to Nielsen SoundScan.
With this, Buffett topped the U.S.
pop albums chart for the first time in his three-decade career.Buffett continues to tour throughout the year although he has shifted recently to a more relaxed schedule of around 20–30 dates, and rarely on back-to-back nights, preferring to play only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, thus the title of his 1999 live album Buffett Live: Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays.
Purchasing tickets is difficult with most of his concerts selling out in minutes.In the summer of 2005 Buffett teamed up with Sirius radio and introduced Radio Margaritaville, and as of November 2008 is also on XM radio channel 24.
Until this point Radio Margaritaville was solely an online channel.
The channel broadcasts from the Margaritaville restaurant at Universal CityWalk in Orlando, Florida.In August 2006, he released the album Take The Weather With You.
The song "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" on this album refers to 2005's Hurricane Katrina.
Also on the album he pays tribute to Merle Haggard with his rendition of "Silver Wings" and covers, with Mark Knopfler playing on the track, "Whoop De Doo."On 8 December 2009, Jimmy Buffett released his 28th studio album entitled Buffet Hotel.On 20 April 2010, a double CD of performances recorded during the 2008 and 2009 tours called Encores was released exclusively at Walmart, Walmart.com and Margaritaville.com.Buffett partnered in a duet with the Zac Brown Band on the song "Knee Deep": released on Brown's 2010 album You Get What You Give, it became a hit country and pop single in 2011.
Also in 2011, Buffett voiced Huckleberry Finn on Mark Twain: Words & Music, which was released on Mailboat Records.
The project is a benefit for the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and includes Clint Eastwood as Mark Twain, Garrison Keillor as the narrator and songs by Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, and others.Of the over 30 albums Jimmy Buffett has released, as of October 2007, 8 are Gold Albums and 9 Platinum or Multi Platinum.
In 2003 Buffett won his first ever Country Music Award (CMA) for his song "It's 5 O'clock Somewhere" with Alan Jackson, and was nominated again in 2007 for the CMA Event of the Year Award for his song "Hey Good Lookin" which featured Alan Jackson and George Strait.Buffett released his latest album, Songs From St.
Somewhere on August 20, 2013.Musical styleJimmy began calling his music Drunken Caribbean Rock 'n Roll as he says on his 1978 Live Album "You Had To Be There".
Later, Buffett himself and others have used the term gulf and western to describe his musical style and that of other similar sounding performers.
The name derives from elements in Buffett's early music including musical influence from country and western, along with folk music and lyrical themes from the Gulf of Mexico coast.
A music critic described Buffett's music as a combination of "tropical languor with country funkiness into what some [have\] called the Key West sound, or Gulf-and-western." The term is a play on the form of "Country & Western" and the name of the former conglomerate Gulf+Western (whose former assets are now primarily owned by either one of two divisions of National Amusements - Viacom and CBS Corporation).Other performers identified as gulf and western are often deliberately derivative of Buffett's musical style and some are tribute bands or, in the case of Greg "Fingers" Taylor, a former member of Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band.
They can be heard on Buffett's online Radio Margaritaville and on the compilation album series Thongs in the Key of Life.
Gulf and western performers include Jim Bowley, Kenny Chesney, and Jim Morris."The Big 8" and standard songsBefore 2003, songs played at every Buffett show were known as the Big 8.
With the success of the Alan Jackson duet "It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere", and the rising popularity of "One Particular Harbour", the list of songs played at every show went from 8 to 10.
The "Big 8" were:"Margaritaville""Come Monday""Fins""Volcano""A Pirate Looks at Forty""Cheeseburger in Paradise""Why Don't We Get Drunk" — only played occasionally, as of 2007"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes"Since "Why Don't We Get Drunk" has been knocked off the standards list, there are only nine songs played at almost every show in recent years.
However, neither Buffett nor the Coral Reefers have ever used the term "Big 9" for the new line-up.This list doesn't necessarily mean that those songs have been played at every show.
"A Pirate Looks at Forty" was not played during the George, Washington '92 show.
"Cheeseburger in Paradise" was excluded from two setlists during the 1998 tour.
"One Particular Harbour" was left out of 11 shows during the 1997 tour, not to mention every show during the 1988 & 1989 tour.
"Why Don't We Get Drunk" wasn't played at all during the Bama Breeze tour, and has since only returned to be played on an occasional basis.
"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" did not appear during the opening shows of the 1998 and 2003 tours.
"It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" was omitted from first of the two Irvine shows in 2006.Other notable songs that are played at almost all shows, but have been dropped on occasion, are "Son of a Son of a Sailor", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" and Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Southern Cross".
However, it's not unusual for these three songs to be dropped from a show, therefore they aren't considered a standard.In an interview on KLBJ radio in Austin, TX on May 2, 2013, Buffett humorously referred to the fact that they have to 'play the ten that everyone wants, or else we'll get killed", and then went on to play "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" on air.
The set list for the event on May 3 at the Austin 360 Amphitheater, his first outdoor show in Austin in 17 years, did include the 'ten'.
The show was one of the very few in Buffett's career that had ever been rescheduled on account of weather conditions (extreme wind in Austin forced the move to May 3 from the original date of May 2).Tour accidentOn January 26, 2011 (Australia Day), Buffett was performing a concert in Australia at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion and fell off the stage after an encore.
A concert-goer said, "He just went over to the edge of the stage, like he had numerous times through the night, just to wave, and people were throwing stuffed toys and things at him.
And he just took one step too many and just disappeared in a flash.
He didn't have time to put his arms out to save himself or anything, he just dropped." Coincidentally, one of Australia's leading trauma surgeons was at the concert and close to the stage; Dr.
Gordian Fulde treated Buffett at the scene.
Fulde said, "I thought he'd broken his neck." "I heard the clunk of his head on a metal ledge, he has a deep gash on his scalp, which is all right now." "But at first I thought – this guy is going to be a spinal injury." Dr Fulde turned him on his side so he could breathe and administered first aid.
Buffett regained consciousness within a few minutes.
He was then transported to St Vincent's Hospital Emergency centre for treatment and was released the next day.
Buffett returned to Australia in 2012 for two shows in Brisbane and Melbourne, and made much fun of the incident during those shows.
In the Melbourne show in the historic Palais Theatre in the Melbourne beachside suburb of St.Kilda he presented additional verses of "Margaritaville" in which he made humorous references to the accident, much to the audience's delight.List of tours