Personal Note: Growing up in SE Florida in the 60’s & 70’s, I really liked the island sound of Jimmy Buffett. I collected a lot of his music at the time. However, likes so many actors, singers & musicians of our day, he felt the need to espouse his leftists beliefs in later years. I wanted to say to him and all the others to “shut up and sing!”
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Jimmy Buffett, the musician and mogul whose easy-breezy hit “Margaritaville” became a way of life for legions of devoted Parrotheads, has died. He was 76.
The singer-songwriter, whose new album Equal Strain on All Parts was due to be released later this year, died with his family and friends around him, a statement posted on his social media and website on Saturday confirmed.
“Jimmy passed away peacefully on the night of September 1st surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs,” the statement — which was accompanied by a touching photograph of Buffett sitting on a boat —read. “He lived his life like a song till the very last breath and will be missed beyond measure by so many.”
Buffett was forced to reschedule a concert in May after he was hospitalized in Boston “to address some issues that needed immediate attention,” he told fans in a statement shared to Twitter.
“Growing old is not for sissies, I promise you,” he said. ” I also will promise you, that when I am well enough to perform, that is what I’ll be doing in the land of She-Crab soup. You all make my life more meaningful and fulfilled than I would have ever imagined as a [tow] headed little boy sitting on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico.”
Buffett, who is survived by wife Jane and kids Savannah, Sarah and Cameron, was born on Christmas Day 1946 in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and raised partially in Alabama. He developed a love of musical theater as a young boy thanks to his mom Mary, who spent her time off from the shipyard with the Mobile Theatre Guild in Alabama.
“She would always be in productions, and she would take me to the shows when they’d come through town,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2018, the same year his own jukebox musical, Escape to Margaritaville, opened on Broadway.
After graduating from college with a history degree, Buffett worked briefly as a writer for Billboard magazine, and also spent several years working on a fishing boat.
He released his first album, Down to Earth, in 1970, but didn’t break through until seven years later, when “Margaritaville,” off the album Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, became a hit. The enduring sun-kissed anthem — which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2016 — helped change the trajectory of Buffett’s career, as it went on to spawn a booming business of the same name featuring everything from resorts and restaurants to apparel and drinks.
“I wish I could say that some secret plan for world domination was devised years ago, but I don’t have a clue as to why, when or how all this happened. I’m not going to dissect it,” Buffett told PEOPLE in 1994. “It’d ruin all the fun of being in the middle of it.”
Though Buffett continued to release a steady stream of albums over the next few decades, he became known mainly as a massive concert draw, with his annual shows with his Coral Reefer Band raking in millions for the star.
“I put on a good show for my fans. I sell them Jimmy Buffett. I’m one of the few living legends left,” he said, according to a 1990 PEOPLE article. “Even if radio stations won’t play my songs, I can still be happy. I can still say, ‘I tricked them again.'”
The near cult-like devotees came to be known as Parrotheads, and turned out in droves each year to hear Buffett’s signature fusion of country, pop, rock and calypso.
“What’s most important is to please the Parrotheads, because there’s more to the music than just the music,” he told EW in 1995. “It’s become a lifestyle. I wish I could take credit, but it’s fan-generated.”
Buffett released more than 30 albums over his career, and was nominated for two Grammy Awards, for “Hey Good Lookin’,” his 2004 song with Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, George Strait, Clint Black and Toby Keith, and the Alan Jackson duet “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” which was released in 2003. Both that song and “Knee Deep,” which he recorded with Zac Brown Band, were country No. 1s.
In addition to his music, Buffett was a best-selling author and philanthropist who founded the nonprofit Save the Manatee Club in 1981 with then-Florida Gov. Bob Graham.
Forbes reported in 2023 that the star was a billionaire, and that his assets included an estimated $570 million from touring and recording, a music catalog worth $50 million and $140 million in planes, homes and shares in Berkshire Hathaway.
Buffett was also an avid pilot, and made headlines in 1994 after his seaplane crashed in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Buffett was able to punch through the plane’s window and climb out into the water, where he was rescued by two fishermen in a passing motorboat. He wrote in his 1998 memoir A Pirate Looks at Fifty that he “lived through it thanks to Navy training.”
The musician also recovered in 2011 after falling off the stage during a show in Australia.
Buffett married his second wife Jane, a former model, in 1977, and the pair were parents to daughters Savannah, a radio personality, and Sarah, and son Cameron, whom they adopted in the early 1990s.
“I was perfectly comfortable in a woman’s world, or so I thought,” he wrote in his memoir. “I have two sisters and no brothers. As a child, I was very close to my mother. I was well into my thirties before my father and I, who had waged our own guerilla warfare, luckily and finally made peace. I now lived in what I referred to then as the International House of Women…Cameron Marley came into our lives just at the right time for all of us Buffetts.”
In the book, he praised his family and friends as being “treasure more valuable than gold,” and said he believed himself to be extremely fortunate.
“I have been called a lot of things in these fifty years on the good old planet Earth, but the thing I believe I am the most is lucky,” he wrote.
Well it’s about damn time!!
Yes, we get it y’all, he was a liberal loon. Still, he was a LEGEND when it comes to making people happy with his music.
Was he loon enough to get the death jabs? That is the question?
He was a billionaire land owner on Maui, did they want his share too?
Yes, pretty sure he was all jabbed up.
If he’d only been a WEPHer kind of joo billionaire, he’d still be with us…..sad. When billionaires die from the shit shot, you know they were of the goy kind.
BL
I’m shocked you can’t see through this Buffett-worship. He was pushing one of the elites favorite movements – transhumanism.
Why do you think he kept referring to his fans as “parrotheads”? Clearly he was making them comfortable with the notion of human-animal hybrids, and not thinking for oneself.
The Buffett phenomenon was one of the most terrifying popular movements for those with eyes to see. It was materialism + liquor + Boomers + pop music + Calypso. Who was Calypso?
Look at this Bosch painting. This is what Buffet was pushing. Horrifying.
A bird/man eating the whole body of a human. Not a pretty picture is it? I believe that Abigail is under his feet being groped by the weird black rat demon creature.
Oh. My. Word. You are something else! 😂
I don’t even have anything clever to say. Just have margaritas on my mind at the moment. Care to join me??
Yes.
I think there was a hidden message in “Let’s Get Drunk & Screw.”
Yes, it was getting drunk and screwing.
cents,
i agree about the hidden message but you have to play it backwards to hear it —
As much as I hate both the boomer celebrity worship and transhumanism, this is a giant stretch. And calypso music has nothing to do with the greek and everything to do with the negermusik.
Arch- Did you think I was being kind in any of my comments on this thread?? I was being diplomatic to prove a point. No need for shock, try a little tongue in cheek diplomacy.
“Calypso” is the anglicization of “kaiso,” from the Efik language of Nigeria. It means “go on,” idiomatically the same as contemporary “get down.”
It’s just party music, like disco, and that’s all the name means.
Fuck the ass wipe, glad he’s gone. He was one of the first idiot artists to require fans prove they received the death jab before they could attend a performance.
https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/its-vax-o-clock-somewhere-jimmy-buffett-welcomes-fans-to-blossom-if-theyre-vaccinated-or-tested
Yep………….he and splingstein love forcing their fans into medical experiments.
ROT IN HELL vaxxboy !
The loon is dead…
The song remains the same.
Thx for all the memories, Jimmy. It’s become a tradition, that on nearly every Sunday, for the past 20 or so years, we set aside an hour or two to listen to your music. Whether it’s working in the yard, BBQ’ng, or just relaxing, the neighbors know it’s Sunday when we crack up “Let’s Get Drunk and Screw”!
Awesome.
I reluctantly was coaxed into seeing his concert in Orlando, FL I was not a fan only due to his being a shitlib weenie. Anyway, we went and I was amazed by the scene in the parking lot of the arena. It was filled with tailgaters having a ball. One scene was a load of beach sand placed to look like a beach scene complete with umbrella and beach chairs. Another was a pickup truck with the bed filled with water creating a pool-like scene with the couple floating in beach lounges sipping Margaritas. There was joy and fun at every turn. You couldn’t walk 20 feet in any direction without someone shoving a Margarita in your hands. It was a blast. The concert was great fun. Jimmy did all of his favorites, unlike a concert by Irish crooner Van Morrison who I paid a near fortune to hear sing. He didn’t sing one of his (limited) hits-the selfish prick. Jimmy, by contrast, enjoyed his famous songs with the audience joining in.
So long shitlib. Other than that he was a good man.
I truly believe he was a good man. Just misdirected…like RFK Jr. supporters. 🙂
And globe-earth believers.
Well, aren’t you just the comedian today.
I thought I was a comedian every day.
god not you too
Kennedy 2024!
Wry.
Other than being a shitlib he was a good man. Kinda like saying other than being a murderer, Charles Manson was a good man. Gotta pull the rug out from under all of them.
exactly
Saw him several times, all were a great. Buffet knew how to entertain an audience.
Good to see “Fingers” Taylor on stage, as we were in Jr. HS band for a year (8th Grade). He’s been in dementia for 10+ years, if he’s still with us.
“Finger” Taylor and Jimmie Fadden (NG Dirt Band) are two harp players that I learned harp from. Both are fantastic!
Will Keith Richards be attending the funeral?
Yes, right after they reanimate him.
a lot of stars will be at the funeral if they are able to travel —
buffett was good friends with lots of stars in the 70 s & 80 s —
Now why did you down vote Tred’s comment?
this one’s 4 you,bl,not the downers —
one of buffett’s friends in the 70 s was the writer thomas mcguane,who eventually married buffett’s sister —
if you haven’t heard of him,check out his novel “92 in the shade” —
it’s a good one —
Thanks Tampa, I will. 🙂
Hey downvoters….if you can’t handle Buffett then you’ve all been UN-invited to the party the Captain & I are throwing in the South.
Sucks to be y’all.
Oh, well that’s nice to know, that you and I are hosting a bash. (Just like a woman: I’m the last to know, but I’m supposed to know already, didn’t you know?)
So tell me, besides a Jimmy Buffett song, what else is going to go on at this party, notwithstanding that I have no idea when, where and how said party is going to occur?
I’m going to have to go with Gordon Lightfoot on this one: “If I could read your mind, love/ what a tale your thoughts could tell.”
(BTW, I’m not a Buffett fan either, but then again, I do like Bread, so it’s a wash.)
Listen up guys, the official BS narrative on Jimmy Buffet cause of death, skin cancer. He canceled a tour in May suddenly due to a medical emergency…..from skin cancer? Death jab IMO.
IDK, he was 76 and played out in the sun a lot; it’s not a stretch (look at his skin in those pictures — that’s weather and alcohol [why do you think he fell off the stage in 2011?]) to believe he may have developed that sort of cancer.
Besides, if he and all those other liberal vax champions got the real clot shots, I would expect to have seen more of them dropping out; but unfortunately, people like Gene Simmons and Tom Cruise are still here, which leads me to infer no elites actually took them. Since they all work for the government in one way or the other, again, not a stretch to think they played the roles they were given.
While I’m definitely in the camp that when someone dies nowadays, it’s silly to not automatically assume it was the kill shot(s), I really don’t think that’s what did in ole Jimmy.
First CD I ever bought was his best of album Songs You Know by Heart in 1985.
Didn’t own a CD player until ’89.
Jimmy was one of my “trinity” of song writers. First was John Prine for well crafted songs. Second was Lenny Cohen for poetic songs, and Jimmy . . .
. . . Jimmy was to remind me not to be so damn serious about writing all the time, chill the hell out and just make something fun.
And now they’re all gone.
Eh,no loss to me personally,to those that liked him crank a tune and have a drink in remembrance.
We are all getting to a point where the bands we grew up with dying off(some way too young,yes Zep and Skynard,talking to you!Missed both by either weeks or months!).
So,though it makes me wince at times see the bands I grew up with when they come on by,suggest others do the same.
I got my fill of Buffet real quick when he whined about the electric seat switch on his Range Rover costing 400 dollars for the part.
Pfft.
(another millionaire pissing and moaning. Don’t get me started)
Billionaire
Yes, with property in Maui.
Coincidence for real.
To be sure, Epstein’s contact list includes many prominent people, both men and women, who are fixtures in the celebrity party scene.
The black book contains more than 1,000 names, ranging from close friends like Wexner to peripheral contacts from the worlds of politics, business, the media and European high society. The U.K.’s Prince Andrew and members of the Trump family make appearances. There’s even an entry for the main number to the White House.
The names include well known performers, including Ralph Fiennes, Alec Baldwin, David Blaine, Jimmy Buffett and Courtney Love; media figures including Charlie Rose, Mike Wallace and Barbara Walters; former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, former British prime minister Tony Blair, industrialist David Koch and the late Salomon Brothers chief executive officer John Gutfreund and his wife, Susa
With regards to taking the pokey and dying, what makes someone being misguided vs heing a Moran? Buffett seemed to know exactly what he was doing when he imposed his rules. Trying to get this straight in my mind. Gonna get dv or crickets. Who cares?
RIP Jimmy.
“Margaritaville” was recorded in 76…and Jimmy died at 76.
Cohencidence?
I don’t THINK so.
Well shit! I was happy being an ignert (semi) Parrothead. Loved his music. Now I find out he was just another sold out (to the Dark side) celebrity. Oh well, live and learn, he’s down graded to Dickhead. SHIT!
Hope that greasy little piece of shit springstein is next.
Jimmy Buffett’s Trump dis angers fans: ‘Way to alienate half the people buying your music’
The fact remains: Buffett’s not singing a new tune. Not unlike Willie Nelson, who also shocked fans with his political preferences, Buffett has long supported Democrats and hasn’t been afraid to get political, especially about the environment. In 2010, the star, born and raised on the Gulf Coast, criticized former President George W. Bush for being too cozy with the petroleum industry, which he said had polluted the water in the Gulf, including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. “It was more about eight years of bad policy before [Obama] got there that let this happen,” said Buffett, an Obama supporter. “It was Dracula running the blood bank in terms of oil and leases.”
And he didn’t support Trump’s run for president. Quite the opposite: he held a star-studded fundraiser for Hillary Clinton at his home in the Hamptons.
We’ll also point out that if some of Buffett fans decide to boycott him, it won’t hurt his bottom line. He’s one of the wealthiest celebrities there is, according to Forbes, and was worth $550 million as of 2016.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jimmy-buffetts-trump-dis-supporting-florida-democrat-andrew-gillum-angers-fans-way-alienate-half-people-buying-music-155706517.html
Well…Bye.
No more HRC fundraisers for him.
Q: Has the celebrity had a lifetime successful career?
A: They made the deal
I saw his name one the roster for an annual Bohemian Grove meeting.