Salt Shaker Santa

Jimmy Buffett - Son of a Son of a Sailor

Hey now! I hope your holidays are good and you're ready to celebrate one of the most beloved Christmas babies ever born.

This guy finally kicked a few months ago, but no one was ever more alive for the nearly 77 years that preceded his departure.

The only legacy 1960s/70s pop star to die a billionaire, he managed to fashion something way beyond just music into the world.... although to do what he did, he hadda have tunes for days.

His story is as legendary as any you could name, and represents what can happen when someone burns their last given fuck.

As the tale is told, his first couple of records were disappointments saleswise and he was in danger of being dropped, so he quasi-quit the big city and the record business and bought a boat.

This move to Key West proved to be oh so very key for him, for as soon as he relocated and kind of rebranded himself into what might be termed a "leisure concept" artist -- where his music began to be all about his tremendously fun, intoxicated tropical lifestyle -- he began to ascend.

Then he had a huge hit, also in the "it's great to be wasted on the beach" vein he had begun to mine for endless gold.

Certainly in the running for Greatest Song Ever to Make It To #2, this little ditty opened up a whole galaxy of possibilities, and oh my did he not squander the opportunities.

In what must be the most lucrative Subgenius moment of Slack ever experienced by someone in the music industry, he began to expand into other areas with the distilled, perfected vision his lone hit song carried.

I guess the lesson of Margaritaville -- the song, the attitude, the chain of multi-million dollar restaurants -- is that if you can codify, into a whole panoply of purchase options, the Baby Boomer lifestyle aesthetic of Hedonistic Celebratory Pleasure as holistically as Jimmy Buffett did, you may as well just print money.

I mean, The Beatles? Not billionaires. Clapton? Nope. Prince? I'm afraid not. And this guy didn't have but one Top Ten cut in a recording career that spanned 50 years of continuous activity.

As is well documented, many other brands followed the initial foray into restaurants. Hotels, golf courses, cruise lines.... if there's ever been a lesson in turning salty beach water into the finest wine, ol' JB here knew the script.

That he was born on Christmas Day makes his lifetime success even more appropriate, somehow.

He'd have been 77 today, so let's head over to the old Palladium in New York City and hear him do the things that only he could do, at the peak of his popularity at the start of the Eighties.

Jimmy Buffett

The Palladium 

New York City, New York USA

3.14.1980 

01 It's Too Late

02 Mañana

03 Pencil Thin Moustache

04 Son of a Son of a Sailor

05 Volcano

06 Come Monday

07 Why Don't We Get Drunk

08 Fins

09 Margaritaville

10 Dreamsicle

11 God's Own Drunk

12 Chanson Pour Les Petits Enfants

13 Sending the Old Man Home/band introductions

14 Cheeseburger In Paradise

15 Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes

16 A Pirate Looks At 40

17 Treat Her Like a Lady 

18 Dixie Diner

19 Survive

20 Jimmy Buffett for Miller Beer (1981 ad)

Total time: 1:35:54

disc break goes after Track 11

Jimmy Buffett – guitar & vocals

with The Coral Reefer Band:

Barry Chance – guitar

Harry Dailey – bass & vocals

Michael Utley – keyboards

Deborah McColl – vocals

M.L. Benoit – percussion & vocals

Greg “Fingers” Taylor – harmonica & vocals

Andy McMahon – organ

Sammy Creason – drums

and The Embarrassing Stains: James, Alex & Huey Taylor - vocals on Tracks 17-19

off-air, low-gen capture of the original WNEW-FM broadcast containing the complete concert

Track 20 comes from a 1982 BBC Rock Hour transcription LP that has nothing to do with Jimmy Buffett

slightly edited and somewhat remastered by EN, December 2023
645 MB FLAC/direct link

Heck, I even tacked on a vintage Miller Beer commercial from 1981 that came with another transcription LP of another concert from somewhere else. Not that JB would have drank beer or anything like that.

I will return on NYE with one more for 2023, so we can celebrate Summer in Winter as I've always wanted to do.

OK? Merry everything from me and from the late Jimmy Buffett! The Mayor of Margaritaville has finally found his lost shaker of salt.--J.

12.25.1946 - 9.1.2023