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
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