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Biography of Jimmy Buffett - Country Musicians
Biography
J
Jimmy Buffett (born James William Buffett on
December 25 1946 in Pascagoula, Mississippi) is a
singer and songwriter, best known for his "island
escapism" lifestyle and music including hits such
as "Margaritaville" (# 234 on the list of Songs of
the Century|'Songs of the Century'), and "Come
Monday". He has a rabid, but genial, fan-base
known as "Parrotheads." They call the youngest
members "Parakeets."
==Early life==
The son of James Delaney Buffett, Jr. and Mary
Loraine "Peets" Buffett, Buffett grew up in
Mobile, Alabama, where he attended McGill-Toolen
Catholic High School. He only began playing
guitar during his college years at Auburn
University and the University of Southern
Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he
received a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1969
(Kappa Sigma|ΚΣ). Later that year, he
married his first wife, Margie Washichek, at
Spring Hill College in Mobile.
==Career==
Buffett began his official musical career in
Nashville during the late 1960s as a country
music|country artist, and recorded his first
album, Down to Earth (Jimmy Buffett album)|Down to
Earth in 1970. He then moved to Key West and began
establishing the easy-going beach bum persona for
which he is known.
Buffett's third album was A White Sport Coat and a
Pink Crustacean, now acclaimed as his best though
it achieved only moderate sales. Havana Daydreamin
appeared in 1976, followed by 1977's Changes in
Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, which featured
the breakthrough hit song, "Margaritaville".
During the 1980s Buffett made far more money off
his tours than 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, as well as
branching into writing and merchandising of
various kinds. Two of the more unusual albums were
Christmas Island, a collection of holiday 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 2003, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan
Jackson for the country hit "It's Five O'clock
Somewhere," a number one hit on the country
charts.
Buffett's most recent album, License to Chill,
released on July 13 2004, sold 238,600 copies in
its first week of release according to Nielsen
Soundscan|Nielsen SoundScan. With this, Buffett
topped the United States|U.S. pop albums chart for
the first time in his three-decade career. This
made some longtime fans feel that Buffett had
alienated them by abandoning his traditional "Gulf
and Western" sound for a more commercial and thus
mainstream act.
Buffett co-owns the "Margaritaville" and
"Cheeseburger In Paradise" restaurants (the latter
of which is a part of the Outback Steakhouse
family of restaurants). He harbors a well-known
love for baseball, and has been part-owner in two
minor league teams: the Fort Myers Miracle and the
Madison Black Wolf. He makes an estimated 30-40
million United States dollar|dollars a year
between his restaurants, album sales, and tours.
==Writing==
Buffett has written three No. 1 best sellers.
Tales From Margaritaville and Where Is Joe
Merchant? both spent over seven months on the New
York Times Best Seller fiction list. His book, A
Pirate Looks At Fifty, went straight to #1 on the
New York Times Bestseller non-fiction list, making
him the sixth author in that list's history to
have reached #1 on both the fiction and
non-fiction lists. The other five authors who have
accomplished this are Ernest Hemingway, John
Steinbeck, William Styron, Irving Wallace and Dr.
Seuss. He also co-wrote two children's books,
Jolly Mon and Trouble Dolls with his eldest
daughter, Savannah Jane Buffett.
His latest book titled A Salty Piece of Land was
released on November 30, 2004, and included a CD
single of the same title.
==Trivia==
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 has been instrumental in the work of the
Save the Manatee Foundation.
He is friends with legendary investor Warren
Buffett and they suspect that they are distant
cousins, but they haven't been able to document
this. (Wall Street Journal, 5/2/2005)
Buffett made a cameo appearance in the movie Cobb.
He made appearances in Repo Man as "Additional
Blond Agent" and in Congo as a pilot. He is
mentioned in Broken Lizard's Club Dread, in which
Coconut Pete (Bill Paxton) performs a number of
Buffett-esque songs and refers to Buffett as a
"son of a son of a bitch." That line is itself
borrowed from David Allen Coe's "Jimmy Buffett
Don't Live in Key West Anymore."
An avid aviator|pilot, Jimmy Buffett owns several
planes including a Grumman HU-16 "Albatross". The
plane, named "Hemisphere Dancer", is currently
parked next to his Margaritaville restaurant in
Orlando, Florida. Previously it could sometimes
be seen on the ramp at Princess Juliana
International Airport (IATA identifier SXM) in
nearby Sint Maarten while he was in the area. This
is the plane Buffett was flying during the
incident recounted in the song "Jamaica Mistaica"
on the album Banana Wind. While in Jamaica on
January 16 1996, Buffett's plane was shot at by
Jamaican police. The "Hemisphere Dancer" had been
carrying Buffett, U2 (band)|U2's Bono, and Island
Records producer Chris Blackwell. Police suspected
it was smuggling drugs. No one was hurt although
there were a few bullet holes in the plane.
Buffett's company has since licensed use of the
name Margaritaville to several restaurants in
Jamaica, in Montego Bay, Ocho Rios and Negril,
where the "Jamaica Mistaica" incident took place.
Buffett was hired to sing for Tyco CEO Dennis
Kozlowski at a party on the Sardinia|Island of
Sardinia. The local news showed a video of him
singing at the extravagant Rome|Roman toga party.
Horatio Sanz impersonated Buffett on Saturday
Night Live|SNL after the incident, alleging he
"smoked dope with Hulk Hogan."
Buffett has been satire|satirised by David Allen
Coe in his List of protest songs|protest song,
"Jimmy Buffett Doesn't Live in Key West Anymore"
or the "The Jimmy Buffett
Song".http://david-alan-coe-lyrics.wonderlyrics.co
m/Jimmy-Buffett.html
His last name is often misspelled "Buffet" -- much
to the chagrin of his fans.
== Discography ==
{| cellpadding=2 cellspacing=2 width=600px
style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; padding:
6px; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; font-size: 11px;
background-color: #f7f8ff; border:1px solid
#8888aa;"
|- style=background:#ccccff
!Year
!Album/CD
!Record Label
!Description
|-
|1970||Down To Earth||Barnaby
|-
|1971||High Cumberland Jubilee||Barnaby||Acoustic
|-
|1973||A White Sport Coat & A Pink
Crustacean||Dunhill
|-
|1974||Living & Dying in 3/4 Time||Dunhill
|-
|1974||A1A||Dunhill
|-
|1975||Rancho Deluxe||United Artists||Movie
soundtrack
|-
|1976||Havana Daydreamin
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