The late Jimmy Buffett was born on this date in 1946. Only in America could a person earn a billion dollars with one word. Jimmy would never have gotten past being an opening act if he had called the song “Bloody Maryville.” (He used to just bring his guitar and play for free in front of the Student Union Hall at my alma mater, University of Florida.)
But, Margaritaville? That one word became a billion dollar industry. Restaurants, resorts, cruises, even 55+ communities. He got a lot more to show than a brand new tattoo.
J.B. was unique among the Renaissance of singer-songwriters in the ‘70s because he not only had Hemingway’s eye for detail (like Dylan and Jackson) and Mark Twain’s gift of humor (like Joni and Warren), he also had a carefree outlook that allowed him to write seemingly complete summer novels about hustlers and beach bums in just a few verses. He was a true tropical troubadour. Jimmy was able to do this by inventing his own character which, in a sense, we all do. But unlike you or me, he was the founder of an actual tribe: tens and tens of thousands of people every year made their way to where he was holding court, just to be with him. In part it was the songs and stories and in part it was his excellent Coral Reefer Band. But the biggest reason, I believe, so many sought out the Jimmy Buffett experience was because he was a role model for how to enjoy the great gift of being alive.
And that’s what he shared so generously with us: a positive enthusiasm for being here. He may have thought of himself as a pirate two hundred years too late, but he was here at the perfect time as far as I was concerned.
Merry Christmas to all of the troubadours and pirates, outlaws and rebels, stoners and surfers, and all of the people who love them. And everyone else, too!
