Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville Singer-Songwriter and Entrepreneur, Dies at 76

Jimmy Buffett, the easygoing “Margaritaville” singer/songwriter who remodeled his no-worries, beachy life-style right into a five-decade countless street journey as a performer and entrepreneur, has died at age 76. The information, introduced on his web site and social media accounts, follows Buffett’s Might cancelation of a present in South Carolina to get therapy for an undisclosed sickness.

“Jimmy passed away on the night of September 1st surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs,” the early Saturday morning (Sept. 2) submit reads. “He lived his life like a song till the very last breath and will be missed beyond measure by so many.”

Famend for his wildly enthusiastic audiences — often known as “Parrotheads” — Buffett parlayed his cheeky, rum-soaked songs about pirates (“A Pirate Looks at Forty”), boozy seashore bums (“It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere”), captains and sand-caked rogues (“The Captain and the Kid”) right into a everlasting trip journey the place each port of name was loaded with fruity drinks, colourful summer-themed outfits and exactly no cares on the planet.

With a laconic songwriting model that leaned into his guy-you-wanna-have-six-beers-with persona (and vice versa), Buffett penned such memorable traces as “I took off for a weekend last month just to try and recall the whole year,” from 1977’s “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitude” single. The first thrust of his profession might be summed up by the title of his 1992 field set: Boats, Seashores, Bars & Ballads.

Along with his 13 Billboard Sizzling 100 charting singles — together with seven prime 40 hits and one prime 10 — in addition to 40 entries on the Billboard 200 album chart, Buffett’s no-worries mien belied a killer enterprise intuition that parlayed the recognition of his island-spiked bar band people rock anthems into an estimated billion-dollar private fortune. His sprawling ancillary enterprise org chart included a collection of Margaritaville and LandShark Bar & Grill eating places throughout the U.S., in addition to licensing agreements for Margaritaville tequila, sneakers, cruises, pre-packaged meals gadgets and an Atlantic Metropolis on line casino.

There have been additionally his private Margaritaville and Mailboard Information imprints, a trio of charitable organizations that funded private progress by music and manatee rescue, in addition to a pair of musicals (1997’s Don’t Cease the Carnival and 2017’s Escape to Margaritaville), his signature LandShark lager beer and three Latitude Margaritaville retirement communities in Daytona Seashore, Hilton Head and Watersound, FL.

Born James William Buffett on Christmas Day 1946 in Pascagoula, MS, and raised in Cell, Alabama, the singer was one in all three kids born to James Delaney Buffett Jr. and Mary Loraine (Peets), who each labored for the Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding firm. He grew up listening to his grandfather steamship captain J.D. Buffett’s tales of excessive seas journey, to whom he paid homage in “Son of a Son of a Sailor.” The latter options the memorable, salt-caked traces, “I’m just a son of a son, son of a son/ Son of a son of a sailor/ The sea’s in my veins, my tradition remains/ I’m just glad I don’t live in a trailer.”

Impressed by the eye a school fraternity brother earned from ladies for enjoying guitar, Buffett started his first band and shortly graduated from road busking to taking part in six nights per week at Bourbon Road golf equipment in New Orleans after which working as a correspondent for Billboard journal in Nashville from 1969-1970; he was the reporter who broke the information that legendary bluegrass duo Lester Flat and Earl Scruggs had been breaking apart in 1969.

He launched his debut album, the country-leaning people assortment Right down to Earth, in 1970 to little acclaim, reportedly promoting simply 400 copies. That was adopted by 1973’s A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, a twangy, Nashville-inspired assortment which featured the fan-favorite novelty track “Why Don’t We Get Drunk (and Screw),” in addition to “He Went to Paris” and “Grapefruit Juicy Fruit,” which had been laced with the low-key Key West vibe he’d picked up after shifting south to his endlessly house in Florida. The singer lastly hit the highest 40 with the No. 30 Sizzling 100 swaying single “Come Monday” from his third album, Residing and Dying in 3/4 Time which contained one other dwell staple, “Pencil Thin Mustache.”

The discharge of his sixth album, Havana Daydreamin’, in 1976, marked Buffett’s highest Billboard 200 album chart placement thus far — at No. 65 — however it was the subsequent yr’s Modifications in Latitudes, Modifications in Attitudes that proved to be his best-selling breakthrough album due to the “Margaritaville” single. The track contains a sort of shorthand for the Buffett lifestyle (and the origins of his followers’ nickname) courtesy of the sand-packed first verse, “Nibblin’ on sponge cake/ Watchin’ the sun bake/ All of you Parrotheads covered with oil,” which flip-flops into the enduring refrain: “Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville/ Searchin’ for my long lost shaker of salt.” That track, which spent 22 weeks on the singles chart, topped out at No. 8 on the Sizzling 100 in July 1977, marking Buffett’s highest charting profession single.

His sizzling streak continued on 1978’s Son of a Son of a Sailor, which featured one other iconic laid-back hit, “Cheeseburger in Paradise” (No. 32 on the Sizzling 100), in addition to “Livingston Saturday Night” (No. 52) and “Mañana” (No. 84). In all, Buffett launched 29 studio albums and 14 dwell albums over his profession, together with his last studio assortment, 2020’s fan-curated B-sides, Songs You Don’t Know By Coronary heart; at press time Buffett had been teased his thirtieth studio album, Equal Pressure on All Elements, although a launch date had not but been set.

Buffett’s profession peak on the Billboard 200 album chart got here in 2004 when License to Chill hit No. 1, besting his earlier profession excessive on the album tally, 1996’s Banana Wind (No. 4); his 2020 assortment, Life on the Flip Aspect topped out at No. 2. The singer additionally crossed over onto the nation charts with 20 songs, together with 2003’s ACM-winning No. 1 Alan Jackson duet “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” in addition to 2011’s No. 1 hit “Knee Deep” with the Zac Brown Band and 2004’s “Hey Good Lookin’,” a Hank Williams cowl that hit No. 8 with some assist from Clint Black, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, Toby Keith and George Strait. As well as, Buffett landed 15 entries on the Grownup Modern charts — together with a No. 1 with Margaritaville in 1977 and 17 entires on the highest nation albums chart, with eight prime 10s and a No. 1 with License to Chill.

Consistent with his high-flying lifetime of solar and sips, Buffett was additionally a pilot who typically flew his personal airplane to gigs, crashing one in all them in 1994 close to Nantucket, MA throughout takeoff, escaping with just some scrapes after swimming to shore. Two years later one other of his planes, the Hemisphere Dancer – crammed with passengers together with U2 singer Bono and Island Information founder Chris Blackwell in addition to the singer’s spouse and two daughters — was shot at by Jamaican authorities who thought it was getting used to smuggle marijuana. Buffett, after all, turned his close to tragedy into track, penning the reggae-tinged observe “Jamaica Mistaica,” that includes the no worries chorus, “Come back, come back back to Jamaica/ Don’t chu know we made a big mistaica/ We’d be so sad if you told us good-bye/ And we promise not to shoot you out of the sky.”

Whereas Buffett’s album and single gross sales later waned, he remained an enormous dwell draw, taking part in an countless collection of excursions along with his beloved Coral Reefer Band to his legion of colorfully dressed followers, whose devotion rivaled that of the Grateful Lifeless’s indefatigable “Deadhead” followers. The loud and proud moniker’s origin is traced to a 1985 live performance in Cincinnati — one of many singer’s most stalwart fan hubs — throughout a present on the Timberwolf amphitheater by which Coral Reefer Band bassist Timothy B. Schmit appeared out on the rainbow-hued viewers festooned in loud Hawaiian shirts, coconut bras, leis and different tropical gear and commented that as a substitute of Deadheads they appeared like “a bunch of parrotheads.”

Buffett additionally launched the Radio Margaritaville channel on SiriusXM and spun off a collection of best-selling books, together with the quick story assortment Tales From Margaritaville (1989), his first fiction novel, The place Is Joe Service provider? (1992), the 1998 memoir A Pirate Appears to be like at Fifty and the novels A Salty Piece of Land (2004) and Swine Not? A Novel Pig Story.

In line with the New York Occasions, he was one in all solely six writers — together with Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and William Styron — to prime each the Occasions’ fiction and nonfiction best-seller lists. Buffett additionally dipped his toes into two kids’s books written along with his daughter, Savannah Jane, The Jolly Mon (1988) and Bother Dolls (1991).

Through the years, Buffett additionally contributed authentic songs to a lot of films, together with Summer season Rental, Quick Occasions at Ridgemont Excessive, City Cowboy, Jurassic World and FernGully, in addition to filming cameos for Repo Man, Hook, Congo and Rancho Deluxe.

Take heed to a few of Buffett’s most beloved hits beneath.