James William "Jimmy" Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is a singer , songwriter , author , businessman , and movie producer . He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band , Buffett's musical hits include "Margaritaville " (No. 234 on RIAA's list of "Songs of the Century "), and "Come Monday ". He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads ". Aside from his career in music, Buffett is also a best-selling writer and is involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best known songs, "Cheeseburger in Paradise " and "Margaritaville ". He owns the Margaritaville Cafe restaurant chain and co-developed the Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant concept with OSI Restaurant Partners (parent of Outback Steakhouse ), which operates the chain under a licensing agreement with Buffett. On January 26, 2011, it was reported that Buffett was hospitalized with head injuries after taking a fall off the stage at a concert in Sydney, Australia .[1]
Personal life
Buffett spent part of his childhood in Mobile, Alabama . As a boy in grade school, he attended St. Ignatius School. He later lived in Fairhope, Alabama , mentioned by Buffett as his "Home Town" during a 2001 concert. He graduated from high school from McGill Institute for Boys (now McGill-Toolen Catholic High School ) in 1964. He began playing guitar during his college years at Pearl River Community College , Auburn University and The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi , where he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1969. He was initiated into the fraternity Kappa Sigma (ΚΣ ) at the University of Southern Mississippi. After graduating from college, Buffett worked as a correspondent for Billboard magazine in Nashville , breaking the news of the separation of Flatt and Scruggs .
Buffett married Margie Washichek in 1969 and divorced in 1972. Buffett and his second wife Jane (Jane Slagsvol) have two daughters, Savannah Jane and Sarah Delaney, and an adopted son, Cameron Marley, and reside in Palm Beach, Florida . They were separated in the early 1980s; however, they reconciled in 1991. Buffett also owns a home in St Barts , a Caribbean island where he lived on and off in the early 1980s while he was part-owner of the Autour de Rocher hotel and restaurant. An avid pilot, Buffett's flagship, N908JB often accompanies him while on tour and travels throughout the world.
Music
Buffett began his musical career in Nashville, Tennessee during the late 1960s as a country artist and recorded his first album , the folk rock Down to Earth , in 1970. During this time Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans. Country music singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition. Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach bum persona for which he is known. Following this move, Buffett combined country, folk, and pop music with coastal as well as tropical lyrical themes for a sound sometimes called "gulf and western ". Today, 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's third album was the 1973 A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean . Living And Dying In 3/4 Time and A1A both followed in 1974, Havana Daydreamin' appeared in 1976, followed by 1977's Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes , which featured the breakthrough hit song "Margaritaville ".
With the untimely death of friend and mentor Jim Croce in September 1973, ABC Dunhill tapped Buffett to fill his space. Earlier, Buffett had visited Croce's farm in Pennsylvania and met with Croce in Florida (see Jimmy Buffett "The Man from Margaritaville Revealed" - Steve Eng page 144 and "Jimmy Buffett Scrap Book" by Mark Humphrey page 120)
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, and also branched into writing and merchandising. In 1985, Buffett opened a "Margaritaville" retail store in Key West and then in 1987, the Margaritaville Cafe was opened. During the 1980s Buffett played at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. He briefly changed the name of the band from "Coral Reefers" to the "Coral Reef Band" to suit the HLS&R's request as they thought "Reefers" was a drug related reference. HLS&R is a charity event that provides student grants to children and young adults that compete in agriculture contests (FFA).
Two of the more out-of-character albums were Christmas Island , a collection of Christmas 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 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a short-lived musical based on Wouk's novel, Don't Stop the Carnival . Broadway showed little interest in the play, (following the failure of Paul Simon's The Capeman ) and it only ran for six weeks in Miami. He released an album of songs from the musical in 1998.
In August 2000 Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band played on the White House lawn for then President Bill Clinton.
In 2003, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan Jackson for the song "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere ", a number one hit on the country charts. This song won the 2003 Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year. This was Buffett's first award of any kind for his music in his 30 year career.
Buffett's album, License to Chill , released on July 13, 2004, sold 238,600 copies in its first week of release according to Nielsen SoundScan . With this, Buffett topped the U.S. pop albums chart for the first time in his three-decade career.
Buffett continues to tour throughout the year although he has shifted recently to a more relaxed schedule of around 20–30 dates, and rarely on back-to-back nights, preferring to play only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, thus the title of his 1999 live album Buffett Live — Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays. Purchasing tickets is difficult with most of his concerts selling out in minutes.
In the summer of 2005 Buffett teamed up with Sirius radio and introduced channel 31: Radio Margaritaville , and as of November 2008 is also on XM radio channel 55. Until this point Radio Margaritaville was solely an online channel. The channel broadcasts from the Margaritaville restaurant at Universal CityWalk in Orlando, Florida . The channel is still available online at RadioMargaritaville.com and as a reduced quality buffer on the WunderRadio app for the iPhone .
In August 2006, he released the album Take The Weather With You . The song "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" on this album refers to 2005's Hurricane Katrina . Also on the album he pays tribute to Merle Haggard with his rendition of "Silver Wings" and covers, with Mark Knopfler playing on the track, "Whoop De Doo."
Of the over 30 albums Jimmy Buffett has released, as of October 2007, he has 8 Gold Albums and 9 Platinum or Multi Platinum Albums. In 2003 Buffett won his first ever Country Music Award (CMA) for his song "It's 5 O'clock Somewhere" with Alan Jackson, and was nominated again in 2007 for the CMA Event of the Year Award for his song "Hey Good Lookin" which featured Alan Jackson and George Strait.
On December 8, 2009, Jimmy Buffett released his 28th studio album entitled Buffet Hotel .
On April 20, 2010, a double CD of performances recorded during the 2008 and 2009 tours called encores was released exclusively at Walmart, Walmart.com and Margaritaville.com.
Writing
Buffett has written three #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 No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller non-fiction list, making him one of eight authors in that list's history to have reached No. 1 on both the fiction and non-fiction lists. The seven other authors who have accomplished this are Ernest Hemingway , John Steinbeck , William Styron , Irving Wallace , Dr. Seuss , Mitch Albom and Glenn Beck .
Buffett also co-wrote two children's books, The Jolly Mon and Trouble Dolls, with his eldest daughter, Savannah Jane Buffett. The original hard cover release of The Jolly Mon included a cassette tape recording of him and Savannah Jane reading the story accompanied by an original score written by Michael Utley .
Buffett's novel A Salty Piece of Land , was released on November 30, 2004, and the first edition of the book included a CD single of the song "A Salty Piece Of Land", which was recorded for License to Chill . The book was a New York Times best seller soon after its release.
Buffett's latest title, Swine Not?, was released May 13, 2008.
Buffett is currently writing a follow-up to his autobiography A Pirate Looks at Fifty , which he says may take u
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Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett fell off a concert stage during a show in Sydney, Australia Wednesday, according to a hospital spokeswoman. Read the rest
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Jimmy Buffett fell off the stage during a concert in Sydney, Australia, gashed his head and was rushed to the hospital. Read the rest
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James William "Jimmy" Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is a singer, songwriter, author, businessman, and movie producer. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an Read the rest
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James William "Jimmy" Buffett (born December 25, 1946) is a singer, songwriter. author, businessman, and movie producer. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an Read the rest
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Jimmy Buffett , Singer / Songwriter Born: 25 December 1946 Birthplace: Pascagoula, Mississippi Best Known As: Singer of the pop hit 'Margaritaville' Read the rest