Buffett inspired Brent Burns “to write what I know”
Buffett inspired Brent Burns “to write what I know”
TropRock Music Assn. Lifetime Achievement award winner has been our Island’s music man since 1972
By Fran Thompson
Like many, many others, local trop rock king Brent Burns is surprised how difficult it has been to process the passing of Jimmy Buffett, the man responsible for the genre that has defined his professional career.
The recipient of the 2021 TropRock Music Association Lifetime Achievement award, Burns ran in the same Pleasure Island circle as Buffett 50 years ago, but the two never met until Buffett’s sister Lucy arranged for a backstage rendezvous (pictured) before one of Buffett’s 2018 run of shows at La Cigale, a historic 1,000 seat venue in Paris and a Parrot Head mecca.
Burns said Buffett greeted him warmly and said he knew who he was as soon as he walked into his dressing room.
The two talked about mutual friends in Nashville and Pleasure Island and before he left, Buffett held onto Brent’s hand and asked him if he wanted his assistant to take a picture of them together.
“When I introduced myself, he said, ‘I know who you are, Brent,’ and we had a great conversation. I was trying to be cool. I didn’t want to be that guy. So I didn’t ask him for a picture, but I’m glad I have it now. Looking back, it means a lot to me,’’ Burns said.
One of Burns’ best and most popular songs is titled Livin’ The Life (Jimmy Buffett Only Wrote About).
“Jimmy spent a lot of time in Gulf Shores in the 1970’s and 1980’s. We ran around the same bases, but I was always missing him,’’ Burns said. “He and (NFL Hall of Famer and Foley H.S. grad) Kenny Stabler were big buddies. And I would go into The Endzone and Kenny would say that Jimmy just left or I would go into Coconut Willy’s and Meryl Murphy would tell me I just missed him.
“He has always been part of the fabric down here,’’ Burns added. “When I moved here full-time, I was disillusioned with Nashville. I had writer’s block. I had just gotten divorced and I moved to the beach to try to figure things out and decide if I wanted to get back in the game.
“What I learned from watching Buffett was that I didn’t have to chase the juke box. I could just play what I know. If you write good songs, people will find you. It worked out pretty good for me and it was kind of his inspiration that led me to take that path. He inspired me more than I realized at the time.”
At least a part-time resident since he took a summer residency at the Gulf Shores Holiday Inn in 1972, Brent was named Pleasure Island’s official music ambassador by the Convention & Visitors Bureau in 2006.
He also has a box full of plaques that thank him for the philanthropy that has continued to be his hallmark for 50 years. A longtime supporter of Habitat For Humanity ($1 donation for each CD sold), Brent reaches out to many other charities, both local and national.
In addition to his regular Monday 5 p.m. gig at Lucy Buffett’s LuLu’s in Gulf Shores, Brent will be hosting casual jams a LuLUs’ with guests Oct. 24-27 from 1-4 p.m. He is also playing the “Bloody Mary Morning with Brent Burns and Stoney Gabel” show on Saturday, Oct. 28 from 9:30-11 a.m. at The Hangout. MOTM registration is required only for The Hangout show.
Not that most people would consider what Brent does for a living – writing songs and playing his own music live all over the country – work. And if it wasn’t for the getting there, the setting up and the getting home, neither would Brent. His next road trip is the Nov. 2-5 Sunny Jim’s Suncoast Serenade Songwriters Retreat in Osprey, FL.
“Really, I’m still having the time of my life,’’ he said. “The traveling is harder. But I still love it and I would be bored without music. It’s who I am. I’m not complaining. I have a great time working for great people when I get there. But it does get a little tiring. Sometimes I think I’d just rather go to happy hour.’’
If Jerry Diaz is the “Godfather of Trop Rock, then Brent is the grandfather of the genre. His total of 12 Trop Rock awards include Song, Entertainer and CD of the Year. He won three awards at the inaugural presentation in 2008: Entertainer of the Year, CD of the year (Ragtops and Flip Flops) and a special WAVE award for his humanitarian work through his Brent Burns Charitable Foundation.
I’ve Got A Beach in My Backyard and Don’t Come Knockin’ If The Tiki Hut’s Rockin have also won CD of the Year Awards. It is the accolades for songwriting that he appreciates most, as that is what he is at heart.
“Songwriter of the Year means the most because that is the part of what I do that gives me the most personal pleasure,” he said. “I was kind of late to the party. A lot of guys start writing when they’re in their 20’s, but I was in my 30’s before I got serious about it, and it turned out that one of the things I liked the most about what I do is writing songs, especially if it’s funny and people laugh.
“There’s nothing – no bigger rush – than hearing laughter from something you said or something you sang. It’s a high I can’t explain.’’
Brent has written songs with compadres like Bill Whyte, Roger Sovine, Bobby Weinstein, Steve Dean and the late Larry Butler. He said he will buy the beer and snacks for any co-writing sessions that include writers of that stature.
“Roger was the top dog in Nashville for a long time, and Steve Dean has six no. one hits. They all have had way more success than I have,’’ Brent said. “I’m just glad they find it in their heart to write with me.’’
Brent could also drop Ray Stevens name, as that legend sang a duet with him on one of his co-writes with Whyte, Retired.
An Oklahoma native, Brent was fronting a rock-n-roll band while still in high school in Phoenix during the Vietnam War.
He volunteered and was wounded in battle while in Vietnam. He was hospitalized for most of the next three years, but returned to music and hit the road performing all over the United States when he was finally discharged.
He later spent a year on the college lecture circuit offering an honest, insightful and humorous look at life as a combat soldier. Through those lectures, he was able to help others troubled with the effect of the war on their day to day lives.
“The media has provided us a view of that PTSD person from Vietnam, but the wonderful, funny thing about the human spirit, at least in a lot of guys I know, is that as tragic as that was, and being shot twice is not fun, and being in a hospital for three years is not fun, I can look back on that and laugh about a lot of stuff.
“It wasn’t funny at the time, obviously, but I make jokes about it. The human mind at a given time can find humor in tragedy. Jokes made about horrible tragedies done the right way, they can be kind of humorous.
“And that’s the great thing about the human spirit,’’ he added. “You can laugh at the tragedies. I guess I’m laughing because things are so good now. I overcame that and life has been so good in so many ways.
“I’ve had my hills and my valleys, but there’s been a lot more hills than valleys, and I’m aware of that and, man, am I thankful for it.’’
Burns’ first taste of national attention came when he released Cheaper Crude or No More Food in 1980 in response to the previous year’s OPEC oil price hike. Brent spent $1,800 that he didn’t really have to record the single with a DJ friend from Phoenix, but it ended up selling 200,000 copies the first day and 500,000 copies the first month.
National talk show host Paul Harvey was responsible for the song’s success, playing it three times on his show. It was the first time Harvey, the conservative news commentator heard nationally over the ABC radio network, ever featured music on his show. It debuted on more than 818 radio stations across the United States.
“It’s really something to see the American people fired up. I’m not a militant, I’m a record producer. I wrote this song out of personal conviction and to make people laugh. If it just shook a few politicians, I think I’d be accomplishing something,” Brent said in the New York Times.
Cheaper Crude was also written up in the Chicago Tribune and Billboard Magazine. And Brent sang it live on the Mike Douglas Show.
One Arizona woman (not a close relative) ordered 5,000 copies, and a Salt Lake City radio station played the song every hour on the hour for a week. A radio station in Ohio reported receiving 3,000 calls about it after one spin.
“I found out that we were shipping wheat and food over to the Arab countries, and they were scalding us on the price and the shortage of oil. So, I was kind of ticked off, and wrote a funny song about it. I actually wrote it in ’76. And in ’79, a friend of mine remembered it and sent it to Paul Harvey,’’ Brent said.
“It happened quick. He just asked permission to use it if he wanted to. We didn’t know what he was going to do, and he didn’t tell us. One day, on a Wednesday, he played the doggone song and it just blew up. From that point on, it was a track race for months.
“I’m singing in lounges, and suddenly Real People’s calling, and Hee Haw’s calling. I was like, ‘Really?’ It was hard to get my balance.
“It came and went fast. Novelty songs usually do, but it was a great experience. We did sell a half a million copies the first week. I look back and I just laugh. I made money on air play and some performance money. But I didn’t get any pay for any of the record sales. The company went bankrupt.’’
Cheaper Crude led to a record deal and Brent’s 1980 move to Nashville to rub noses with other hit makers. These were heady times for a kid from Oklahoma.
“I had that one hit, but I always kind of thought I’d be a star, and I wouldn’t have to write. I was really cocky back then. Too self-assured, almost. And then I got to Nashville, and I’m thinking I would become a signed artist and a star. But I started hearing demos of these guys with killer voices and great songs, and I’m thinking, I need to write songs, because there’s a lot of great singers around.
“I started really taking the writing thing seriously, and it’s become really a passion with me. I really like that end of things, the creative side,’’ Brent said.
“I’ve had my cocky phases. Believe me,’’ Brent added. “But sometimes life has hills and valleys. With Cheaper Crude, everybody wanted a piece of the action and wanted to be around me. You wake up six months later and the phone’s not ringing, and nobody answering your phone calls.’’
Brent said he now looks at that failure to find a place in the Nashville music scene a good experience.
“It at least teaches you to savor the good times when they’re there. Not be cocky, savor them. Be humble about it. That way, when things aren’t going so good, you realize that’s not forever either,’’ he said.
Burns arrived in Gulf Shores when the area was a sleepy, little seasonal town with concrete floored honky-tonks and beach cottages.
His ticket to town in 1972 and for many years after was a summer residency at the Holiday Inn Gulf Shores. Burns recalled how proud the locals were of the brand new hotel, the only building in town with an elevator and the only bar with carpet on the floor.
Music has taken Burns all over the world. He has led tours of mostly Parrot Heads to Ireland, Scotland, Italy and Greece. He has also lent his name to European river cruise excursions. He often invites other songwriters to join him, and plays several gigs during each trip.
“In many ways, I feel like my life has been the most fortunate, blessed life in the world. Every morning I write a letter to God,’’ Brent told his friend, New York Times best selling author Andy Andrews, on a podcast Andrews records in a studio at his retail/office suite at The Wharf in Orange Beach.
“Usually it’s a letter of thankfulness and I ask for things sometimes, but every day, I thank God for my amazing life. It’s so much fun, and it’s been so exciting and so diversified. It’s been great.’’