Did you know that Jimmy Buffett…

Did you know that Jimmy Buffett…
• While playing in 2007 at a sold out Madison Square Garden, Buffett got word that Flora-Bama co-owner Joe Gilchrist was in the audience and gave the late/great Gilchrist and the Flora-Bama shout-outs for supporting original music played live. Buffett also offered a tribute to Gilchrist when he played the Wharf soon after Gilchrist passed in 2022.
• While working as a journalist for Billboard magazine in Nashville in 1970, Buffett was credited with breaking the story about the disbanding of pioneering bluegrass legends Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.
• Down to Earth, Buffett’s debut album, was released on Andy Williams’ Barnaby label in 1970. It sold a reported 324 copies.
• Buffett moved from Key West to Aspen in the late 1970’s and has lived on St. Barts in the Caribbean, Palm Beach and Sag Harbor.
• Timothy B. Schmit, a former bassist with the Eagles and Poco, is given credit for coining the phrase Parrotheads to describe Buffett’s loyal fans. He did so in 1985 while a member of the Coral Reefer Band.
• Buffett’s album A1A, released in 1974, was his first reference to Key West and its easy going beach life. AIA runs along Florida’s Atlantic Ocean coastline.
• Buffett performed at Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa in Oct. of 1992. He also played there Feb. 20, 1979 and Sept. 15, 1977.
• Buffet played on Dec. 2, 1998, at the Mobile Civic Center and July 29, 1990 at Ladd Memorial Stadium. Other Mobile shows listed on websites include: Feb. 23, 1977, (Municipal Audi); Nov. 15, 1974, (USA); and Nov. 11, 1974 (Saenger Theatre).
• Buffett had a small role in the 1994 movie “Cobb,” the biopic starring Tommy Lee Jones about about troubled baseball great Ty Cobb. Buffett played a heckler without any arms who was punched in the face by Cobb. Buffett rewarded unpaid extras who participated in crowd scenes at historic Rickwood Field with a free concert after that day’s shoots. He also wrote music for movies “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Urban Cowboy.” And he appeared in other movies such as “Rancho Deluxe” and “Jurassic World.” He played helicopter pilot Frank Bama – a character from his best-selling 1992 novel, “Where Is Joe Merchant?” – in the 2010 short lived revival of Hawaii Five-O.
• Buffett tapped fellow Mobilian Will Kimbrough for four co-writes among the 14 songs on “Life on the Flip Side.” Kimbrough also played guitar on the entire album. Buffett met Kimbrough through mutual friend Todd Snider backstage at Tipitina’s. That led to Kimbrough being invited to contribute “Piece of Work” and other songs to the album, “License to Chill.” Kimbrough played guitar in Buffett’s band during the CMA awards ceremony that year and at the free BP Oil sponsored show at Gulf Shores Public Beach in July of 2010. He continued to work with Buffett even this year. (See Bubbles Up story on Page 12).
• Buffett is credited with inventing trop-rock, a genre that incorporates rock, reggae, country, caribbean, calypso and zydeco – sometimes in the same song.
• Buffett, there with his son, was kicked out of a Heat-Knicks game for cursing at NBA official Joe Forte in 2001. “It was a bad call. It still is a rotten call,” Buffett told Sports Illustrated. “John Starks clobbered Tim Hardaway. It was a close game. I just said you stupid mother———. That is the worst call I ever heard. People yell all the time, but he turned at me. Normally, referees do not make eye contact. So while he did not come over to me, he told the local security guard. By then the crowd was getting into it. Pat Riley was on the bench, asking ‘They are kicking you out of the game?’ Alonzo (Mourning) was like: ‘Sit down. You stay there.’ I told the security guard, ‘This is probably not a good idea.’”