selling shoes, shirts, and sandwiches or
boat drinks and resort rooms, if it’s baring
the Buffett name, it’s going to be geared
toward being commercially successful. It’s
been said that never in the history of music
has one single song grown into something
so commercially viable as Margaritaville.
Not bad for a song that topped the charts
at number six, but helped propel the writ-
er/performer himself to becoming the third
wealthiest lead singer of all time, right be-
hind Sir Paul McCartney and Buffett’s friend,
U2 frontman, Bono.
As successful as he’s been, however, Jim-
my’s still paid his dues and put in the work
before the fame. In what he refers to as
his “misspent and short days at Auburn Uni-
versity” (he later graduated, in 1969, with a
bachelor’s in history from The University of
Southern Mississippi) he tells me he would
travel the Alabama, Northwest Florida, and
Mississippi coast and play music. “Not with
much success” he admits. Something, how-
ever, clicked along the way, as he built a fol-
lowing of fans while also following his own
ambitions. I mention that I have to wonder
just what drives him to continue to imagine
to fruition, and put new projects in mo-
tion after all the success he’s already had.
Is it just an innate desire to create? What's
next? What does Jimmy Buffett do to one
up everything Jimmy Buffett has already
done? He chuckles, smiles, and answers,
“I just keep doing more because the ideas
and desires for trying new things have been
there for a very long time. The problem was
that some years ago, no one really wanted
to hear about them or be a part of the
ideas. So now that people want to partner
in these businesses, we're doing them!”
Out of the many songwriters and perform-
14
ers I’ve been blessed to interview over the
years, Buffett is one of the very few ultra-
successful artists who’ve been in this busi-
ness for three or four decades (almost 45
years now in his case) and has seen a whirl-
wind of changes in the recording industry. I
ask him about some of these changes. "I’ve
seen many changes and many of them, es-
pecially the technology now available, have
been for the better. Back when I started,
the studios were controlled by just a few
people who made all the decisions, and
they weren’t set up to make the artists rich.
Some of that hasn't changed much." He
goes on to tell me that was a prime reason
for founding his own record label, Mailboat
Records.
I tell Jimmy that my oldest son (Blake Estell,
who happens to be a phenomenal self-
taught guitar player… and just got a plug
in the middle of a Jimmy Buffett interview!)
recently bought a Buffett album, and how
wonderful it is that his music has man-
aged to somehow stand the test of time.
He responds by saying, "Well, I'm so happy
about the fact that young people like Blake
will buy and listen to my music. I'm not sure
how it happened. I never thought we'd end
up being family entertainment, but now
we are." Going on to say, “we’ve done a lot
to get here, but our fans, even still, the old
ones and the young ones, are the real rea-
son Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefers are
still relevant.”
Before our time together has to come to a
close, and Jimmy has to jump in that cock-
pit and hit the friendly skies, I ask him two
questions I’m always curious about, with
most anyone who’s managed to accomplish
so much and is still going forward. Look-
ing in the proverbial rear view mirror of life
June 2017
INSIGHT