In the 80s, I wasn't really a Jimmy Buffett fan of any sorts. I barely knew who he was. I was still a young kid, so that probably explains a lot of it. And lots of his big hits had come out in the 70s. I also was more into Pop Rock. Buffett called his music "Gulf and Western." I do recall, though, hearing Margaritaville on the radio. What's funny is I doubt I even knew what a margarita was! We didn't drink around my house. In high school, what's interesting is that two classmates loved to sing Margaritaville, and they would do it "a cappella" on the school bus as we'd ride to/from Montgomery on field trips to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. They'd sit together in the back and sing lots of songs. Jimmy Buffett seemed to be a favorite of theirs.
In college, that's when I became more aware of who Jimmy Buffett was. I really loved reading magazines like People and Entertainment. One year, Buffett was out touring. Birmingham, where I was going to uni, might have been one of his stops. I read in a magazine that he drew bigger concert crowds than any other artist in the world, and that he had the most loyal fans: Parrotheads. I started learning a bit more about him and that he had an Alabama background. I didn't rush out and buy an album or anything, and I didn't go to a concert. I missed out! My senior year, on Spring Break, some friends and I drove out to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where we stayed about a week. And it was out there where I heard that Jimmy Buffett had a vacation home in the town. I also learned that he was good buddies with the actor Harrison Ford, who also had a place there. That really impressed me! I loved Harrison Ford's movies. One story that made the rounds was that Buffett had gone to a bar in Jackson Hole, unannounced and without drawing attention to himself. He sat in the back where it was dark, and took it easy. Unless you were a big fan, no way you'd recognize him or think he's a big star. The story goes that a performer was singing some Buffett songs and, at one point, Mr. Margaritaville walked up and asked if he could play. Pretty quickly, they all realized that This is the man.
In the late 90s, I bought my first Jimmy Buffett album: Jimmy Buffett All The Greatest Hits. It was released in 1994. I've enjoyed it for many years.
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When I was living in Bangkok, Thailand in the early 2000s, at one of the huge bookstores I bought A Pirate Looks At Fifty by Jimmy Buffett. At the time, I was a member of the fitness club and pool at Amari Watergate Bangkok. I would go there, do my fitness workout, then lounge by their beautiful pool. And I would often take books. One was this Jimmy Buffett autobiography. I picked up some gems from it: how to squeeze the most out of life, how to make sense of the Vietnam War era, how to overcome difficulties and struggles, how to deal with aging, etc.. The man had talent and money out the ass, and he sure seemed to be living an extraordinary life. I appreciated his wisdom!
Amari Watergate Bangkok
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