Jimmy Buffett, who has died aged 76, was an American singer-songwriter whose country-tinged tender rock celebrated the laid-back tradition of the Florida Keys on the Caribbean coast of the US. Typically referred to as the “tropical troubadour”, his songs usually featured the voices of characters who appreciated the aimless pleasures of seaside life: smoking weed, ingesting rum and consuming boiled shrimps, messing round in boats and customarily watching the world go by.
It was a way of life led by Buffett himself for plenty of years earlier than he turned a profitable musician and businessman, and was notably portrayed in his hottest composition, Margaritaville, a few drifter who sits round strumming his guitar on the entrance porch, doing little greater than watching the passers-by and – spotlight of an extended summer season – getting himself a tattoo.
Margaritaville spent 22 weeks on the US singles chart in 1977, peaking at No 8 and serving to to place the Keys – a coral archipelago off the southern coast of Florida – on the tourism map. Included within the Grammy Corridor of Fame in 2016, earlier this yr the music was inducted into the Library of Congress Nationwide Recording Registry as an “audio treasure of cultural, historic and aesthetic significance”.
Critics have been much less satisfied of Margaritaville’s worth, or of Buffett’s “Gulf & Western” musical model, which Rolling Stone as soon as referred to reasonably disparagingly as “a surfy, sandy nook of pop music”. Nonetheless he had an enormous following of loyal admirers within the US and have become a billionaire on the again of his reputation, establishing a string of Margaritaville-themed outlets, eating places and cafes throughout the nation earlier than increasing the model to incorporate resort complexes, a clothes vary, a radio station, alcoholic and tender drinks, numerous meals objects and even a line in dwelling furnishing.
He additionally made cash as an creator with bestselling novels that mirrored his musical pursuits, together with Tales from Margaritaville (1989), set on the imaginary island of Snake Chew Key, and A Salty Piece of Land (2004), that includes the equally fictional tropical territory of Cayo Loco.
Buffett was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi, however grew up within the close by port city of Cell in Alabama, the place his mother and father, James and Mary (nee Peets), each labored in administrative roles for the Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Firm. After attending McGill–Toolen Catholic highschool he went to Auburn College in Alabama, the place he took up the guitar, uncared for his research and dropped out after a yr. Restarting his training on the College of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, he graduated with a historical past diploma in 1969.
After a interval taking part in in golf equipment in New Orleans, Buffett moved in 1970 to Nashville, Tennessee, to report his first low-key album, Right down to Earth, whereas working as a journalist on Billboard music journal.
In 1971 he gave up on writing in favour of relocating to Key West, an island within the Straits of Florida that’s nearer to Cuba than Miami. In what was then a reasonably run-down, pre-tourist-boom setting, he usually lived the life he sang about in his songs – busking, taking part in in bars for ingesting cash, hiring himself out as a crew member on yachts and lazing round within the solar.
Buffett’s second album, A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (1973), made few waves however earned him sufficient money to purchase a small boat and retrospectively turned considered one of his finest regarded LPs.
A handful of different albums adopted earlier than his breakthrough in 1977 with Adjustments in Latitudes, Adjustments in Attitudes, which included Margaritaville and reached No 12 on the US album charts. Its success led to assist slots with the Eagles, the Little River Band and Fleetwood Mac, then long-running excursions of his personal.
The lifetime of a struggling musician at an finish, Buffett quickly switched into enterprise mode, ditching his extra relaxed life-style in favour of build up a large number of entrepreneurial pursuits related along with his music, notably after the discharge of his fashionable biggest hits compilation, Songs You Know By Coronary heart, in 1985.
So it was {that a} man who sang in regards to the easy life turned an formidable and hard-working businessman using 1000’s of individuals and with a private fortune estimated by Forbes journal at $1bn.
Buffett’s enterprises didn’t deflect him from his music, nevertheless. Releasing greater than 50 albums throughout his profession, he toured nearly regularly and was engaged on one other LP on the time of his loss of life.
He channelled a few of his wealth into environmental initiatives within the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, ultimately shifting away from the Keys as the world turned more and more commercialised. He then made his dwelling on the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy, though he additionally had homes in Palm Seaside in Florida and Sag Harbor, on Lengthy Island, New York.
A primary, short-lived marriage to Margie Washichek resulted in divorce. He’s survived by his second spouse, Jane (nee Slagsvol), whom he married in 1967, and their youngsters, Savannah, Delaney and Cameron.
