Jimmy Buffett, 76; turned song into anthem and empire
Jimmy Buffett, the singer, songwriter, author, sailor, and entrepreneur whose roguish brand of island escapism on hits such as “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise” made him something of a latterday folk hero, especially among his devoted following of socalled Parrot Heads, died on Friday. He was 76.
His death was announced in a statement on his website. It did not say where he died or specify a cause. Mr. Buffett had rescheduled a series of concerts this spring, saying he had been hospitalized, although he offered no details.
Peopled with pirates, smugglers, beach bums, and barflies, Mr. Buffett’s genial, self-deprecating songs conjured a world of sun, saltwater, and nonstop parties animated by the calypso country-rock of his limber Coral Reefer Band. His live shows abounded with sing-along anthems and festive tropical iconography, making him a perennial draw on the summer concert circuit, where he built an ardent fan base akin to the Grateful Dead’s Deadheads.
Mr. Buffett found success primarily with albums. He enjoyed only a few years on the pop singles chart, and “Margaritaville,” his 1977 breakthrough hit, was his only single to reach the pop Top 10.
“I blew out my flip-flop/ Stepped on a pop-top/ Cut my heel, had to cruise on back home,” he sang woozily to the song’s lilting Caribbean rhythms. “But there’s booze in the blender/ And soon it will render/ That frozen concoction that helps me hang on.”
Mr. Buffett’s music was often described as “Gulf and western” — a play on the name of the conglomerate Gulf & Western, the former parent of Paramount Pictures, as well as nod to his fusion of laid-back twang and island-themed lyrics.
His songs tended to be of two main types: wistful ballads such as “Come Monday” and “A Pirate Looks at Forty,” and clever uptempo numbers like “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” Some were both, like “Son of a Son of a Sailor,” a 1978 homage to Mr. Buffett’s seafaring grandfather, written with the producer Norbert Putnam.
“I’m just a son of a son, son of a son/ Son of a son of a sailor,” he sang. “The sea’s in my veins, my tradition remains/ I’m just glad I don’t live in a trailer.”
The Caribbean and the Gulf Coast were Mr. Buffett’s muses, and no place was more important than Key West, Fla. He first visited the island at the urging of Jerry Jeff Walker, his sometime songwriting and drinking partner, after a gig fell through in Miami in the early 1970s.
“When I found Key West and the Caribbean, I wasn’t really successful yet,” Mr. Buffett said in a 1989 interview with The Washington Post. “But I found a lifestyle, and I knew that whatever I did would have to work around my lifestyle.”
The locales provided Mr. Buffett with more than just a breezy sailing life and grist for his songwriting. They were also the impetus for the creation of a tropical-themed business empire that included a restaurant franchise, a hotel chain, and boutique tequila, T-shirt, and footwear lines, all of which made him a millionaire hundreds of times over.
“I’ve done a bit of smugglin’, and I’ve run my share of grass,” Mr. Buffett sang of his early days trafficking marijuana in the Florida Keys in “A Pirate Looks at Forty.”
“I made enough money to buy Miami,” he went on, alluding to his subsequent entrepreneurial pursuits. “But I pissed it away so fast/ Never meant to last/ Never meant to last.”
His claim to squandering his wealth notwithstanding, Mr. Buffett proved to be a shrewd manager of his considerable fortune; Forbes this year estimated his net worth at $1 billion.
Mr. Buffett was also an accomplished author. He was one of only six writers, along with the likes of Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and William Styron, to top both the Times’ fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists. By the time he wrote “Tales From Margaritaville” (1989), the first of his three No. 1 bestsellers, he had abandoned the hedonistic lifestyle he once embraced.
“I could wind up like a lot of my friends did, burned out or dead, or redirect the energy,” he told The Washington Post in 1989. “I’m not old, but I’m getting older. That period of my life is over. It was fun — all that hard drinking, hard drugging. No apologies.
“I still have a very happy life,” he went on. “I just don’t do the things I used to do.”
James William Buffett was born on Dec. 25, 1946, in Pascagoula, Miss., one of three children of Mary Loraine (Peets) and James Delaney Buffett Jr. Both parents were longtime employees of the Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Co. His father was a manager of government contracts, and his mother, known simply as Peets, was an assistant director of industrial relations.
Jimmy was raised Roman Catholic in Mobile, Ala., where he took up the trombone at St. Ignatius Catholic School. He went to high school at another Catholic institution in Mobile, the McGill Institute.
In 1964 he enrolled in classes at Auburn University. He flunked out and later attended the University of Southern Mississippi. He also began performing in local nightclubs. He graduated with a degree in history in 1969, before moving to the French Quarter of New Orleans and playing in a cover band on Bourbon Street.
He moved to Nashville, Tenn., in 1970, hoping to make it as a country singer while working as a journalist for Billboard magazine. (Mr. Buffett was credited with breaking the story about the disbanding of the pioneering bluegrass duo Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.) “Down to Earth,” his debut album, was released on Andy Williams’ Barnaby label that year. It sold a reported 324 copies.
Mr. Buffett is survived by his wife, Jane (Slagsvol) Buffett; two daughters, Savanah Jane Buffett and Sarah Buffett; a son, Cameron; two grandsons; and two sisters, Lucy and Laurie Buffett.