It was the winter of 1981 — February, I think — and I was suffering after a tough breakup.
I was driving in Fairfax, Va., heading to a dance at the old Huddleston Library with two young ladies who were members of my college newspaper staff. Tara Hagenbrock and Ilissa Klein, as I recall. I had a Jimmy Buffett cassette in my car stereo.
Remember cassettes? Yeah, a long long time ago.
The cassette was Buffett’s live album, “You Had to Be There,” and the song was, of course, the wonderful “Margaritaville.”
Nearing the end of the song, Buffett sings that “some people claim that there’s a woman to blame,” and as he said the following words — “always is” — I sang them along with him. The other two people in the car laughed when they heard me.
There are several ironies here. Ilissa disappeared from the story — and my life — soon after that ride, but Tara is a lifelong friend that I treasure, and the young woman who broke up with me and left me feeling so sarcastic came back into my like a few months later and has become a friend I love dearly to this very day.
In fact, when I saw Buffett in concert for the first time that summer at Merriweather Post Pavilion, she was my date.
I don’t know if it’s actually all that ironic, but while I have enjoyed Jimmy Buffett’s music since I was in my late 20s, the first memory that came to mind this morning when I learned that he had died was listening to “Margaritaville” that winter night in my car.
“Margaritaville” was the only song in a 50-year career for Buffett to reach the top 10 on the pop charts, but calling him a one-hit wonder would have been the farthest thing from the truth. He released 29 studio albums, 14 live alblums and a dozen or so compilation albums.
He toured the world for 50 years and the only other act whose fans were as loyal and as prolific was probably the Grateful Dead. The Dead had their Deadheads, and Timothy B. Schmitt of the Eagles tagged Buffett’s fans with the term Parrotheads. Many of them saw Buffett in concert dozens if not hundreds of times, and he ended most of his concerts with a joyous “See you next year” to the crowd.
He was so much more than just a singer. He wrote three books that reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list and he was one of only six authors ever to reach No. 1 in both fictions and non-fiction. Two of the other five were guys named Hemingway and Steinbeck.
He had restaurants, clothing lines, a lot of what we now call “merch,” When he died, his wealth was approaching a billion dollars.
I have written before about singers and bands I love, people I could cheerfully enjoy for the rest of my life if I had to pick just one. Buffett would be on a short list of people I could enjoy that much and never get bored.
I’m not sure why I only saw him in concert twice, that first time in Maryland and a couple of years later at Carowinds outside Charlotte. I do know that after that second time in 1983, I only went to two concerts in the next 12 years or so.
But I kept buying Buffett albums and kept enjoying his music, and when satellite radio came along with its more open style, I was glad there was a Jimmy Buffett channel.
After all, AM, FM or whatever, stations were never going to play his classic “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw.”
I wonder if there was ever anyone who made as much money, had as much fun, was as happy and has as few people who thought of him badly as Jimmy Buffett.
I found an interesting video on YouTube from one of Buffett’s final concerts in which one of this more poignant songs pretty much sums up his life.
“Some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic, but I had a good life all the way.”
Thanks for 50 wonderful years, Jimmy. Here’s hoping where you are, it’s five o’clock everywhere and they never run out of boat drinks.