Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way

by Ryan White

Overview

A candid, compelling, and rollicking portrait of the legendary pirate captain of Margaritaville—Jimmy Buffett.

In Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way, acclaimed music critic Ryan White has crafted the definitive account of Buffett’s rise from singing songs for beer to his becoming a tropical icon and inspiration behind the Margaritaville industrial complex, a vast network of merchandise, chain restaurants, resorts, and lifestyle products all inspired by his sunny but disillusioned hit “Margaritaville.”

Filled with interviews from friends, musicians, Coral Reefer Band members, and business partners who were there, this book is a top-down joyride with plenty of side trips and meanderings from Mobile and Pascagoula to New Orleans, Key West, down into the islands aboard the Euphoria and the Euphoria II, and into the studios and onto the stages where the foundation of Buffett’s reputation was laid.

Buffett wasn’t always the pied piper of beaches, bars, and laid-back living. Born on the Gulf Coast, the son of a son of a sailing ship captain, Buffett scuffed around New Orleans in the late sixties, flunked out of Nashville (and a marriage) in 1971, and found refuge among the artists, dopers, shrimpers, and genuine characters who’d collected at the end of the road in Key West. And it was there, in those waning outlaw days at the last American exit, where Buffett, like Hemingway before him, found his voice and eventually brought to life the song that would launch Parrot Head nation.

And just where is Margaritaville? It’s wherever it’s five o’clock; it’s wherever there’s a breeze and salt in the air; and it’s wherever Buffett set his bare feet, smiled, and sang his songs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501132568
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	02/06/2018
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	53,656
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Ryan White, the author of Springsteen: Album by Album and Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way, has twice been named one of the top feature writers in the country by the Society for Features Journalism. He spent sixteen years at The Oregonian covering sports, music, and culture. He’s written for The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, The Sacramento Bee, The Dallas Morning News, and Portland Monthly. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Once Upon a Time in Key West 1

Chapter 2 The Mythical, Mystical, Poetic, Romantic, and Artistic History of Jimmy Buffett 9

Chapter 3 The Nashville Telegraph 23

Chapter 4 "I Guess They'll Get Us Started" 37

Chapter 5 Regattas, Regrettas, and Adventures at the End of the Road 51

Chapter 6 There's No Substitute for Experience 67

Chapter 7 There Wasn't a Name for It 85

Chapter 8 He Meets the Bear, Finally 101

Chapter 9 Tire Swings, Hurricanes, and the Coral Reefer Band 121

Chapter 10 Euphoria 139

Chapter 11 Changes in … Everything 163

Chapter 12 To Bimini and Beyond 177

Chapter 13 Fool Buttons 185

Chapter 14 Almost Over the Edge 205

Chapter 15 A Ramshackle Place 223

Chapter 16 If You Want to Survive the Tourist Business 251

Chapter 17 What Would Jimmy Buffett Do? 277

Chapter 18 A Salty Piece of Land 291

Chapter 19 Searching for Margaritaville 315

Epilogue 329

Acknowledgments 333

Index 339

Editorial Reviews

A buoyant new Jimmy Buffett biography sings. . . . [White interviewed] dozens of Buffett’s fellow Key West, Florida, barflies, record producers, bandmates, friends, and business associates, and the portrait that emerges is affectionate and admiring but devoid of Parrot Head fawning—the proper key for such a bio. It helps that White’s prose bears a music of its own, vividly evoking Buffett’s formative journey from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans, to Nashville, and then to Key West.” —GARDEN & GUN

"A gifted storyteller with a beat reporter's nose for hidden details, Ryan White has crafted a definitive portrait of one of America's most potent cultural icons. And yet this is so much more than an account of sandy-footed slacker king Jimmy Buffett. It's also a peek into the yearning heart of overworked Americans searching for their own shaker of salt and helping drive the fantasy that turned Buffett's tequila-stunned 1977 smash ‘Margaritaville’ into the keystone of a multi-billion dollar leisure industry." –Peter Ames Carlin, New York Times bestselling author of Bruce

“Finally—a full-length Jimmy Buffett bio that’s accurate and entertaining. Ryan White captures a life of creativity, of strumming songs, taking care of business, and of owning the stage while dancing to the bank. Great writing makes for great reading, and this book outshines all earlier looks at Buffett’s career and lifestyle. White has interviewed dozens of the man’s colleagues, influences and guides, and asked all the right questions. Now we get to enjoy new insights and correct info right down to the sunburn. Thank goodness for Ryan White. He delivers a fine tale and, like Buffett, super entertainment."

- Tom Corcoran, author of Crime Almost Pays and The Quick Adios (Times Six).

“White unravels the tale of America’s favorite pirate with journalistic vigor and an ear for the poetic detail. It turns out that Jimmy Buffett’s real story is an interesting and wild as the countless myths and legends that have grown around him.” -Hayes Carll, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter

“Ryan White has written a highly entertaining and very informative book about Jimmy Buffett; one that manages to go well beyond the mythology and legends while still giving them their just place in the grand design. An excellent read.”
- Patterson Hood, Drive-By Truckers

From the Publisher

02/27/2017
In his memoir, A Pirate Looks at Fifty (1998), musician Jimmy Buffett reflected on his life; in this biography of Buffett, White has written an entertaining life of the entertainer but hasn’t revealed many new anecdotes. White’s starry-eyed fan’s notes perpetuate the legend of the laid-back, shrimp-eating, beer-guzzling, flip-flop–wearing daydreamer who was nevertheless a canny businessman. Drawing on interviews with Buffett’s friends and fellow musicians, White faithfully chronicles Buffett’s rise to fame and fortune from his childhood in Mobile, Ala., and his short-lived college days in Hattiesburg, Miss., to his unsuccessful forays into Nashville’s music scene and his eventual landing in Key West, where he roamed the bars with writers Thomas McGuane and Jim Harrison. Working chronologically, White (Springsteen: Album by Album) carefully takes readers behind the scenes of every Buffett album, revealing an artist who was always in control, despite his slapdash public persona. White aptly captures an ingenious musician who’s expertly figured out how to spin his music and himself into something that his fans will continually follow. (May)

Publishers Weekly

2017-03-07
The Mayor of Margaritaville gets mythic treatment in an adoring chronicle that looks back at his decadeslong career.For many, Jimmy Buffett (b. 1946) endures simply as an icon of midlife escapism, forever grinning behind aviator-style sunglasses, beachwear, and his guitar. Former Oregonian sports and culture reporter White (Springsteen: Album by Album, 2014) further cultivates that legend, locating the beginning of Buffett's unlikely rise to the predilections of a ship-hopping father who once yearned for a life of seafaring adventure. With that tone set, the author explores Buffett's spawning grounds in and around Mississippi and Alabama with equal awe and wonder. When Buffett was born, notes the author, the town of Mobile was known as the "Mother of Mystics." Making it as a musician in places like Nashville, New Orleans, and Key West was a mystical feat in and of itself. However affable, Buffett was something of a curious oddity in a town enamored with the sort of darkness embodied in the likes of Kris Kristofferson. But as Buffett's pals explain, he always had the right mojo. As musician and talent scout Don Light remembers, " ‘the people liked him.' Not just the songs, they liked the singer….‘ If it was him and guitar, he could talk all evening.' " Fans also liked the freedom that the singer represented. Consequently, he was able to turn his laid-back lyrics and lifestyle into a powerful corporate brand responsible for a slew of chain restaurants, resorts, and assorted merchandise. In White's account, how Buffett actually managed to become a multimillion-dollar mogul is far less important than the legend and lore behind the man. The author's subject, however, is conspicuously absent from the career-spanning chronicle. Many of the direct quotes attributed to the artist are actually taken from various concert stages over the years, and they don't illuminate much outside of demonstrating Buffett to be a likable guy. A feel-good biography for Parrotheads; others may want to pass.

Kirkus Reviews