More from the CMT Crossroads taping

The Boot has a lengthy article on Wednesday night’s CMT Crossroads taping with Jimmy Buffett and the Zac Brown Band: “Zac Brown Band + Jimmy Buffett Chill Out in Nashville”

Before they launched into ‘Where the Boat Leaves From,’ Jimmy said, “I write a few songs about boats and the first time I heard this one, I [thought], ‘That’s a song I wish I’d written’.” After that performance, the Country Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year, Mac MacAnally, joined the musicians onstage. “He’s musician of the year and he’s having trouble plugging in his guitar,” joked Jimmy as Mac took a few moments to get ready to play.

“I have to tell you that the van referred to in this song was used only to go to Jimmy Buffett concerts,” Zac said prior to singing ‘Free,’ a song about traveling across country and living in said van.

After a rousing version of ‘Chicken Fried,’ the singers had to repeat the first two songs, as is common practice with TV tapings. “It wasn’t out fault, honest,” Zac said. “I think they screwed up out in the [sound] truck.” The energetic crowd, on its feet much of the night, wouldn’t have cared if the two bands had to repeat every song several times. They were in the mood to party, whistling and screaming throughout the evening.

“When you do other people’s songs you have to learn them and it’s like doing homework or going to summer school,” Jimmy said as they went into the second half of the taping of his songs. “Now we’re coming to the easy part of the show for me. We’re gonna cover things you know but I’m also going to do some shameless promotion for a new album that will probably be history by the time this show airs.”

Read the full article here.