The Jackson, Mississippi Clarion-Ledger has an article on Greg “Fingers” Taylor, the legendary harmonica player that toured with Buffett for many years and lent his sounds to some of Jimmy’s most famous songs:

Taylor had taken piano lessons in Kansas, but the blues turned him on to the harmonica. He played both in different bands while at USM, but it soon became clear he had a special relationship with the harmonica. He always kept one stashed in a blue jean pocket.

It came in handy one night in 1973 when Buffett, then a struggling musician who had also attended USM for a while, came to Hattiesburg to play The Hub, a popular bar.

“I’d never seen him before,” Taylor recalls. “I remember he was wearing a 10-gallon hat and had long, long blonde hair. It was just him and his acoustic guitar.”

Buffett had heard about the local dude who could make a harmonica talk. Midway through the show, he invited Taylor to join him for a few tunes.

“We had a good time and I could tell that Jimmy, at some point, was going to do something different and important,” Taylor says. “But at that time, I was a little better off than he was. He had no car. No money. And he needed to get to Mobile to see some girl. He asked me to drive him down there, and I did.”

A year later, when Buffett signed a record deal with ABC/Dunhill and started putting a band together, Taylor was the first musician he called. Buffett added Roger Bartlett on guitar, Harry Dailey on bass, Phillip Fajardo on drums … and away they went.

By 1975, they were opening shows for Linda Ronstadt, Roger McGuinn and Jerry Jeff Walker.

In 1977, Buffett wrote the Caribbean-flavored song Margaritaville, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard singles chart.

The tune’s carefree island theme became Buffett’s calling card, and a string of hits followed: Cheeseburger In Paradise; A Pirate Looks at Forty; Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes; and Son of a Son of a Sailor, among others.

After opening for the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Jackson Browne over the next three years, Buffet and the Coral Reefers became headliners in 1981. Except to stop long enough to record an album, they stayed on the road for most of the next eight years.

Read the full article here.

It’s been a couple months since our last Jimmy Buffett Caption Contest, so with the news being slow right now, let’s do another one. Take a look at the picture below and come up with your own caption for it:

Post your caption in the comments section of this post.

In a few days we’ll take a few of our favorite captions and put them in a poll for everyone to vote on their favorite.

Jimmy Buffett traveled to Haiti last week, and on Wednesday performed for troops stationed at the U.S. Embassy as part of Joint Task Force Haiti:

(March 3, 2010) Musician Jimmy Buffet performs his song, “Cheeseburger in Paradise” for members of Joint Task Force Haiti at the U.S. Embassy as Lt. Cmdr. Jennifer Hornsby-Myers and Cmdr. Dana Hall, both from the U.S. Public Health Service sing along. (U.S. Navy photo by Senior Chief Mass Communication Specialist Spike Call/Released)

CMT.com has posted the full video of Zac Brown and Jimmy Buffett singing “Margaritaville” from their upcoming episode of CMT Crossroads that will air Friday, March 19th at 10 pm ET/PT:

Other songs played at the taping were:

• Where the Boat Leaves From
• One Love
• Free
• Into the Mystic
• Toes
• Chicken Fried
• Wings
• Nobody From Nowhere
• Son of a Son of a Sailor
• A Pirate Looks at Forty

(hat tip Amanda)

Jimmy Buffett has been a supporter of the Jamaican Dogsled team for years. Newton Marshall, a Jamaican musher is competing in the Iditarod race and Jimmy is cheering him on:

Newton Marshall, 26-year-old Jamaican musher, couldn’t have a better fan in the form of Jimmy Buffet. Not only is Buffet rooting for him to win the Iditarod, but he has been his team’s primary sponsor since the Jamaica Dogsled Team was founded by a friend.

“I just love the whole idea of it,” the singer said. “I love the absurdity that when we first did this, people laughed and thought it was a joke and guess what? It isn’t.”

Marshall, who lives in St. Anne Parish in Jamaica, has already completed a 1,000-mile dog sled race: the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race. Out of 29 mushers, he came in 13th. To prepare for the Iditarod, he has been training with the defending Iditarod champion Lance Mackey, who is a three-time consecutive winner and a four-time Yukon Quest champion.

If Marshall makes it to the Nome finish line, he will be the first black musher to complete the world’s longest sled dog race.

Learn more about the Jamaica Dogsled team here.