November 9th, 2023Last night during the CMA Awards there were two performances in tribute to Jimmy Buffett. Mac McAnally and Kenny Chesney sang “A Pirate Looks at Forty” and Zac Brown Band and Alan Jackson performed “Margaritaville.”
Watch below:
| Tagged in Related Artists, TV Appearances, Videos | Tweet |
November 3rd, 2023Billboard has a great read on the making of Jimmy Buffett’s final album Equal Strain on All Parts: “Inside the Making of Jimmy Buffett’s Final Album: ‘He Was So Proud of This One,’ Says Longtime Bandmate Mac McAnally”
“I wasn’t necessarily thinking in terms of this being the last thing he had to say, but I think, in retrospect, he probably was,” says guitarist/songwriter Mac McAnally, who has produced Buffett’s albums with his fellow Coral Reefer Band mate Michael Utley since 1997. “But he never let on. He never surrendered to what was actually happening.”
Buffett, 76, died on Sept. 1 after a four-year battle with skin cancer and lymphoma. “There were people in our organization that didn’t know he was ill,” McAnally says. “He didn’t want anybody feeling sorry for him. He just wanted to be this big ray of positivity that he always was. When I went and said goodbye to him the night before he died, he was still smiling just wider than his face.”
After they finished recording in the summer, Buffett kept tinkering with the sequencing, as McAnally realized the beloved singer-songwriter was rearranging the songs to tell his life’s journey. “When he heard the whole album in sequence, he was so proud of this one in a way that I’ve never seen him be,” McAnally says. “And that may be because he knew it was the last one and he got it right.”
Read the full story here.
| Tagged in Albums | Tweet |
November 3rd, 2023The final studio album from Jimmy Buffett is out today. Listen to Equal Strain on All Parts wherever you stream music or get it at Amazon or on vinyl at Mailboat Records.
Track listing:
Read USA Today’s review of the album: Jimmy Buffett swings from fun to reflective on last album ‘Equal Strain on All Parts’
At the start of the year, Jimmy Buffett began work on what would become his final album.
From January into the spring, the high-spirited raconteur recorded tracks in Nashville, Tennessee, Key West, New Orleans and Los Angeles, a collection of 11 original songs and three covers, including Bob Dylan’s “Mozambique.”
Now, almost exactly two months after the death of the “Margaritaville” maestro from a rare form of skin cancer, Buffett’s 31st studio album, “Equal Strain on All Parts,” arrives with a bittersweet taste.
It’s comforting to know that even as his health declined, Buffett still turned to music and enlisted friends including Paul McCartney, Emmylou Harris and Angélique Kidjo to romp and croon with him.
But it’s also a somber realization that the raucous concert culture and escapism that Buffett enjoyed with his legions of Parrotheads is but a memory. Hazy for some, joyful for all.
The songs on “Equal Strain” follow Buffett’s careerlong blueprint of swinging from frivolous (Billy Currington’s “Like My Dog” and “Fish Porn,” which he co-wrote with acclaimed satirical novelist Carl Hiaasen) to reflective (“Bubbles Up,” Mary Black’s “Columbus”).
Read the full review here.
| Tagged in Albums | Tweet |
November 1st, 2023At the CMA Awards on Wednesday, November 8th, a quartet of stars will pay tribute to Jimmy Buffett.
The late Jimmy Buffett will be honored with “a very special tribute” from Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, Mac McAnally and Zac Brown Band at the upcoming 57th Annual CMA Awards. The Country Music Association (CMA) revealed the news early Wednesday morning.
11-time CMA Award winner Chesney, 10-time CMA Award winner and longtime The Coral Reefer Band member Mac McAnally, 16-time CMA Award winner Alan Jackson and 2023 Vocal Group of the Year nominee Zac Brown Band have each previously collaborated with the “Margaritaville” singer/songwriter so the performance will be profoundly meaningful.
Tagged in Personal/Family, Related Artists, Television Tweet
