Stars and Stripes has a great interview with Jimmy Buffett that they conducted backstage at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan.

On why he came to play the free shows:

We’ve been doing shows around the world for quite a while and it was kind of a unique situation. My friend Caroline Kennedy, when she became [United States ambassador to Japan], she’s kind of a force of nature, so she got out here and she said, “You need to come while I’m here and do this.” And I’d never been to Japan.

Also, I have a lot of great friends in the Navy. You join the Navy and see the world, you can join this band and see the world — and it’s a great thrill to let people see a show that normally wouldn’t be able to get to one.

We have a lot of fans here, and I didn’t realize that. I thought when we came to Okinawa there’d be a couple hundred people. We had 11,000 people. We opened it up not just to the Navy, we opened it up to the town, too. I think everybody’s appreciative of that.

On his military connections:

I come from a family of sailors. My dad was a flyer in WWII. The rest of them, my grandfather and all my uncles, were in the Navy. At one point I came close to becoming a naval aviator, but then the guitar came along. So I think I kind of maneuvered it with friends that I had, and I was lucky enough to meet some very cool people. In the ‘80s I wound up trading shows for [catapult] shots basically. So I’ve been off the boat in a [F-14 Tomcat] and in an A-4 [Skyhawk].

Two of my best friends and roommates in college were naval aviators. I always stay in touch with them; they live in San Diego now. I’m still a pilot. I fly a Falcon 900LX and a [Cessna] Caravan seaplane. Landing in the East River [New York] is really fun.

On seeing Japan:

This sparked my interest to come back. I have a little place in Hawaii, and I’ll be in Australia in March. I’d like to come snowboarding [in Japan] and I’d like to see the countryside. There were nice waves in Okinawa … I might go back there. It would be certainly worth coming back.

In the works:

I have a travel book — it started about two to three years ago when I went to China. I’m working on that, and hopefully I’ll try to finish that up this year. And then we have the play, the “Margaritaville” musical, which has been an ongoing thing we’ve been working on for six years. It’s actually opening in La Jolla [Calif.] in April. We’ll do it there and then take it on the road, and in about a year we’ll go to Broadway with it. But it’s fun because it’s little more diverse. I should go back and do an album soon — when it comes to me I’ll go. It’s been fun for me to do some other things.

Be sure to read the full article.

The Tampa Bay Rays played the Cuban national baseball team in Havana on Tuesday and Jimmy Buffett was in attendance.

Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, who performed at MLB’s reception on Monday night, also took in the sights from the field.

“This is history and it’s important,” said Buffett, who attended the game between the Orioles and Cuba in Havana in 1999. “This is a cultural shift more than anything. It could not come at a better time. This is all happening right now, and the only thing that was planned was the baseball game.”

Jimmy also appeared on Sportscenter:

Havana Daydreamin': @jimmybuffett is live on SportsCenter w/ @karlravechespn and Co. #MLBinCuba pic.twitter.com/TOYmHQO1jA

— bill hofheimer (@bhofheimer_espn) March 22, 2016

Jimmy Buffett talks with fans at US Cuba baseball game. @BBCNewsUS pic.twitter.com/GhNISUAcsJ

— Regan Morris (@reganmorris1) March 22, 2016

Junto al legendario Jimmy Buffett en Cuba

A photo posted by Tony Dandrades (@tdandrades) on Mar 22, 2016 at 9:12am PDT

President Obama isn’t the only VIP in Cuba right now. Jimmy Buffett is also in the country and told CNN’s Jim Acosta that he wants to play a concert there.

Also in Cuba for POTUS trip, the Jimmy Buffett who told me he wants to play a concert here pic.twitter.com/nW8S95kRA7

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) March 21, 2016

In an interview with Southern Living, Buffett talks about the Gulf Coast, writing “Margaritaville,” and what his mama taught him:

Was there a particular event that inspired the lyrics to “Margaritaville”?

I was with some friends in a Mexican restaurant on a hot day in Austin, Texas. We had a couple of margaritas and they really tasted good. The idea starting forming then. Afterwards I was heading back home to Key West. I wrote the song in about six minutes driving down the Overseas Highway. That was a good six minutes.

What’s the best thing your mama taught you?

Tolerance. She believed everyone should be treated equally.

Where’s the most unexpected place you’ve encountered Parrot Heads?

My promoter had me playing my first show in Tahiti. It was a hula dancer from Hawaii, an Elvis impersonator from New Zealand, and me. No one there knew who I was, and we were having trouble selling tickets. I was going around and putting up flyers on every American boat I could find. The day of the show, all of a sudden an ocean research vessel appears. It’s from Gulfport, Mississippi, and filled with 150 marine biology students from LSU, Southern Miss and Ole Miss. They sold out the show!

Read the rest of the interview here.

Jimmy Buffett was in Australia last week and played a couple small shows:

The first show took place at the Quiksilver Pro surfing competition at Snapper Rocks, where Buffett and band played an hour-and-a-half show in front of an estimated 1,000 people – believed to be one of the smallest shows the artist has played in decades. During the show he pulled surfing stars Stephanie Gilmore and Kelly Slater up on stage with him to help perform a few songs, watch them playing Margaritaville here.

Then, on Sunday evening, the Coolangatta Sands Hotel hosted Buffett and his band for a free show in what is surely the pub’s biggest ever Sunday session. Some rough footage from that show has emerged, and you can see it here.

“It was a big night, lots of interest, the phone was running off the hook for almost two days,” Ben Otter of the Coolangatta Sands Hotel told theMusic.com.au this afternoon.

Otter says around 400 crammed into the sold out room, with interest coming from throughout Southeast Queensland and Northern New South Wales. The venue didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for the onslaught, it all came together very much at the last minute.

“It was all very last minute, we knew about 36 hours before he played and we put it all together and he came,” Otter says. “We had it on good advice that he was coming and we met with his crew the day before, they’re a very efficient bunch of people.”

Read the full story here.