Billboard has an interview with Jimmy Buffett that discusses the new album “Buffet Hotel”, next year’s tour, and two new books that he’s working on.
“Buffet Hotel”
Jimmy Buffett says he felt a greater level of engagement on his new album, “Buffet Hotel,” than he has on many of his other recent efforts.
“With a band this good and with people this good around you, you kind of get in a routine,” Buffett tells Billboard.com, acknowledging that previous “listening and fixing” was done primarily by Coral Reefer Band collaborators Mike Utley and Mac McAnally. But on “Buffet Hotel,” Buffett says that “we got back to doing things like we did in the old days. Instead of doing it in the afternoon, I said, ‘Let’s go back like we did in the old days and do those red wine and reefer vocals…at midnight.’ I’d get a little buzz on red wine and get my singing chops, get in that mood, and then I’d send ’em over the Internet to Utley and Mac and say, ‘Alright, I know they were midnight. You got red wine vocals there. You can throw ’em away or tell me what you think,’ and they’d go, ‘Do more of those!’ ”
Buffett and company previewed several of the songs during his 2009 concerts, notably “Summerzcool” and “Surfing in a Hurricane,” the first surf rock song he’s ever written.
“Mac told me on the last night of the tour we’d done seven of the new songs off the album over the summer, and I’d never done that before,” Buffett recalls. “Usually you’re lucky to get one or two songs from a new album into the show, so it was a complete reversal.”
2010 Tour
Buffett is planning a full-scale “Buffet Hotel” tour for 2010 and intends to start the year in Australia and the Pacific Rim. He’s toying with the idea of playing entire albums next year and hopes to play 1983’s “One Particular Harbor” in Tahiti. He’s also putting into motion into a special performance at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival with “Buffet Hotel” guests Sonny Landreth and Toumani Diabate.
Film and Books
And while he says that he’s “out of the movie business” at the moment, Buffett is working on a documentary about his trip to Mali with director Margaret Brown.
Buffett also has two books in the works, a collection of short stories set in the Pacific and “a rock ‘n’ roll novel” called “Mudbath” that is “based on a real-life adventure, but hopefully you won’t recognize any of the characters.”
Read the full article here.
February 20th, 2010
Though the Under The Big Top Tour has been announced for this spring and summer, Summerzcool still hasn’t ended. Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band will perform tonight at Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida. It’s the first of four February stops for Jimmy that will mark the end of the Summerzcool Tour that began last April.
