On Saturday Jimmy Buffett announced a free show in Gulf Shores, Alabama:

To demonstrate support for the people, businesses and culture of the Gulf Coast, CMT will telecast a free musical celebration live from the beach at Gulf Shores, Ala. CMT Presents Jimmy Buffett & Friends Live from the Gulf Coast will air on CMT on Thursday, July 1, from 8-9:30 p.m. ET/PT. Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band will be joined in the concert by his friends Sonny Landreth, Zac Brown Band, Kenny Chesney, Jesse Winchester and Allen Toussaint. A special souvenir tee shirt will also be designed for the concert and sold onlne and at the show. More info coming soon!

We’ll post more info as we get it.

Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band are back at the Comcast Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts tonight for the second of two shows.

Tune into Radio Margaritaville on the web or on Sirius XM at 7:00 pm EDT for the preshow festivities. Then at 8 pm Ilo Ferreira will open for Buffett with a short set, then the man himself takes the stage.

Thursday’s soundcheck and show was not show on Ustream.tv, but you might check again this afternoon in case they do live stream this one.

The Boston Globe has an article up on Thursday night’s show, plus some pictures from the venue. Check it out here.

(photo: Rose Lincoln for the Boston Globe)

Jimmy Buffett’s latest Margaritaville Cafe, located in Niagara Falls, Ontario, opens its doors today at 11:00 am!

The Fallsview Boulevard location features a full stage, and Leanne Leach, sales and marketing manager for the restaurant, said there will be bands playing every night during the summer. In addition to the live entertainment, there will be stilt walkers making their way through the restaurant to help create a fun island-escapist atmosphere.

Leach said there’s one special guest who is known to pop into the restaurant franchise locations at will.

“With Margaritaville, you never know when Jimmy’s going to stop by,” she said, speaking of the music-man himself. “He’s been known to just pop into the restaurants if he’s in the area and there’s never a lot of notice. Sometimes, he’ll play intimate shows, other times he just stops by to say hi.”

Leach said if the restaurants know in advance that Buffett is coming, they try to sneak the information out to the public, but most of the time he just shows up on a whim.

“It’s a real treat for the locals though,” she said with a laugh.

The family-friendly restaurant is situated right on the corner of Fallsview Boulevard and Murray Street, just steps away from the falls. Margaritaville is 14,000 square feet in size with two indoor levels and four outdoor patios.

Visit the official site here. If you stop in, drop a comment and let us know what you think of the place.

We reported a couple weeks ago that Jimmy Buffett was helping a Vero Beach boat builder in the oil relief effort, and now the first of four Shallow Water Attention Terminal (S.W.A.T.) boats is on its way to the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory:

The first of four specially designed Shallow Water Attention Terminal (S.W.A.T.) boats built and designed by Florida-based Dragonfly Boatworks, and funded by Margaritaville Holdings and Landshark Lager heads to the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Southern Mississippi this week to begin a massive rescue effort.

Prompted by images of an ever-widening oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which threatens Mississippi, Alabama and Florida’s coast, Vero Beach boat-builder, Mark Castlow, Jimbo Meador and Meador’s longtime friend, musician Jimmy Buffett, “had to do something.” All three men have long histories in, on, and around water earning their livings and loving the lifestyle. All three are concerned with short and long-term effects the spill will have on the Gulf and Atlantic Ocean, on visible marine life and the less-visible eggs and microorganisms that support the system.

“Instead of pointing fingers, we wanted to lend a hand,” Meador said. That led to the design of the S.W.A.T. boat. Using multiple resources, Buffett, Castlow and Meador designed the “life” boat for oil-injured wildlife. Unique features set the rescue boat apart: shallow draft with a bow-mounted trolling motor to avoid unnecessary noise, a worktable mounted mid-deck coated with a sanitary gel and a coarse surface to help animals grip without slippage, solar fans, a misting system to cool researchers and wildlife, plus a folding, collapsible canopy shading the entire boat. The Evinrude Company, showed it’s concern about the cleanup effort in the Gulf by promptly donating four low-maintenance 40-HP ETE outboards, which exceed all Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations. SWAT boats will also be equipped with a camera system so that researchers and the public can view the activities on the Internet.

View more photos of the boats at Margaritaville.com

After a month-long hiatus, Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band hit the road again tonight for the first of two shows at the Comcast Center (Great Woods) in Mansfield, Massachusetts.

Listen to the show live on Radio Margaritaville on the web or on Sirius/XM. The pre-show begins at 7 pm ET and the show will get rolling shortly after 8 pm ET. Also be sure to check Ustream.tv for live video streaming of the soundcheck around 3 pm and during the show too!

Reminder: the parking lot opens at 3:00 pm today.

Buffett will play Mansfield again on Saturday (parking lot opens at noon), then head to Detroit next Tuesday and East Troy, WI on Saturday. View the full tour schedule.