INSIGHT Magazine June 2017 | Page 14

selling shoes, shirts, and sandwiches or boat drinks and resort rooms, if it’s baring the Buffett name, it’s going to be geared toward being commercially successful. It’s been said that never in the history of music has one single song grown into something so commercially viable as Margaritaville. Not bad for a song that topped the charts at number six, but helped propel the writ- er/performer himself to becoming the third wealthiest lead singer of all time, right be- hind Sir Paul McCartney and Buffett’s friend, U2 frontman, Bono. As successful as he’s been, however, Jim- my’s still paid his dues and put in the work before the fame. In what he refers to as his “misspent and short days at Auburn Uni- versity” (he later graduated, in 1969, with a bachelor’s in history from The University of Southern Mississippi) he tells me he would travel the Alabama, Northwest Florida, and Mississippi coast and play music. “Not with much success” he admits. Something, how- ever, clicked along the way, as he built a fol- lowing of fans while also following his own ambitions. I mention that I have to wonder just what drives him to continue to imagine to fruition, and put new projects in mo- tion after all the success he’s already had. Is it just an innate desire to create? What's next? What does Jimmy Buffett do to one up everything Jimmy Buffett has already done? He chuckles, smiles, and answers, “I just keep doing more because the ideas and desires for trying new things have been there for a very long time. The problem was that some years ago, no one really wanted to hear about them or be a part of the ideas. So now that people want to partner in these businesses, we're doing them!” Out of the many songwriters and perform- 14 ers I’ve been blessed to interview over the years, Buffett is one of the very few ultra- successful artists who’ve been in this busi- ness for three or four decades (almost 45 years now in his case) and has seen a whirl- wind of changes in the recording industry. I ask him about some of these changes. "I’ve seen many changes and many of them, es- pecially the technology now available, have been for the better. Back when I started, the studios were controlled by just a few people who made all the decisions, and they weren’t set up to make the artists rich. Some of that hasn't changed much." He goes on to tell me that was a prime reason for founding his own record label, Mailboat Records. I tell Jimmy that my oldest son (Blake Estell, who happens to be a phenomenal self- taught guitar player… and just got a plug in the middle of a Jimmy Buffett interview!) recently bought a Buffett album, and how wonderful it is that his music has man- aged to somehow stand the test of time. He responds by saying, "Well, I'm so happy about the fact that young people like Blake will buy and listen to my music. I'm not sure how it happened. I never thought we'd end up being family entertainment, but now we are." Going on to say, “we’ve done a lot to get here, but our fans, even still, the old ones and the young ones, are the real rea- son Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefers are still relevant.” Before our time together has to come to a close, and Jimmy has to jump in that cock- pit and hit the friendly skies, I ask him two questions I’m always curious about, with most anyone who’s managed to accomplish so much and is still going forward. Look- ing in the proverbial rear view mirror of life June 2017 INSIGHT