Jimmy Buffett Biography

Jimmy Buffett (born James William Buffett on December 25, 1946 in Pascagoula, Mississippi) is a singer, songwriter, and recently a film producer best known for his "island escapism" lifestyle and music including hits such as "Margaritaville" (No. 234 on the list of 'Songs of the Century'), and "Come Monday." He has a devoted base of fans known as "Parrotheads". His band is known as the Coral Reefer Band.

Aside from his career in music, Buffett is also a best selling writer and the owner of several restaurant chains named after some of his best known songs, Cheeseburger in Paradise and Margaritaville.

He and his wife, Jane, have two daughters and a son.

The son of James Delaney "J.D." Buffett Jr. and Mary Loraine "Peets" Buffett, Buffett grew up along the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. He attended high school at McGill Institute for Boys (now McGill-Toolen Catholic High School) in Mobile, Alabama. He began playing guitar during his college years at Auburn University and University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he received a bachelor's degree in history in 1969. Although a pledge of Sigma Pi (??) at Auburn, he was initiated into the fraternity Kappa Sigma (??) at the University of Southern Mississippi. He later married his first wife, Margie Washichek, at Spring Hill College in Mobile. After graduating from college, Buffett worked as a correspondent for Billboard magazine in Nashville.

Buffett began his musical career in Nashville during the late 1960s as a country artist and recorded his first album, the folk rock Down to Earth, in 1970. During this time Buffett could be frequently found busking for tourists in New Orleans. Country music singer Jerry Jeff Walker took him to Key West on a busking expedition. Buffett then moved to Key West and began establishing the easy-going beach bum persona for which he is known.

Buffett's third album was the 1973 A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. Havana Daydreamin' appeared in 1976, followed by 1977's Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, which featured the breakthrough hit song "Margaritaville".

During the 1980s, Buffett made far more money off his tours than albums and became known as a popular concert draw. He released a series of albums during the following twenty years, primarily to his devoted audience, and also branched into writing and merchandising. In 1985, Buffett opened the first of the "Margaritaville" restaurants in Key West, bringing new visibility and life to the Margaritaville name.

Two of the more unusual albums were Christmas Island, a collection of holiday songs, and Parakeets, a collection of Buffett songs sung by children and containing "cleaned-up" lyrics (like "a cold root beer" instead of "a cold draft beer").

In 1997, Buffett collaborated with novelist Herman Wouk to create a short-lived musical based on Wouk's novel, Don't Stop the Carnival. Broadway showed little interest for the play, so it was instead run for six weeks in Miami. He released the soundtrack for the musical in 1998.

In 2003, he partnered in a partial duet with Alan Jackson for the country hit "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere," a number one hit on the country charts.

Buffett has written 3 No. 1 best sellers. Tales from Margaritaville and Where Is Joe Merchant? both spent over seven months on the New York Times Best Seller fiction list. His book A Pirate Looks At Fifty went straight to No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller non-fiction list, making him one of seven authors in that list's history to have reached No. 1 on both the fiction and non-fiction lists. The other six authors who have accomplished this are Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, William Styron, Irving Wallace, Dr. Seuss and Mitch Albom. He also co-wrote two children's books, Jolly Mon and Trouble Dolls, with his eldest daughter, Savannah Jane Buffett.

His latest book, A Salty Piece of Land, was released on November 30, 2004, and included a CD single of the same title. The book was a New York times best seller soon after its release.

On October 6, 2006, it was reported that Buffett had been detained by French custom officials in Saint Tropez for allegedly carrying over 100 pills of Ecstasy.[3][4][5] Buffett’s luggage was searched after his Falcon 900 private jet landed at Toulon-Hyères International Airport. He paid a fine of €300 and was released. A spokesperson for Buffett stated the pills in question were prescription drugs, but declined to name the drug or the health problem he was being treated for. Buffett released a statement that the "Ecstasy" was in fact, a vitamin B supplement known as Foltex [6]