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Brought to you by FXX and Hulu. An all new season of Futurama is back, blending heartfelt moments with razor sharp humor while accidentally saving the day. The Planet Express crew is back, defying gravity and common sense. From the creator of The Simpsons comes 10 new episodes where the romance is hotter, the threats are bigger and the action hits harder. Don't miss the all new season of Futurama. Watch it Mondays on FXX or streaming on Hulu. One hit song, Margaritaville, changed Jimmy Buffett's life. Released in 1977 on his seventh album, the song charted higher than any of Jimmy's previous singles. Margaritaville, despite its hungover origins, nailed not only what Jimmy Buffett was all about, but what Jimmy Buffett had to offer. A break, an escape from the grind. And it opened him up to a much larger audience. Throughout the late 70s and early 80s, Jimmy Shows began to take on something akin to Grateful Dead concerts, but without the darkness. Jimmy's fans weren't zonked out Deadheads, they were, as Jimmy's bassist at the time, the former Eagle, the great Timothy B. Schmidt, coined them, Parrotheads. Parrotheads are a very specific type of rock and roll fan. First of all, they're Jimmy Buffett fans. Duh. Second, they're shameless dorks. And I mean that in the best possible way. There's no shame in wearing whatever you want in public, even if that means a Hulu skirt and a gaudy Hawaiian shirt. And middle of October? That's kind of the point. Jimmy Buffett shows are all about escaping the confines that prevent you from wearing whatever the hell you want and having fun on a work night in the middle of October. There's nothing wrong with that. Despite the fact that every bit of fashion sense I have has led me to rebel against this tribe for as long as I can remember. But now, with age and less punk rock piss and vinegar coursing through my veins, I kind of admire it. It's that whole so not cool, it's cool type of thing. And in my mind, nothing is cooler than not caring what other people think. Which, in a weird way, is what your pediatrician or accountant or lawyer were doing back in the 90s and 2000s when they were going to Jimmy Buffett concerts dressed like a coconut in drag. And of course, the Parrothead's leader himself, Jimmy Buffett was also a shameless dork. Despite his cool 70s mustache and 3 inch inseam cut off jeans from back in the day, Jimmy was and always had been a shameless dork. On stage, at least, he was a ham. My sense is that's who he was offstage as well. And again, I mean that in the best way. Ask my wife who the biggest dork in the house is and she'll tell you it's me. And it's because I'm most comfortable at home, free to act and be however I want around my loved ones who accept me for who I am. I believe Jimmy Buffett acted this way too, except he did it on stage every night in front of 60,000 people. Which means Jimmy Buffett was totally authentic. And that tracks because it's the authentic creators and artists who develop the most devoted fans, just as Jimmy Buffett did with his Parrotheads. They took their cue from Jimmy not only in fashion, and they exaggerated that whole Key west casual thing to the nth degree, but also in attitude. They bought concert tickets and records and T shirts, and when the money Started flowing for real. In the mid-80s, Jimmy recalled those Nashville days and the lesson he learned about control. He invested his hard earned capital into himself first. Before even the success of Margaritaville, Jimmy realized he was getting hosed on merch sales by bootleggers. So he opened opened his own beach themed merchandise T shirt shop in Key west in the late 70s. In 1985, he took a big swing and expanded the T shirt shop into the Margaritaville store and cafe. Now he was serving food and drinks to fans and tourists. In 1989, Jimmy launched his own record label, Margaritaville Records as an imprint of mca, seizing not only creative control of his own music, but a bigger piece of the pie as well. This would last for 10 years, until in 1999, Jimmy started mailboat Records to release his music independently. Mailboat went on to release records by artists Jimmy Boz Skaggs, Sammy Hagar, Def Leppard, Walter Becker and more. In the year 2000, Jimmy opened a Margaritaville restaurant and casino in Las Vegas. In 2005, he launched Margaritav Tequila. He followed that with a hotel in Pensacola, Florida in 2011 and a resort in Orlando in 2018. And along the way, he launched everything from wildly successful land shark lager to beach chairs, flip flops, frozen foods and CBD gummies. In 1996, this billion dollar empire in the making was doing more than keeping this son of a son of a sailor afloat. That January, Jimmy was in the air, piloting his new plane, a 1954 Grumman HU16 Albatross seaplane. His passengers were none other than U2's Bono, Bono's wife and their two young children, aged six and three. Jimmy was hell bent on landing in this particular area of Jamaica because he knew of a little place with the perfect jerk chicken. Jerk chicken that would blow Bono's mind. Jimmy brought the plane down with ease. The only problem was Jimmy didn't have permission to land. As Bono and his wife and children began to make their exit, that's when it happened. Bullets started flying. Bono, his kids, his wife, they dove back into the plane. One bullet cracked the plane's windshield. Six others peppered the rest of the the plane. Jamaican authorities descended upon the plane looking for answers. Who are these drug traffickers and what made them think they could just land their plane unannounced at their small airport? There were no drug traffickers, of course. Jimmy Buffett had sworn off that career path years ago. There was only confusion. Bono was pissed. He, his wife, his children. Once things were cleared up with authorities, they split from Miami. Leaving Jimmy Buffett and his jerk chicken behind. How it all got to this point was anyone's guess. A pissed off pop star, Violent Jamaican authorities firing bullets at his plane. It wasn't Jimmy's first escape from death's clutches. He had survived a plane crash in Nantucket a couple years prior. But where was all this going? And what was the point? More money for more toys, more business endeavors, more adventure? Where's the fun and escape if it ends up killing you? Jimmy Buffett needed his own change in latitude and attitude. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Jimmy Buffett steadily built a commercial empire that was on the verge of eclipsing his success as a musician. Not that he wasn't a success musically, he most certainly was. He sold records, he packed stadiums with fans, but he wasn't atop the zeitgeist. And he never really was. Sure, Margaritaville was a smash, but by the early 2000s, that was decades in the rear view. And yes, Jimmy had his name and face on all manner of merchandise, but that was all fan service. Weird as it seems, even with all the success, Jimmy Buffett in 2003 was kind of a niche product, you know, it wasn't a niche product. In 2003, country music, the genre was doing hundreds of millions in concert tickets and record sales and resurging with youth in American culture beyond the Bible Belt. Country radio stations were enjoying more success than they ever had in non traditional markets. Alan Jackson was one of country's biggest stars. So when he asked the question in his smash single, it's five o' Clock Somewhere of what would Jimmy Buffett do? Do? Country music fans everywhere wanted to know the answer. That drink they were planning on right after work depended on it. Goddammit. And Jimmy Buffett didn't disappoint. He answered Alan Jackson in a partial duet on the hit single, singing with his trademark charm and island ease. And he was instantly introduced to an entire new generation of fans. The song was a smash hit. It spent eight weeks, weeks at number one on the Billboard country charts, and Jimmy's name and voice were suddenly within earshot of anyone in a parking lot before a sporting event, or at a beach, or in a bar on a Friday afternoon, getting out of work and in rush hour traffic with the radio on, trying to escape the confines of their adult lives. And the song helped Jimmy escape once again. It helped him level up from being the flip flop adventurer with a devoted but niche fan base to national treasure status. A sort of half stoned, half loaded poet laureate country star. For Partiers everywhere. The guy from that song? No, not that one. The other one. That one. No, the other one. Jimmy was no longer the Margaritaville guy. He was Jimmy Buffett. And with this new level of success, his businesses soared. So much so that he became friends with another Buffett, the billionaire investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett. I'm not sure what that means or why. I think it's important to tell you that maybe because it underscores the fact that Jimmy Buffett was so much more than one thing. And that's a hard legacy to leave. There's an old interview with Jimmy's friend and brother in law, the writer Tom. He's not talking about Jimmy, but he's being interviewed about Key West. And he quotes French poet Stephane Mallarme in part by paraphrasing at a point, an artist dies. Whatever his life was, whatever his work was, becomes one thing. That's heavy because it means that being an artist is a curse of sorts. I don't know why one artist, and I count myself among them, who was just one thing. Jimmy Buffett's life and his work were about escaping the restrictions of being one thing. First it was about escaping the limitations of being a Nashville artist, then a trafficker, or just another happy, go lucky saloon singer in Key west, or just a niche artist. Jimmy Buffett fought his way out of those traffic with his music, and he inspired millions in the process. But Jimmy Buffett was, of course, more than just one thing. He was a musician, a fisherman, a sailor, a joker, God's own drunk, a bandleader, a businessman, a father, husband, brother, and an entertainer who gave millions of fans an off ramp from their stressful lives, even if it was just for one, one night in October and not on the shores of Key west as he experienced it. He played music until the end, even staging his last performance on an island, sort of Rhode Island. And then spending his last moments in 2023 before the cancer took him at age 76, surrounded by family, smiling and laughing, and then leaving it all on the beach and sailing away. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. All right, thanks for checking out this episode of Disgraceland. Apple podcast listeners, make sure you have auto downloads turned on. Listen. Question of the week. Which artists did you at one point in time despise and now find yourself kind of digging a lot? Jimmy Buffett is that artist for me. All right, Let me know. 617-906-6638. Voicemail and text to let me know which artists you didn't like before. But now kind of can't get enough of them. 617-906-6638 voicemail in text. You might hear your answer on the afterparty bonus episode coming up right after this. Hit me up on the socials. Disgracelandpod disgracelandpodmail.com to email me. All right, I gotta go. Here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening as a Disgrace Land All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. 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