Jimmy Buffett RIP

[dpep]

Introduced to him through that 70s Chicago scene of John Prine, Steve Goodman, Fred and Eddie Holstein, etc. apparently he was friends with my old captain, Alan Aunapu, who passed away a few years ago.

Bert, I don't know if you are aware of Buffet's connection to another musician you have mentioned here, Gamble Rogers. Gamble died in a drowning accident back in the mid 90's a little before the release of Buffet's Fruitcakes album which he then dedicated to Gamble. That dedication is linked below from the Rogers site. It tells us much about who Buffet was as well as the man he was honoring.

http://www.gamblerogers.com/life/tributes.asp?doc=buffett

[Bert Patterson]

Never read that, Don. Very cool. I’ll admit that I first knew the Canadian Rogers brothers, then learned about Gamble later.

[Suzukian]

Now that I know of his love for Canada, my respect has tarnished a bit...................nah, only kidding!! Big man, big heart, Sucks to hear he was suffering for so long, but performed for as long as he could.

An obituary posted to that same website (TMZ) said Buffett had been fighting Merkel Cell Skin Cancer for four years, and had been continuing to perform during treatment. It progressed into lymphoma, sources told TMZ, and Buffett had reportedly been receiving hospice care.

[dpep]

What hasn't been mentioned yet is Buffett's environmental advocacy and in particular the Save the Manatee Club which he help found and co-chaired right up until his death.

Here is a pretty detailed article on how that came about.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/09/07/to-see-jimmy-buffetts-best-legacy-look-at-floridas-manatees/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=a181eebb-2dbe-4c5a-a674-c029ab9abe7e

Some excerpts:

Bob Graham had been governor for two years. A Harvard Law grad, he’s the son of a former state senator who developed the community of Miami Lakes.

........ Graham’s daughter Suzanne asked her dad to take her to the Jimmy Buffett concert. Graham, never the hippest guy in the room, asked, “Who’s Jimmy Buffett?”

Graham found himself enjoying the concert, and then took his daughter backstage to meet the star. (One of the perks of being the chief executive is that you get a backstage pass.) That’s how he wound up chatting with Buffett.

...........................

“I volunteered my services to be involved at that point in an awareness campaign of the plight of the manatee in Florida,” Buffett testified in a lawsuit some years afterward. “And I made the governor aware of my intentions and offering of my services.”

Buffett spelled out that he wanted to do more than be a big-name cause endorser.

“I don’t want to just be a token celebrity,” he said. “I want to be involved.”

Graham suggested forming some sort of manatee awareness committee. And he said later, “it took about three milliseconds to decide he should be the chairman of this new effort.”

Buffett didn’t think Graham was taking him seriously. But after the concert, one of Graham’s aides, a man named Ron Book, arranged a meeting with Buffett. He was under orders from Graham: Hash out with Buffett how he’d like to organize this manatee campaign.

“A lot of people have forgotten how a lot of the progress we’ve made on manatee protection was due to him,” Book, now a lobbyist and the father of Sen. Lauren Book, told me this week. “I give Jimmy all the credit.”

................................

Buffett agreed to cut a series of public service announcements asking boaters to watch out for manatees, play a benefit concert, maybe sell T-shirts with those lines about a manatee with scars.

Then Buffett suggested something more substantive. He proposed they post manatee warning signs at boat ramps, dive shops, and marinas (and later donated $35,000 to start the postings).

“He was never just a spokesman,” Rose told me this week.

.....................................

For more than six years, waterfront developers and boating interests had worked together to convince the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission that manatees were doing great. Now, in 2007, they were about to get their wish.

Despite the fact that the 2006 had proven to be the deadliest year ever for manatees, they said manatees no longer needed the protection provided by being classified as “endangered.” It was time to take them off the endangered list and repeal some of the protections that hurt their business.

Buffett was slated to play a concert in Tampa right before the wildlife commission vote. He invited then-Gov. Charlie Crist to introduce him to the 20,000 rowdy concertgoers.

The contrast was dramatic: Buffett in T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, shaking hands with Crist in a white shirt, dark pants, and shoes as shiny as the chrome on a new car. But Crist praised Buffett for being just like him.

“He has Florida in his heart and he loves her like I do,” Crist told the cheering crowd.

What the crowd didn’t see was that for 10 minutes backstage, Buffett had talked to Crist about what was wrong with the wildlife commission move.

After talking to Buffett, Crist called up the wildlife commissioners and told them to back off because “it would put this creature in jeopardy.” They didn’t vote it down, just postponed a decision indefinitely, much to the chagrin of the developer and boater lobbyists.

......................

[Suzukian]

I wished he did a cover on this:

[GS1150Pilot]

What hasn't been mentioned yet is Buffett's environmental advocacy and in particular the Save the Manatee Club which he help found and co-chaired right up until his death.

Here is a pretty detailed article on how that came about.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2023/09/07/to-see-jimmy-buffetts-best-legacy-look-at-floridas-manatees/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=a181eebb-2dbe-4c5a-a674-c029ab9abe7e

Some excerpts:

Bob Graham had been governor for two years. A Harvard Law grad, he’s the son of a former state senator who developed the community of Miami Lakes.

........ Graham’s daughter Suzanne asked her dad to take her to the Jimmy Buffett concert. Graham, never the hippest guy in the room, asked, “Who’s Jimmy Buffett?”

Graham found himself enjoying the concert, and then took his daughter backstage to meet the star. (One of the perks of being the chief executive is that you get a backstage pass.) That’s how he wound up chatting with Buffett.

...........................

“I volunteered my services to be involved at that point in an awareness campaign of the plight of the manatee in Florida,” Buffett testified in a lawsuit some years afterward. “And I made the governor aware of my intentions and offering of my services.”

Buffett spelled out that he wanted to do more than be a big-name cause endorser.

“I don’t want to just be a token celebrity,” he said. “I want to be involved.”

Graham suggested forming some sort of manatee awareness committee. And he said later, “it took about three milliseconds to decide he should be the chairman of this new effort.”

Buffett didn’t think Graham was taking him seriously. But after the concert, one of Graham’s aides, a man named Ron Book, arranged a meeting with Buffett. He was under orders from Graham: Hash out with Buffett how he’d like to organize this manatee campaign.

“A lot of people have forgotten how a lot of the progress we’ve made on manatee protection was due to him,” Book, now a lobbyist and the father of Sen. Lauren Book, told me this week. “I give Jimmy all the credit.”

................................

Buffett agreed to cut a series of public service announcements asking boaters to watch out for manatees, play a benefit concert, maybe sell T-shirts with those lines about a manatee with scars.

Then Buffett suggested something more substantive. He proposed they post manatee warning signs at boat ramps, dive shops, and marinas (and later donated $35,000 to start the postings).

“He was never just a spokesman,” Rose told me this week.

.....................................

For more than six years, waterfront developers and boating interests had worked together to convince the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission that manatees were doing great. Now, in 2007, they were about to get their wish.

Despite the fact that the 2006 had proven to be the deadliest year ever for manatees, they said manatees no longer needed the protection provided by being classified as “endangered.” It was time to take them off the endangered list and repeal some of the protections that hurt their business.

Buffett was slated to play a concert in Tampa right before the wildlife commission vote. He invited then-Gov. Charlie Crist to introduce him to the 20,000 rowdy concertgoers.

The contrast was dramatic: Buffett in T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, shaking hands with Crist in a white shirt, dark pants, and shoes as shiny as the chrome on a new car. But Crist praised Buffett for being just like him.

“He has Florida in his heart and he loves her like I do,” Crist told the cheering crowd.

What the crowd didn’t see was that for 10 minutes backstage, Buffett had talked to Crist about what was wrong with the wildlife commission move.

After talking to Buffett, Crist called up the wildlife commissioners and told them to back off because “it would put this creature in jeopardy.” They didn’t vote it down, just postponed a decision indefinitely, much to the chagrin of the developer and boater lobbyists.

......................

Whenever people say that celebrities shouldn't put their weight behind social and political efforts in which they believe, it is stories like this that show how much good they can do. John Denver was another (great) musician who put his beliefs into action for environmental causes. People like these should be remembered for far more than the music.

[trent]

Jimmy Buffett Charts His First No. 1 Song Two Weeks After His Death