Parrot Heads tailgate before a Jiffy Lube Live Jimmy Buffett Concert in 2012.By Jessica Roth of Touchstone Books
Beach music legend Jimmy Buffett will be playing Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, May 20, which means there’s no better time for local fans to pick up a copy of Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way released May 9.
Sure to be a hit among Parrot Heads, the biography by music critic Ryan White, also the author of "Springsteen: Album by Album," has been called "incisive."
Touchstone describes the book as the definitive, comprehensive account of Jimmy Buffett's road to success, music, and the massive $1.5 billion-per-year Margaritaville lifestyle brand it spawned.
Deeply researched, the biography draws upon interviews from friends, musicians, Coral Reefer Band members and business partners who were along for the raucous ride. The book traces Buffett’s journey from strumming songs for free beer to emerging as the iconic 'Pop of Trop Rock.' White also offers a nuanced appraisal and keen appreciation of the lyrics and songs that inspired Parrot Head nation.
Garden & Gun raves, “A buoyant new Jimmy Buffett biography sings. . . . The portrait that emerges is affectionate and admiring but devoid of Parrot Head fawning. . . . White’s prose bears a music of its own.”
Publishers Weekly says, “ carefully takes readers behind the scenes of every Buffett album, revealing an artist who was always in control, despite his slapdash public persona aptly captures an ingenious musician.”
Packed with pictures and anecdotes, it tells of Buffett's musical meanderings from Mobile, Pascagoula, Nashville and New Orleans to Key West, the Bahamas and beyond. White brings readers onto the stages, inside the studios and aboard the boats where the foundation of Buffett's reputation was laid.
Jimmy Buffett wasn't always the pied piper of beaches, bars, and laid-back living. Born on the Gulf Coast to the son of a sea captain, he scuffed around New Orleans and Biloxi in the late '60s, flunked out of Auburn and Music Row (not to mention a marriage) by 1971 before finding unexpected refuge among the artists, shrimpers, drug-runners and other colorful characters in Key West.
Deemed too rock 'n' roll for Nashville and too country for New York or Los Angeles, Buffett found the perfect mix of climate, compatriots, and cold beverages off the last American exit south. There, he honed his unique voice and style—and ultimately brought to life the songs that would launch Parrot Head nation and influence new generations of fellow musicians, including stars like Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith, and Zac Brown Band.
This article has been slightly altered from the original press release sent by Touchstone Books.
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