COCONUT TELEGRAPH COCONUT TELEGRAPH www.margaritaville.com www.margaritaville.com VOLUME 20 NO.4 FALL 2004 VOLUME 20 NO.4 FALL 2004 Photo: Kevin Mazur/Wireimage.com
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'm told that the hole is in the roof of Texas Stadium so "god can watch his favoritefootball team play". Seems the almighty had a little more in mind one steamySaturday in May when the legendary hole in the legendary stadium allowed theomnipotent one to catch a legendary performance by, if you'll pardon the irrever-ant metaphor, the holy trinity of Texas music; Country, Cowboy and Caribbean. Orperhaps it was the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.
Reigning CMA Entertainer and Male Vocalist, Alan Jackson is currently nominated foreight ACM Awards including Single, Song, Video and Vocal Collaboration of the Yearfor the eight-week #1 hit, "It's Five O'clock Somewhere" with Jimmy Buffett. Propelledby the success of "It’s Five O'clockSomewhere" and the chart-topping,"Remember When" (Jackson's 31#1 single), his Greatest Hits VolumeII CD was recently certified tripleplatinum. Jackson's 2004 tour isone of country's hottest tickets onthe road with capacity crowd con-certs across the country.
Texas treasure, George Strait holdsthe career record for CMA nomina-tions with seventy-one and therecord for the most number one singles by a single artist in any genre. Strait hasreleased 31 albums, all of which have hit gold or platinum status, selling over 62 mil-lion copies total. Strait and Jackson won the 2000 CMA Award for Vocal Event of theYear for “Murder on Music Row” and toured together during the 2001 George StraitCountry Music Festival.
I'll assume Coconut Telegraph readers are familar with Jimmy Buffett; singer / song-writer, best selling author, raconteur, and holder of this weeks (June 26, '04) #1 spoton the Billboard Charts
Billed as a triple-header; the three fishing buddies performed nearly 60 songs over thethree sets to a thundering crowd of 50,000 leis and Levi wearin' red headed parrotnecks. Alan Jackson, looking tropical in an Hawaiian shirt, opened the marathon musicfestival at, appropriately enough, five o'clock, thanking the crowd for, "letting us comeout here to play some country music and...whatever that is that Jimmy Buffett does."
The revolving door policy was in effect backstage. George Strait joined Alan Jacksonon "Designated Drinker" and Jimmy appeared sporting an oversized foam cowboy hatduring "Five O'Clock Somewhere." During Jackson's "Where I Come From," the DallasCowboy Cheerleaders stormed the stage and, I can't seem to read my notes after that.
George Strait, along with the Ace In The Hole Band, opened the second set in the tril-ogy noting that, "there's a fine line between Parrot Heads and Red Necks." He wassoon joined by Alan Jackson on "Murder on Music Row" and after telling the crowdhow he and Alan ran into Jimmy boating in the Bahamas, went into his signature song,"All My Exes Live in Texas." Jimmy could not resist joining him on stage. “We’ve had
the pleasure of working with eachother before and not only do weenjoy each other’s music but wehave a lot in common."
As the celestial stars shown throughthe hole in Texas Stadium, the earth-bound star took center stage.Country fans were enthralled, notonly by the performance of Jimmyand the Coral Reefers, but by theenergy level in the stadium as well.Stiltwalkers, beach balls and a float-
ing shark as big as, well as big as Texas fed the frenzy. The normally subdued AlanJackson joined Jimmy on stage sporting a "Got Rum" T'shirt, microphone in one hand,beverage in the other to sing a song off the new CD, "Boats To Build."
George Strait joined Jimmy on another License to Chill track, "Sea of Heartbreak," andAlan Jackson joined the duo on the Hank Williams classic, "Hey Good Lookin'" DuringJimmy's encore performance of Margaritaville, both country crooners surprised thecrowd by re-appearing and giving what many would call the most rousing rendition ofthe Parrot Head national anthem to date.
And god saw that it was good...now, where the hell are those cheerleaders?
There,s a Fine Line
Between Parrotheads and Rednecks
There,s a Fine Line
Between Parrotheads and Rednecks
II
NASHVILLEMargaritaville's own Jimmy Buffettenjoys the biggest chart week andfirst #1 record of his 25+ yearcareer with the release of his latestalbum, the Country /CaribbeanLicense To Chill.
CMTNow, Buffett's Nashville CD Licenseto Chill on RCA Nashville has soldsome 238,000 copies in its firstweek of release, according toNeilsen SoundScan. That becomeshis first No. 1 album ever and itplaces the Chief Parrothead atopboth the Billboard 200 and TopCountry Albums charts.
BILLBOARDIt only took 30 years, but JimmyBuffett can finally say he hasreached No. 1 on the U.S. popalbums chart.
LOS ANGLES TIMES (REUTERS)Far from wasting away inMargaritaville, Jimmy Buffett shotto the pinnacle of the U.S. popcharts on Wednesday as his latestrelease, "License to Chill," becamethe first No. 1 album of his career.
ROLLING STONEJimmy Buffett's gone country andit's paid off. The beach bum bal-ladeer sold 239,000 copies of hisnew album, License to Chill, accord-ing to Nielsen SoundScan, to debutNumber One.
TIMEFor the first time in his 34-yearcareer, Margaritaville singer JimmyBuffett last week scored the topspot on the Billboard chart, with hisnew country-influenced albumLicense to Chill.
MIAMI HERALDNothing complicated about enjoyingthis disc. How about a Volume II?
do the honorable thing now and blame MacMcAnally for this since he was the one whomade me aware several years ago of theinterest in my lifestyle by several up andcoming country acts. I considered it an honorthen as now, but I also started seriously lis-tening to country stations and thought thatonce again, I might fire a shot across the bowof country radio. Well, thanks to AlanJackson, we seemed to have missed the bowand dropped a 500lb gorilla on the play listswith Five O’clock Somewhere.
The Studio Key West was always the natural choice fordoing this project. I have spent enough timein studios in bad climates trying to makemagic. Shrimpboat Sound was an attempt toput a unique but very functional studio into aplace with atmosphere. You can’t get muchmore atmosphere than sitting on the porch atShrimpboat and watching the world go by.Shrimpboat is housed in an old shrimp stor-age cooler where the boats would unload anddeposit their catch (thus the name). It wasput together by Ross Ritto who was mysoundman on the road for over twenty yearsand now owns Sound Image, one of the topsound companies in the country. Over theyears, we have recorded nearly a dozenalbums at Shrimpboat and more recently thestudio has been used by an eclectic group ofartists from Billy Corgan to Toby Keith wholike the sound that we have come up with.
The Band The musicians on this project are a collectionof my longtime friends and touring band, TheCoral Reefer Band, and friends who I haveworked with over the years. Circumstancespresented a unique opportunity for this com-bination of folks when Pete Mayer, my greatlead guitarist, booked a Christmas Tour with-out knowing I was going into the studio. Sowhile Pete is out there with brother Jim fillingParrotheads with Christmas cheer, the time-line to get this album done and out won’tbudge. So I simply invited some friends I hadplayed with before to join us. Here is the bandfor Conky Tonk.
Mike UtleyMusical director, longtime friend and produc-er. He has been on every record I have evermade.
Mac McAnallyHis Nashville heroics speak for themselves.He will be co-producing along with Mr. Utley.He is usually a very nice guy, doesn’t drink,rarely curses but will steal a chocolate cakeout of the backseat of your car in a minute.He also really doesn’t like costumes or banduniforms so I don’t think you will see him outat some of the more interesting late nightestablishments that thrive in the quiet fishingvillage of Key West.
Ralph MacDonaldPercussion. Ralph and I have been hangingout for twenty years. Besides being the leg-endary sound of percussion and a Grammy-winning writer and producer, he is a founding
23November03 Key West To: “Conky Tonk” musicians and singers*From: Jimmy (Your Friendly Camp Director) Subject: Welcome to Recording Camp
Hello Recording Campers,
A Little History Well before we all sit down and stuff ourselvesover the next week, I wanted to get this noteand these songs out to all of you who will bejoining us for the recording of the Conky Tonkalbum in Key West in December. I know that itis a long way to come and the place is full ofpalm trees, rum drinks and good restaurants,and your shorts and a t-shirt are mandatorydress code, but I hope you will all be able toadjust to the harsh surroundings of our studio.But first a little word about this project as awhole. If you haven’t already guessed by thetitle, this album will have a solid barefootedbase in what we have always done, but with atoe or two leaning in the direction of today’scountry market. Let’s face it. This is not a bigstretch for me. I started my recording career inNashville in 1970 with Buzz Cason and havehad several attempted failures at a countrycareer since then while I continued to gatherthe present flock of Parrotheads (Thank Godfor them) while touring around the world. I will
LicensetoChill
Conception
member of Club Trini along with RobertGreenidge, our virtuoso steel drum player,and is the voice of “wisdom from the backseat”.
Doyle GrishamSteel guitar. Doyle puts the “tonk” in ConkyTonk. I first played with Doyle back in 1972when we recorded “A White Sport Coat and aPink Crustacean” at Glaser Studios inNashville. In the Parrothead world, Doyle isbest known for his solos on Come Mondayand Get Drunk. Doyle has been known tohang out at Club Trini as well.
Roger GuthDrums. Roger came aboard through the sug-gestion of Elliot Sheiner nearly fifteen yearsago and is a great drummer-when he is notfishing. That might present a problem in KeyWest, but as long as we feed him, he will usu-ally stick around.
Glenn WorfBass. Glenn is one of our invited guests. Hedidn’t sound bad on “I Love This Bar”. We arehappy to have him with us. I have been a bigfan of his work and the fact that he is fromAlabama too, and I look forward to playingwith him.
Sonny LandrethGuitar. Sonny is one of my (and a hell of a lotof other people’s) favorite slide guitar play-ers. I go to every Sonny Landreth show I amnear. I am not much of an audience person,but I go see Sonny just to marvel at what hedoes with a guitar. I thought he would be per-fect for Conky Tonk as we will be leaning a lit-tle to the swamp on this one.
Will KimbroughGuitar. I met Will when he was a young inno-cent guitar player for Todd Snyder, whenTodd was on our label and toured with us. I
don’t know about the young and innocentthing anymore, but I know that he wrote analbum full of songs that had me hummingalong and listening to this fellow Mobilianrock.
Bill PayneKeyboard - Little Feat - Duh!!!! Little Feat ismy favorite rock n roll band hands down andI have enjoyed listening to and playing withall the boys in the band. Bill and I have beentalking about getting together in the studiofor twenty years. Well now we are doing itand I couldn’t be happier.
Tony BrownMakes his quiet return to the keyboard andattempts to get me to buy him an expensivebottle of wine in a fancy Key West restaurantas a payback for my past bad behavior. It isgreat to have you aboard Tony.
The Singers Well you all know who you are and I am justdelighted and honored that you have decidedto come down to play with us. I don’t knowabout y’all but before I ever came close togetting a record contract, I just wanted to beone of those cool background singers. Itreally didn’t look like a lot of work and youdidn’t have to play an instrument or front aband. To me the background singer was it.So, the idea here is to first of all have fun.The tracks will be done by the time you getto town and the CD that is accompanyingyour camp letter should give you an idea ofwhat the music is going to be. Keys areimportant and who is singing on what prob-ably would be something to cover. Asalways, I love the magic and spontaneity ofthe recording process and know from myexperience that we will probably come out ofthis with things we never anticipated goingin. That is the fun of recording live and withfriends. Your job for your time here is tohave fun, work maybe an hour or two a dayfor three days. That should give you enoughextra time to enjoy paradise.
*The working title of License to Chill was Conky Tonk. Jimmy changed his mind during recording.
Myrtle Beach, S.C. is found along the Grand Strand, a 60 mile stretch of sandy coast from LittleRiver to Georgetown. Spaniard Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon founded the first colony in NorthAmerica here in 1526 while it was inhabited by the Waccamaw and Winyah Indians. This set-tlement proved unsuccessful. Pirates roamed the Grand Strand during the 18th century; theinfamous Blackbeard terrorized the coast and Captain Kidd is rumored to have buried treas-ure nearby.
Prior to the Civil War, plantation owners turned Pawley's Island into one of the first summerresorts on the Atlantic Coast. In 1902 Burroughs & Collins company realized the potential ofthe Strand and built the first hotel, the Seaside Inn in what was then referred to as New Town.The community later became Myrtle Beach, honoring the Wax Myrtle trees growing wild alongthe shore.
Broadway at the Beach, 350 acres of specialty shops, restaurants and nightlife was recentlynamed "Best Place to Take Out-Of-Towners.” As an out-of-towner I would agree. I was there tovisit the latest local, the new kid on the Broadway at the Beach block, Jimmy Buffett’sMargaritaville.
Margaritaville is a new stand alone structure anchored on the water at ironically the southeast(of disorder) end of the 23 acre lake labled Heroes Harbor.
We arrived in Myrtle Beach on an overcast Thursday afternoon and went to check the placeout. Employee training was in full swing. The job fair had produced the best and the brightestthis golfers haven had to offer. The task at hand was to familiarize them with the menu andBuffett trivia, as they alternated roles from diner to wait staff, all in preparation for the true cus-tomers beginning on Monday, July 12.
That evening a party was held for the investors, architects, and designers. Guests fromthroughout Broadway at the Beach followed as practice sessions continued throughout theweekend. Each night a charity was named and money was donated by Margaritaville and gen-erous patrons all too eager to help out the local causes.
FRIDAY - CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF SOUTH CAROLINA “Commitment to education & fun can be experienced in all of our exhibits and educationalprograms. Working collaboratively with our communities and schools, student participation isenhanced in the sciences, technology, the humanities and culture.”
SATURDAY - CHILDREN’S RECOVERY CENTER “The Children’s Recovery Center is a non-profit organization which is governed by a board ofdirectors made up of citizens in the community. The Center is a United Way supported agencyand receives funding through grants and private contributions. The Center provides all of its
services free of charge to all children and their families. The Center is operated by the ProgramCoordinator and Medical Director who volunteers all of the medical services.”
SUNDAY - HORRY COUNTY RED CROSS “The American Red Cross is a humanitarian organization led by volunteers that provides reliefto victims of disasters and helps people prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergencies. Itdoes this through services that are consistent with its Congressional Charter and the funda-mental principles of the International Red Cross.”
The decor is similar to Margaritaville in Orlando and Las Vegas, incorporating boats into seat-ing areas, sandy-shelled polyurethane filled bar tops, tin roofed Key West look, suspendedmammals, etc. The one exception is rather than have a volcano flow margaritas and/or mer-maids into an oversized blender, a mock hurricane cloud slowly spins overhead set against amap of the middle western hemisphere. Light houses are posted in Jamaica, Cancun, KeyWest, New Orleans, Orlando, Charleston and Myrtle Beach. At timed intervals a "hurricane"approaches - lighting through the aforementioned locations, triggering the weather channel tobroadcast warnings on the big sail screen and numerous video screens throughout the bar. Thecloud then begins to spin more rapidly, faux lightning appears and an oversized Tequila bot-tle exits the cloud and empties into a blender.
The west side of the cafe is a window to Broadway at the Beach, a vast expanse of glass offer-ing an unobstructed view of the outside deck and Heroes Harbor. There are two named barsin Margaritaville; Boat Drinks inside and Euphoria on the outside deck. The inside bar /seat-ing area is 9000 square feet with an additional 2500 upstairs in the Tiki sec-tion. Plans call for a small service bar upstairs. The outsidedeck contains 2500 square feet as well, and is aptlynamed Euphoria ( the name of Jimmy's firstboat ). When viewed from across the newlyconstructed deck it appears to be thebroadside of a large sailboat. Coinoperated cannons actually fire fromthe deck. I'm told their future is inquestion; the cannons will remain...the operating part is in question.
"Margaritaville is world-renownedas a song, and it paints a picture ofa mythical community. It is a festive thing to theme into Broadway..."
Long Beach, MS - An endowment of $125,000 was established recently at
The University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast to fund the Mary
Loraine “Peets” Buffett Endowed Freshman Scholarship. Jimmy’s educa-
tionally enthusiastic mother, a 1940 graduate of the Gulf Park College for
Women, and inspiration to friends and family, passed away on
September 25, 2003.
The scholarship will be awarded based on academic merit and financial
need beginning fall 2004 to a female student from the Mississippi Gulf
Coast who is entering USMGC. The annual scholarship will provide
tuition and books. The student must maintain a 3.0 GPA and will be
required to write a 250 word essay demonstrating creative writing ability.
Bobbo Jetmundsen, long-time Buffett family friend and grateful globe-
trotter has published a book of anecdotal short stories based on his ques-
tionable hobbies and extensive travels titled, Raining Rum and Other
Short Stories to Drink to… Bobbo and The Margaritaville Store have
joined forces in offering this book to Parrot Heads. All proceeds from the
sale will be donated to the Mary Loraine Peets Buffett Scholarship.
Two young ladies from Gulfport with aspirations toward a nursing career
were chosen recently as the first recipients of the scholarship. Both
impressed the university with
their writing skills and it’s
hoped that the award will
enable them to follow the
path set by their generous
benefactor. For more
information on the schol-
arship contact the
Financial Aid Office at
the University of
Southern
Mississippi.
Raining Rum#13177 $22.95
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