ETSU to Margaritaville: Jimmy Buffett memories

One of the worst things about aging is when entertainers you’ve enjoyed for years begin dying. During the past couple of years, sadly, several of my favorite artists have left life’s stage. September started with the loss of the favorite singer of my adult life - Jimmy Buffett.

It hit me hard when I woke a week ago to the news he’d passed away. Here was a man whose music dominated the soundtrack of my life for years. Decades, actually, since I discovered Jimmy Buffett while I was in college.

In the fall of 1972, I was a freshman at East Texas State University in Commerce. It was a time for new experiences and to sample new things, such as music. One of my new experiences was going to ETSU coffee shop shows. The folks responsible for keeping students entertained during off-hours presented a coffee shop most weekends with touring musicians.

It actually was a student union building room with a few bistro tables and chairs, plus a small portable stage that raised performers about six inches above the floor. Just enough so the folks in back could see whoever was on stage. As was common in coffee shop settings, most of the acts were acoustic, just a singer and their guitar.

I was a fraternity pledge that autumn. Yes, I’m a “frat rat,” although my fraternity chapter was so much like “Animal House” I swore the movie was based on our antics. Anyway, one Friday night my fraternity big brother, Bruce Harwell (who also was from DeKalb) insisted I go to the coffeehouse with him and his date. I was the shy country boy. Bruce was more like the Otter character in “Animal House.”

Jimmy Buffett was the performer that weekend. I’d never heard of him. Most folks hadn’t heard of him then. It cost 50 cents to get into his show, a far cry from his later ticket prices. We sat a couple of tables back from the stage. This was something new to me. Any time I’d seen a music act before, it had either been in a school auditorium or the performers were on a flat-bed trailer. Oh, and I’d been to a Chicago concert in Shreveport, my first rock concert.

A student emcee introduced the night’s performer, Jimmy Buffett. As I recall, this skinny long-haired guy with a hat and big mustache stepped on the portable stage and sat on a raised stool in front of the microphone. He spoke to the audience as he fixed his guitar strap across his shoulder and adjusted the tuning. Then he launched into song.

After a couple of hours of folksy, fun, thoughtful music and stories, I became a Parrothead long before being a Parrothead was cool.

I don’t remember if he had merchandise, something else that would be a far cry from today. This was the vinyl and 8-track era, before easily produced cassette tapes and CDs enabled anyone with a guitar to release their recordings. I’ll always remember enjoying Jimmy Buffett’s music and stories. Like the coffee house setting, his music was intimate/ It touched your feelings - humor, sadness, longing, pleasure.

One thing I’m still not sure about is if he performed a song called “Ralph the Magic Seagull.” Sung to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon,” it was a story of an obnoxious seagull - is there any other kind - and his misadventures with beachgoers. Ralph had a habit of dropping droppings on people’s heads until one day when the storyteller tossed an Alka-Seltzer to Ralph. You can imagine the rest. It was a hilarious tune that had the audience laughing. What I’m uncertain of is whether it was a Jimmy Buffett song (it’d certainly fit in his songbook) or if it was done by B.W. Stevenson, who also played the ETSU coffee house, too. (He was the first 

He was back at ETSU in the spring of 1973, and again in 1974. Jimmy Buffett became popular at ETSU, so much so that folks from the audio/visual department video recorded one of his performances. It was recorded on a giant reel-to-reel device on videotape that was an inch or two wide. During student orientation, they played the recording to show a sample of what there was to do on campus and to get students to volunteer to help with providing entertainment.

I often wonder what happened to those videotapes. Were they erased? Did someone record over them? Or were they just tossed out during a spring cleaning? It would be interesting to see Jimmy Buffett at the beginning of his career playing for 50 cents a head on the college circuit.

In the ensuing years, Jimmy Buffett went from coffee houses to filling stadiums. And he did it without one No. 1 song after another on the radio. His first big single, “Come Monday,” reached No. 3 on the Billboard charts almost 50 years ago, and “Margaritaville,” probably his best-known song, reached No. 8 in 1977. Yet he produced album after album with songs his fans could sing by heart. Good-time party songs to melancholy tales of lost love, stories about pirates, rogues, and free spirits, personal tales of his own adventures, all were part of his repertoire.

Sharing those stories in coffee houses and small venues earned him a following, and they spread the word about this fantastic singer/songwriter with the message of free living and following your heart, and having the time of your life doing it.

Happy sailing across the heavens, Mr. Buffett.