‘Margaritaville’ singer Jimmy Buffett, who turned beach-bum life into an empire, dies at 76

Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, who popularized beach-bum soft rock with the escapist Caribbean-flavored song “Margaritaville” and turned that celebration of loafing into an empire of restaurants, resorts and frozen concoctions, has died. He was 76.

Buffet was born in Mississippi and raised in Alabama but made Florida, with its ocean breezes, laid-back lifestyle and boozy afternoons, his home, both through his music and his personal life. A long-time resident of tony Palm Beach, he made no excuses for living the good life.

“Jimmy passed away peacefully on the night of September 1st surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs,” a statement posted to Buffett’s official website and social media pages said late Friday. “He lived his life like a song till the very last breath and will be missed beyond measure by so many.”

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The statement did not say where Buffett died or give a cause of death. The website TMZ, citing sources close to the singer, reported that Buffett died of lymphoma that had spread from a case of skin cancer. Illness had forced Buffett to reschedule concerts in May and he acknowledged in social media posts that he had been hospitalized, but provided no specifics.

His hit song “Margaritaville,” released on Feb. 14, 1977, inspired restaurants and resorts, turning Buffett’s alleged desire for the simplicity of island life into a multimillion brand. With a fortune estimated at $1 billion, Mr. Buffett this year joined Forbes' list of the world’s billionaires, which was released in April.

The man often associated with Hawaiian T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops enjoyed living part-time in Palm Beach, one of the most exclusive area codes in the country and home to mega-billionaires and mega-celebrities, such as former President Donald Trump.

Buffett once told The Palm Beach Post about living in Palm Beach: “No one bothers me. It’s amazing. I’m not on television and that’s the big difference. I can walk around with shocking anonymity. People don’t know who I am. I went to Disney World walking around the other day and was stopped twice.”

Buffett's involvement in South Florida included being a board member of the Everglades Foundation and a regular fixture at a number of annual charity fundraisers in Palm Beach.

Buffett was a close friend of Miami Dolphins owner and developer Stephen Ross. In fact, Buffett rewrote the lyrics to his hit song "Fins" for the Dolphins in 2009 and it became an unofficial alternative to the fight song for the team. And the home stadium where the Dolphins play was renamed Land Shark Stadium in 2009 after the beer Buffett marketed, Landshark. The sponsorship lasted less than two years. The stadium is now called Hard Rock Stadium.

Buffett also was close to Miami Heat President Pat Riley and was a fan of the team from its earliest days. In fact, Buffett had the "honor" of being ejected from a Heat game (along with his 6-year-old son Cameron) in 2001 for arguing with a referee.

During the Heat game against the New York Knicks on Feb. 4, 2001, Buffett was sitting courtside when official Joe Forte made a call Buffett didn’t like.

Buffett let the ref know his feelings on the matter. The ref ejected him.

Besides receiving worldwide attention, the incident created one of the great exchanges in Heat history.

“Do you mean to tell me you’ve never been a Parrot Head in your life?” Riley, then the Heat's head coach, asked Forte, who not only did not recognize Buffett, he did not know Buffett’s fans were called Parrot Heads.

“He thought I was insulting him,” Riley said. “He wanted to give me a technical for calling him a Parrot Head.”

The song 'Margaritaville' ignited a lifestyle and started a franchise

“Margaritaville,” released on Feb. 14, 1977, quickly took on a life of its own, becoming a state of mind for those ”wastin’ away,” an excuse for a life of low-key fun and escapism for those “growing older, but not up.”

The song is the unhurried portrait of a loafer on his front porch, watching tourists sunbathe while a pot of shrimp is beginning to boil. The singer has a new tattoo, a likely hangover and regrets over a lost love. Somewhere there is a misplaced salt shaker.

“What seems like a simple ditty about getting blotto and mending a broken heart turns out to be a profound meditation on the often painful inertia of beach dwelling,” Spin magazine wrote in 2021. “The tourists come and go, one group indistinguishable from the other. Waves crest and break whether somebody is there to witness it or not. Everything that means anything has already happened and you’re not even sure when.”

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The song — from the album “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” — spent 22 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and peaked at No. 8. The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2016 for its cultural and historic significance, became a karaoke standard and helped brand Key West as a distinct sound of music and a destination known the world over.

“There was no such place as Margaritaville,” Buffett told the Arizona Republic in 2021. “It was a made-up place in my mind, basically made up about my experiences in Key West and having to leave Key West and go on the road to work and then come back and spend time by the beach.”

Critics weren't always kind to his music, which he called 'pure escapism'

Music critics were never very kind to Buffett or his catalogue, including the sandy beach-side snack bar songs like “Fins,” “Come Monday” and “Cheeseburgers in Paradise.” But his legions of fans, called “Parrotheads,” regularly turned up for his concerts wearing toy parrots, cheeseburgers, sharks and flamingos on their heads, leis around their necks and loud Hawaiian shirts.

“It’s pure escapism is all it is,” he told the Republic. “I’m not the first one to do it, nor shall I probably be the last. But I think it’s really a part of the human condition that you’ve got to have some fun. You’ve got to get away from whatever you do to make a living or other parts of life that stress you out. I try to make it at least 50/50 fun to work and so far it’s worked out.”

His special Gulf Coast mix of country, pop, folk and rock added instruments and tonalities more commonly found in the Caribbean, like steel drums. It was a stew of steelpans, trombones and pedal steel guitar. Buffett’s incredible ear for hooks and light grooves were often overshadowed by his lyrics about fish tacos and sunsets.

Rolling Stone, in a review of Buffett’s 2020 album “Life on the Flip Side,” gave grudging props. “He continues mapping out his surfy, sandy corner of pop music utopia with the chill, friendly warmth of a multi-millionaire you wouldn’t mind sharing a tropically-themed 3 p.m. IPA with, especially if his gold card was on the bar when the last round came.”

Photos: Jimmy Buffett and Margaritaville at Sea cruise ship at Port of Palm Beach

Mr. Buffett's ever-evolving 'Margaritaville' brand and its ties to Florida

Buffett’s evolving brand began in 1985 with the opening of a string of Margaritaville-themed stores and restaurants in Key West, followed in 1987 with the first Margaritaville Café nearby. Over the course of the next two decades, several more of each opened throughout Florida, New Orleans and California.

The brand has since expanded to dozens of categories, including resorts, apparel and footwear for men and women, a radio station, a beer brand, iced tea, tequila and rum, home décor, food items like salad dressing, Margaritaville Crunchy Pimento Cheese & Shrimp Bites and Margaritaville Cantina Style Medium Chunky Salsa, the Margaritaville at Sea cruise line and restaurants, including Margaritaville Restaurant, JWB Prime Steak and Seafood, 5 o’Clock Somewhere Bar & Grill and LandShark Bar & Grill.

Not surprisingly, much of Buffett's Margaritaville branding was in Florida.

The first Margaritaville restaurant was at the Universal CityWalk in Orlando in 1999.

Buffett licensed the name to a Florida developer to create a $50 million oceanfront hotel in Pensacola in 2010 promising "barefoot elegance," which kicked off the run of Margaritaville luxury hotels.

The first Margaritaville Casino opened in the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas in 2011.

The company's flagship Margaritaville Hollywood Beach (Florida) Resort opened in 2015 with eight restaurants, 369 rooms and more than 30,000 square feet of event space.

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Also in 2015, the Margaritaville Vacation Club by Wyndham opened in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Island H2O Live! Water park sprang up in 2019 along with Margaritaville Resort Orlando in Kissimmee.

In 2017, Buffett announced his first retirement community, Latitude Margaritaville, which opened in Daytona Beach. It's limited to residents aged "55 and better."

In 2021, the world’s first Margaritaville-branded ship launched from the Port of Palm Beach. The former Grand Classica was renamed the Margaritaville Paradise and the company that owns it, Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line, became Margaritaville at Sea.

There also was a Broadway-bound jukebox musical, “Escape to Margaritaville,” a romantic comedy in which a singer-bartender called Sully falls for the far more career-minded Rachel, who is vacationing with friends and hanging out at Margaritaville, the hotel bar where Sully works.

Buffet's life on Palm Beach, home to Billionaire's Row and Donald Trump

Buffett had deep residential ties to Palm Beach dating to at least the early 1990s. At his death, he owned at least two homes on Root Trail, a short ocean-block street lined with historic cottages and townhouses.

In December 2020, he and his wife, Jane, sold a Palm Beach house they owned at 309 Garden Road on the North End for about $7 million. They had owned it since 2011.

In May 2010, the Buffetts sold, for a recorded $18.5 million, a much larger five-bedroom oceanfront home across town on 1.6 acres at 540 S. Ocean Blvd. They had paid $4.4 million for that house in 1994. That house was later demolished and eventually replaced by a mansion under a new owner.

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The Buffetts’ property-ownership company, Sadeca Realty LLC, also owns a single-family house in West Palm Beach, property records show.

Buffett was among several recording artists with homes in Palm Beach, including Billy Joel, Jon Bon Jovi and Rod Stewart.

With a fortune estimated at $1 billion, Buffett this year joined Forbes' list of the world’s billionaires, which was released in April. Buffett was among at least 57 billionaires the Palm Beach Daily News identified as owning or leasing property in Palm Beach.

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Buffett has always had a love for the ocean.

He co-founded the Save the Manatee Club in 1981 with former U.S. senator and Florida Gov. Bob Graham.

Just recently, a group of Miami scientists named a newly discovered tiny crustacean they found in the Florida Keys Gnathia jimmybuffetti in Mr. Buffett's honor. It was the first new gnathiid isopod discovered in Florida in nearly a century, according to marine biologist Paul Sikkel, a professor at the University of Miami.

"By naming a species after an artist, we want to promote the integration of the arts and sciences," Sikkel said.

Mr. Buffett was born in Mississippi, raised in Alabama

James William Buffett was born on Christmas Day 1946 in Pascagoula, Miss., and raised in the port town of Mobile, Ala. He graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Miss., in 1969 with a degree in history, and went from busking the streets of New Orleans to playing six nights a week at Bourbon Street clubs.

He released his first record, “Down To Earth,” in 1970 and issued seven more on a regular yearly clip, with his 1974 song “Come Monday” from his fourth studio album “Living and Dying in 3/4 Time,” peaking at No. 30. Then came “Margaritaville.”

He performed on more than 50 studio and live albums, often accompanied by his Coral Reefer Band, and was constantly on tour. He earned two Grammy Award nominations, two Academy of Country Music Awards and a Country Music Association Award.

Reaction, tributes pour in from everywhere

Tributes to Buffett on social media poured in from a wide swath of entertainers, politicians, journalists and everyday people touched by his music.

Former President Bill Clinton wrote on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter: "Jimmy Buffett’s music brought happiness to millions of people. I’ll always be grateful for his kindness, generosity, and great performances through the years, including at the White House in 2000. My thoughts are with his family, friends, and legion of devoted fans."

Sen. Ted Cruz posted: "Jimmy Buffett was a legendary musician who lived his life knowing it was always 5:00 somewhere. Rest in peace to this American icon who brought happiness to so many. Enjoy a well deserved #CheeseburgerInParadise."

Country music star Toby Keith wrote on X: "The pirate has passed. RIP Jimmy Buffett. Tremendous influence on so many of us -T."

Elton John said on Instagram that he was a “unique and treasured entertainer."

Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys simply wrote: "Love and Mercy, Jimmy Buffett"

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins wrote: "Not a lawyer, a thief or a banker, but a son of a son of a sailor." RIP to a great one, whose songs "conjured a world of sun, saltwater and nonstop parties animated by the calypso country-rock of his limber Coral Reefer Band."

Fox News' Brett Baier posted: "R.I.P Jimmy Buffett. Next margarita is in your honor #Margaritaville"

The inspiration for 'Margaritaville' was struck in ... Texas?

Buffett was actually in Austin, Texas, when the inspiration struck for “Margaritaville.” He and a friend had stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant before she dropped him at the airport for a flight home to Key West, so they got to drinking margaritas.

“And I kind of came up with that idea of this is just like Margarita-ville,” Buffett told the Republic. “She kind of laughed at that and put me on the plane. And I started working on it.”

He wrote some on the plane and finished it while driving down the Keys. “There was a wreck on the bridge,” he said. “And we got stopped for about an hour so I finished the song on the Seven Mile Bridge, which I thought was apropos.”

Buffett also was the author of numerous books including “Where Is Joe Merchant?” and “A Pirate Looks At Fifty” and added movies to his résumé as co-producer and co-star of an adaptation of Carl Hiaasen’s novel “Hoot.”

Buffett is survived by his wife, Jane; daughters, Savannah and Sarah; and son, Cameron, as well as two grandsons and sisters Laurie and Lucy.

Buffett was once asked by The Palm Beach Post how he draws musical inspiration after receiving worldwide fame and fortune.

“A lot of people say you can’t be creative when you have financial security," he said. "I love it because I never think of myself as financially secure. I always have the big horror in my mind that I’m a has-been playing the Holiday Inn.”

C.A. Bridges of the USA Today Network and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: ‘Margaritaville’ singer, Palm Beach resident Jimmy Buffett, dies at 76