Epilogue: Remembering Jimmy Buffett
Charlie and Mac close their Good Country conversation remembering Mac’s dear friend, bandleader, and collaborator.
Editor’s Note: Read the full conversation featuring Mississippi Multi-Hyphenates Worsham and McAnally here.
Charlie Worsham: Mac, I did want to ask a couple of questions. I know with the passing of Jimmy Buffett that there's been a lot of sadness. I've also seen how it seems like he really left wanting you guys to keep carrying the torch and that even from wherever he is, he’s sending that cosmic love y'all's way and encouraging y'all to carry on.
So I'm curious, what all is coming up in your world, and also [what are] some of those really great lessons that you've gleaned from all your time and experience with Jimmy Buffett?
Obviously, people know how much he embraced life and how kind he was, but maybe there's something that he taught you that most folks would never have known about him.
Mac McAnally: He specifically instructed, less than 24 hours before leaving this world, that he wanted us to keep the party going. He didn't want anybody to be sad about it, although it's inevitable. He's not a replaceable character. The whole time I've been playing with him, my solo career has just been in the cracks of Jimmy Buffett’s schedule for the last twenty-some odd years. By nature, I'm a sideman. If there are 3 people on stage, I'm gonna back 2 of them up. So for twenty-five years, if I had to play a show, I had to do it solo, because if there's anybody else there, I’m an accompaniment.
CW: I relate to that more than you know.
MM: But at this point, it is myself and Eric Darken, our percussionist. That's what my presentation is at this point. In the places where we usually play one night a year, we're having to do 3 and 4 nights, because of all these displaced Jimmy fans who are just looking for anything with that joy of living that he spread.
I mean, I've seen a lot of concerts, and I've got respect for a lot of levels of music, but Jimmy could reach out and make somebody at the back of a lawn full of 35,000 people feel like they were on the fourth row in a little intimate club, and they were getting something special. He gave every show everything he had and made the band give everything they had. And the crowd gave it back to us, it was just an alternating current of positive energy. That's a hard thing, to wonder whether you've lost [it] or not – and we haven't. Most of the good that he generated is still here in that body of work and in the way made people feel and will continue to make people feel. And the fact that most anybody that's got a boat in the English-speaking world has got some of his music playing while they're in that boat and while they're headed to that boat and while they're thinking about when they're gonna get to go to that boat. He's gonna continue to inspire folks that way.
And you know, he's getting a kick out of working my ass extra hard these days. I feel like an urgent care singer-songwriter. But the fact that Jimmy was the same guy to strangers in a grocery store as he was to his biggest fans is a good lesson in life.
CW: Well, you've made me want to ask you one more question, if you don't mind indulging a little longer. I was going back over some of your liner notes this morning and saw that you'd worked some with Toby Keith. Thinking about what you were just saying about Jimmy, with Toby's passing there's always gonna be chatter on the Internet, and obviously a lot of people paying their respects, because he was a singular force in country music. And was a huge influence on me, too.
He came and played my hometown when I was a kid, and not only did he just slay the show, but he hung out after and went to the honky tonks. He signed every autograph. He ate a gas station hot dog. We still tell the story about the night Toby Keith came to town, but a few years later I gleaned the wisdom of seeing how he did things his way.
I know that some people online right now wanted to focus on maybe how he felt about a certain issue or voted. And I'm fairly certain I wouldn't agree with Toby on 100% of things. But at the end of the day, it does feel like what his life's work added up to was bringing people together and making sure people had a better day, and that's really gonna be his legacy. So I'm just curious, in your time with Toby is there anything you might share like a situation where he blew your mind, or you were one of the first people to hear a song that a year later everybody in the world is singing along to?
MM: Well, he was who he was. He was never press-conscious. He always said exactly what was on his mind. He played 240-something shows for our troops and never charged anybody anything. And he rode in cargo planes strapped to the wall. I mean, he had to jump off of stages and go into a foxhole. He was never seeking press or publicity about any of that. He was just supporting our troops. His whole cancer foundation thing, it's unbelievable what he's done with that. And he never sought any notoriety for doing it. He was just doing what he thought was the right thing to do.
CW: I don't know if you saw the thing that Stephen Colbert did, the little tribute that he did. I loved it. And I thought this is what the world needs more of right now, because we need that discourse, and that mutual respect and seeing past differences. And look at Toby and Willie, you know that if you just measured them politically they would be as far apart as you could put bookends, probably, but they were great friends, and they supported the same causes.
Mac McAnally and the other Coral Reefers will officially commemorate Jimmy’s legacy at the Hollywood Bowl at “Keep the Party Going: A Tribute to Jimmy Buffett” on April 11, 2024, joined by an all-star lineup that includes Paul McCartney, Eagles, Kenny Chesney, Brandi Carlile, Eric Church, Sheryl Crow, Jake Owen, and many more. Tickets and more information can be found here.
Photo of Jimmy Buffett courtesy of the artist