^{RSS Feed}

Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band recorded the song “All Night Long” with Lionel Richie that will appear on a Country duets album due out on March 27, 2012.

You can pre-order the album at Amazon.com

Surpassing his creative and personal boundaries, Richie comes full circle with the innovative and personal Tuskegee, performing 13 of his most revered “anthems of our day” with some of the biggest names in country music, including Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles, Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, Darius Rucker, Rascal Flatts, Kenny Chesney, Billy Currington, Little Big Town and Jason Aldean.

On this worldwide, multi-genre album, Richie is also joined by the likes of such superstars as Shania Twain, Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson and Jimmy Buffett. Tuskegee is an exciting and transcendent arc in a career that has seen album sales of more than 100 million, 22 Top 10s, five Grammys, an Academy Award for Best Original Song, a Golden Globe, and a host of other awards from virtually every major entertainment organization. While defying boundaries and breaking barriers throughout his storied career, Richie reveals once again that Tuskegee will join the ranks of his timeless body of work that touches people of all faiths, ages and demographics across the world.

From Palmbeachpost.com: Shane Battier, Pat Riley spend Saturday night “Wasting Away”

In between appearances on the AmericanAirlines court, Shane Battier spent Saturday night in the audience. Battier is a self-proclaimed Parrothead, got to meet “one of his heroes,” Jimmy Buffett, prior to Buffett’s show. “He’s an innovator,” Battier said. “He encapsulates a lifestyle, a mindset.”

Battier’s favorite song: Tin Cup Chalice. “It takes me to a dive bar in the keys,” Battier said.

Buffett tailored Saturday’s concert to the crowd, repeatedly referencing the time official Joe Forte ejected him from a Heat-Knicks game in 2001. “I can say anything I want up here and cannot get thrown out of his stadium,” Buffett said, according to my colleague Hal Habib. “I don’t see any referees out there. That’s power.”

Then he played the encore wearing a Heat coach’s shirt, for which he thanked Pat Riley but also said he thought the Heat was raking in enough cash they could afford to spare the shirt. Riles was then shown on the video boards twice, getting an ovation.

From the Margarillas: Miami Backstage — Jimmy’s gift from Shane Battier of the Miami Heat!

Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band’s “Welcome to Fin Land” tour got back underway last night with a show at the American Airlines Arena in Miami, FL. Buffett last performed at the venue back on February 13th, 2003 during the Far Side of the World Tour.

The Set List and Comments from those that listened to the show are now available.

Some changes to the set list included: “Everybody’s Got A Cousin In Miami” (last played 04-18-2006 Phoenix, AZ) , “We Are The People Our Parents Warned Us About” (last played 02-23-2010), and “Creola” featuring Nadirah was in honor of Ralph MacDonald. For the final encore Jimmy performed “Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season”

The Miami Herald has a review of the show: “Jimmy Buffett tailors Miami concert to South Florida”

Perhaps it was the Miami Heat’s victory over the New York Knicks the night before at the AmericanAirlines Arena but Heat fan Jimmy Buffett seemed in particularly good spirits and warm voice Saturday night at the AmericanAirlines before a sizable, but not quite sold-out, crowd for his first concert of 2012.

“This is as wild as the Heat game last night,” Buffett grinned before thousands of fans after the concert opening deep album cut, The Wino and I Know.

Just before he started his first encore song some two hours later, the evergreen Fins, a barefoot Buffett thanked Pat Riley for the spiffy black shirt the Heat coach supposedly offered him backstage. The spotlight fell on Riley in the stands and he apparently seemed ready to partake in, or at least observe, the Fins concert ritual that Parrot Heads the world over have turned into a kind of boomer aerobics since the tour staple’s release in the summer of 1979.

Buffett also took a cheerful jab at his history inside this particular bayfront venue. “I can say anything I want on this stage and not get thrown out,” he cracked, a reference to an incident in Feb. 2001 when he was ejected from his courtside seat by a referee during a Heat/Knicks game for reportedly engaging in language saltier than that found in some of his classics such as Why Don’t We Get Drunk.

Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band’s “Welcome to Fin Land” tour gets back underway tonight with a show at the American Airlines Arena in Miami, FL. Buffett last performed at the venue back on February 13th, 2003 during the Far Side of the World Tour.

Follow along with the Set List during the show and listen on Radio Margaritaville or SiriusXM.

From Facebook: Jimmy & the Coral Reefers rocked the Bamboo Room in Lake Worth, Florida last night for an impromptu intimate show!

Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefers were rehearsing earlier this week for the extension of the Welcome to Fin Land tour, kicking off in Miami tomorrow! Can’t make it to the show? Tune in to hear all the concerts LIVE on Radio Margaritaville!

From Margaritaville: Jimmy takes time out from planning the set list for his upcoming concerts to join his friend Miles to take you on a tour around the new Margaritaville Online game!

Margaritaville® Online™ is officially LIVE! Invite your friends to grab a frozen concoction and live the tropical island dream online. Play laid-back mini games, explore lush islands, and party with your friends. It’s not just a game… it’s a lifestyle!

Margaritaville Online is an everyday escape to a virtual tropical paradise inspired by the lifestyle of author and singer-songwriter, Jimmy Buffett. Friends party and play in the islands in a stunningly immersive 3D world filled with margaritas, music and adventure. Live the island dream as you build your beach oasis and search for adventure in your own private tropical paradise. Leave your cares behind as you serve up frozen concoctions to your friends from your very own island beach bar. Explore lush islands, white sandy beaches and azure blue seas in search of forgotten treasure aboard your very own boat. Play games, swap fish stories and share your tropical adventures with all your Facebook friends and fellow islanders.

Play the game now on Facebook, also available for iPad and iPhone.

A tribute to Ralph MacDonald was held on Monday January 16th in Stamford CT. From the Stamford Advocate: “Stamford artist remembered”

Family and friends of the late Ralph MacDonald gathered at Stamford’s Palace Theatre on Monday night to honor the Grammy Award-winning percussionist and composer with an evening of personal remembrances and musical performances. MacDonald, a longtime Stamford resident, died Dec. 18 of lung cancer. He was 67. Many of the artists MacDonald worked with over the years took to the stage to perform his music, including Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band, Stamford’s Dennis Collins, and Valerie Simpson, Roberta Flack and Bobbi Humphrey. As a producer, performer and songwriter, MacDonald earned multiple Grammys, including for “Calypso Breakdown” and “`Just The Two of Us.” Along with songwriter William Salter, he wrote “Where is The Love,” which earned Flack and Donny Hathaway a Grammy.

Also a short clip from Ralph’s funeral

The launch date for the new Margaritaville Online Game has changed. It was originally scheduled for release on January 18th, and it has been pushed a week to January 25th due to iPad and iPhone store releases from Apple. The game will receive premium placement on the Facebook games dashboard page.

From Margaritaville.com: Jimmy was at the wildcard game on January 7th to see the New Orleans defeat the Detroit Lions, and took in some football from the sidelines. Check out his video commentary from the Who Dat Nation!

From American Songwiter: Matt Hoggatt took first place in the American Songwriter Lyric Contest with the song “Dear Jimmy Buffett”.

“Dear Jimmy Buffett” is an open letter of sorts – how did you come to write it?

I live in the town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where Jimmy Buffet grew up, so we share the same stomping ground. He was one of the first songwriters I started studying and listening to as a kid. Oftentimes the songs I was writing were compared to his work, and I thought it would be funny to be playing in a bar one day and have him walk in and hear me singing about him. Later in life, I thought about writing him a letter and telling him all the things I was thinking, but if I turned that letter into a song, it would be 30 minutes long. I had to whittle it down to three minutes, and that’s where “Dear Jimmy Buffett” came from.

From Louisville.com: “Jimmy Buffett to play KFC Yum! Center on March 3”

Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band will perform at the KFC! Yum Center Sat., March 3. Tickets for the jinglefest go on sale next Friday (January 13th). Buffett, of course, is best known for his chain of high-priced restaurants your parents go to when they’re going wild on vacation.