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It was 30 years ago when I moved to Key West and found a bar singer singing some pretty cool songs, bought a couple of his records and even paid $2 to see him in the Key West High School auditorium after A1A came out. My buddy's girlfriend lived next door to JB and there were some wild parties back then. Been following him ever since. If you watch the video tape "Tales from Margaritaville", the "Nautical Wheelers" video is the way I remember the early days.

Summer of 1990 I was working at a country club and we had a really strange member that we called the "LIZARD MAN." One night I am walking through the mall and see a CD "Off to See the Lizard." Couldn't pull the trigger and buy it, but we kept looking at it. Loving live music I eventually bougth "Feeding Frenzy." I was hooked right away. The summer of 1991 I drove down to Great Woods about a week or two before the show and bought 3 pavillion seats. Yes, 3 pavillion seats the week before the show (he had just added a third show). 3 guys, a bag of doritos and 12 pack and we were hooked and pleasantly suprised and disappointed. Suprised at the tailgating, but totally disappointed we only had a 12 pack and got there at 6:00.

I have since seen every show at GW, with the exception of 1. 2 shows in Tampa, 2 Montessori School Benefits, and the All for the Seas show 2 weeks ago. I have spent $1,000's on tickets and headace remedy's and wouldn't trade it for the world.

I remember hearing "Come Monday" on my mom's AM car radio. It wasn't until the mid 80's when I began to listen to him more seriously. I began by listening more closely to a friend's tape "Live: You had to be there". That's when I went and bough SYKBH. Then another friend of mine started listening and went to a concert in the early 90's and I went the previous year and have been going ever since. I regret not getting MORE into Jimmy earlier as I could have.

1994....Joined a record club and order Fruitcakes....the rest is history!

It was 1991 for me. I was in high school and was out on a date with my girlfriend of the time. We were on our way somewhere and Cheeseburger in Paradise came on the radio. She started singing and I said “Who's this?” She said “It’s Jimmy Buffett, you know the guy who sings Margaritaville…” I remember thinking, wow he sings more than just one song?!? I went out the next day and bought SYKBH and was hooked. Ended up breaking up with the girl, but stuck with Jimmy. Been a phanatic ever since…

saintsomewhere wrote:“It’s Jimmy Buffett, you know the guy who sings Margaritaville…” I remember thinking, wow he sings more than just one song?!?

I LOVE THAT !!

"When did you get to know Jimmy?"

I haven't, yet! I have shaken his hand and had a brief conversation, but I haven't gotten to know him near as well as I would like to!

For the record, my older brother indirectly introduced me to Jimmy's music in the 70's, playing his albums, as well as singing his songs while playing his guitar. As he grew older but not up, got married and moved out, whenever I saw him, Buffett was playing. I bought SYKBH to fill the voids between visits, so I wouldn't have to borrow his tapes. I always found it bizarre when people never heard of him and / or didn't know his songs, because I grew up on him. (Thanks bro!)

But I must say, seeing him in concert for the 1st time in 2001, kicked it in to 2nd wind! Now it's an unsatiable quest for anything and everything Buffett, from cd's, lp's, merchandise; to meeting other parrot heads and making new phriends!

Tiki Bar wrote: For the record, my older brother indirectly introduced me to Jimmy's music in the 70's, playing his albums, as well as singing his songs while playing his guitar.

You reminded me, I took a guitar class elective in college in the '70s, and the first song we learned to play was Margaritaville.

............rancho deluxe.....the movie. jimmy did the sound track and was in a bar scene, singing ..."livingstone saturday nite"
i would like to say that this inspired me to rush to the record store and buy the souind track album and and anything else he might have out, but.....such is the life of a procrastinator......

"listen to the stories i could tell"

viva las vegas

"he went to vegas looking for answers to questions that bothered him so"

My introduction to Jimmy came at a very young age, and I'll admit, it was not a very welcome one. My dad was a huge Buffett fan in the 70's and every single time my family would go on a road trip, it always involved Buffett music the entire time. To 3 small girls, hearing the same person singing over and over and over (especially when it was our parents type of music!) was torture. Before even getting into the car, we would plea with my dad not to play any Buffett. Our whining was always met with his favorite reply..."When you have your own car, you can listen to whatever you want." So that was that...we were always stuck listening to Jimmy. Although, the one song that my sisters and I did like and find ourselves singing along to was "that Cheeseburger song". But that was it..any other songs of his were despised by us.

Now, fast forward about 10 years. I came across one of my dad's Buffett tapes in the car and decided to put it in my walkman. This was during a 15 hour drive to Florida and I was desperate to drown out my sisters voices. Needless to say, listening to the tape while driving along the coast and seeing the ocean & palm trees made me start to really enjoy the music and decide that I had to move to Florida to be near the ocean. I guess I finally realized what Jimmy songs were all about and that was when I started my Parrothead adventure..

From that point on, I've been a loyal Parrothead and think I now know more about Jimmy and his music than my dad. My summers (and winters, now that I do live in Florida) aren't complete without seeing a JB show at least twice! My sisters are also fans now and this past 4th of July, we celebrated by taking a family trip to the Merriweather show. However, my dad still likes to tease us anytime he hears us listening to Buffett or heading off to a show by reminding us how much we HATED Jimmy back when we were young...well, except for that fun "cheeseburger song!!"

In 1976, when I was in high school, my buddies and I would hang out at a pizza parlor that some other friends worked at. The jukebox didn't have a great selection of music but it had Come Monday and for some reason that song was enough. I was hooked! I went to my first concert 3 years later, drove down to Phoenix in the middle of summer to see Jimmy Buffett perform at Compton Terrace. Just about roasted to death in my buddy's VW bug.

That was the first of many shows and now my 9 year is a big fan. She went to her first concert earlier this year in Las Vegas and we'll be back in September.

Moved from California to Tampa FLA in Jan '75. My then roommate had AIA on the turntable. I had not heard of Jimmy, but had heard Why Don't We Get Drunk at bars. Listened to AIA constantly for the next 6 months and have been hooked ever since ...

When I was about 22 my friends and I started hanging out in this little dive bar in a small town near us. One day while hanging over the juke box trying to figure out what to play, they had crappy song selections back then, this man comes up and says play some Jimmy Buffett. I say no way, you mean that "Come Monday" guy? Forget it. He tells me just give Jimmy a chance and you won't look back. I played the Buffett song, still wasn't impressed.

So a couple of days later this guy hands me a cassette tape of Buffett. I played it in my car on the way to school everyday. That was all it took. I was hooked. I went with this man, his wife and some friends to my first Buffett concert, back when Jimmy played at Summerfest in Milwaukee. After that it was a yearly thing for me to scramble for tickets for his show.

A few years later the man moved away and I was left being the only parrothead in town. Then I got married and tried to convert my new hubby into a parrothead. I forced him to go to his first concert. that was back in 1995. It wasn't going so well. He just was not very accepting of Jimmy's musical style. He was a hard case, being a confirmed metal head. I felt like a failure. Then, just this month he says to me, you know I think I am turning into a parrothead!!! Everytime he takes my car he has my Buffett cd cranked right up. I am so proud of him!