Musical track included (essential to the lesson), The Wino and I Know – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinSMUxk_Ac
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In 1992, Jimmy Buffett gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times in which he said, “I went to New Orleans and I lived in the French Quarter when I was eighteen years old, and it was amazing. Here I was a Catholic altar boy and I was in the middle of the most decadent, wonderful place, and it was filled with this sense of literature – and I’ve been thinking about writing a book ever since then, but music just took over.”
By all accounts Jimmy was attending the University of Southern Mississippi during the week and taking classes in life-lessons during the weekend. This was about the time that he was putting to good use all the valuable tutorials given to him by his Uncle Billy on that famed (and apparently very true) Pascagoula Run just a couple of years earlier. In fact, Jimmy's own words about it all sums it up just fine, "Billy Buffett was the best worst influence in my formative years. He was a sailor through and through and lived life to the fullest. The day he pulled into our driveway in that Jaguar, my heart skipped a beat. And when he asked me to drive him to New Orleans, I didn’t realize it, but I had crossed the wild meridian. My alter boy days were done, and my eyes were open wide. Thank you, Uncle Bill."
Jimmy learned many lessons while working as a busker (def: busker - a street performer, musician, minstrel, magician or troubadour) in New Orleans. He learned the value of hard work, as is evident in his song, The Wino and I Know. Aside from singing about coffee and beneighs at Café Du Monde, he adds, “The wino and I know the pains of street singing like a door-to-door salesman knows the pains of bell ringin.” He later adds the measure about hard work as he follows up with “… and the wino and I know the pains of back bustin’ like a farmer knows the pain of his pickup truck rustin.”
In A Pirate Looks at Fifty, Jimmy tells of how he would jet over to New Orleans on Friday night, play on the street corners (and later in bars) until 3AM, and then wait for the sun to rise while drinking coffee and eating the little French donuts at Café Du Monde. Then, he’d hit the sack, wake up later and do it all over again until class started on Monday. There’s honesty behind the lyrics in Coast of Carolina when he says, “These days I get up about the time I used to go to bed.”
In addition to hard work, he also learned the lesson of how to first control, and eventually win over, a crowd. While playing in a bar at Hattiesburg, Mississippi, he learned firsthand what it took to do just that. You see, Hattiesburg was just a few miles away from Camp Shelby, a U.S. Marine training station… and this was smack dab in the middle of the Vietnam War. The bar was full of unruly marines who, during their last few days of stateside duty before shipping off to the war, were about as rowdy as one might expect.
Curtis Rockwell, renowned Buffettologist collected this statement from Jimmy about the matter: “You want a tough crowd? Every time I had to unplug the jukebox each time I’d start playing. And some guy who’s just about to leave for Vietnam has just put his last quarter in the jukebox to hear his favorite song one time, and you have to go over and turn it off and start playing a guitar in front of him!”
Another valuable acquisition Jimmy made during this time was his pairing up with Greg “Fingers” Taylor, the longtime harmonica player for the Coral Reefer Band. Rockwell tells the story like this, “He was playing his guitar on the steps of the Hub, which is the student union at the University of Southern Mississippi. He’s playing his guitar and thinking how great it would be to have a harmonica player. All of a sudden, some guy just walks up, sits down, and starts playing harmonica alongside him. That’s the roots of him and Fingers. Within a week, they were off to their first show in Jonesboro, Arkansas.”
Taylor continued to wail away on the harmonica until the year 2000, when he finally left the Coral Reefer Band.
Jimmy disappeared from the New Orleans scene around the middle of 1969, just about the time that he graduated college.
So often when thinking of Jimmy and his music, we get lost in visions of tropical islands, palm trees, flats fishing, flying boats and steel drums. Equally important, however, is the influence and mindset imprinted on him during his time in New Orleans and the surrounding area. He learned how to woo a crowd. He landed his first real paying gig. He teamed up with his lifelong friend, Fingers. He lost his virginity, learned how to work through the long hours, late nights and crazy days and remain productive and lucid, and most of all, he connected with the history, culture and literature that gave him inspiration for many, many hours of wonderful music, stories and books.
References to New Orleans flourish in Jimmy's music. Both, on his original pieces, and on cover songs that he uses to express what he's thinking and feeling. Including these references are Classics such as:
• In The Shelter
• The Wino And I Know
• Gumbo
• Life Is Just A Tire Swing
• Biloxi
• City of New Orleans
• Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On
• That Old Beat Up Guitar
• I Will Play for Gumbo
• Do You Know What It Means (To Miss New Orleans)
• .. many more
The Wino And I Know
Click Here to Listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinSMUxk_Ac
The ice cream man he's a hillbilly fan,
He's got seventy-eights by Hank Snow;
Walks down the street, shufflin' his feet,
To the rhythm that only he knows.
And I've seen him in so many places,
I saw him the night I was born;
In a Bourbon Street bar I received my first scar
From an old man so tattered and torn.
And the Wino and I know the pains of street singin'
Like the door-to-door salesman knows
the pains of bell ringin'
It's a strange situation,
a wild occupation,
Living my life like a song.
Well the coffee is strong
at the Cafe Du Monde,
And the donuts are too hot to touch;
But just like a fool, when those
sweet goodies cool, I ate 'til I ate way too much.
Cause I'm livin' on things that excite me,
Be they pastries or lobsters or love;
I'm just tryin' to get by being quiet and shy,
In a world full of push and shove.
And the Wino and I know the pains of backbustin',
Like the farmer knows the pain of his pick-up truck rustin'.
It's a strange situation, a wild occupation,
Living my life like a song.
Sweet Senorita, Won't you please come with me?
Back to the island, honey, back to the sea;
Back to the only place that I want to be.
And the Wino and I know the joys of the ocean,
Like a boy knows the joys of his milkshake in motion.
It's a strange situation, a wild occupation,
Living my life like a song.
