Singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett has translated his easy-going Gulf Coast persona into more than just a successful recording career -- he has expanded into clothing, nightclubs, and literature. But the basis of the business empire that keeps him on the Fortune magazine list of highest-earning entertainers is his music.

Buffett was born on Christmas Day on the shores of the Gulf Coast in Pascagoula, Mississippi and later moved to Mobile, Alabama where he was raised. This is where he developed his early Cajun influences and appreciation for country/folk music. The Gulf Coast is also where Jimmy developed his love for the sea and sailing, largely due to the influences of his grandfather.

Jimmy attended Auburn University, and later received a B.S. in History from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1969.

Jimmy's own words describe his early days:
"I got into music basically to meet girls, no doubt about it. Women have always been an influence on my music, good and bad. It looked like the greatest job in the world. I was in college at the time, a freshman at Auburn University. I was a shy, awkward kid from Mobile, kind of a wallflower. My roommate had a guitar, and even though he knew only three chords, he always seemed to be the center of attention with women. I said, 'Teach me those chords'."

So I learned the guitar and started hanging around folk clubs, watching the bands. They all had big shiny Martin guitars; I would've given my right arm for a Martin guitar. And the women -- all the time women -- were hanging around the band. I thought: this is the job for me"

Before he signed his first record contract in 1970, Jimmy worked as a writer for Billboard Magazine in Nashville, Tennessee.

He released one album for Barnaby Records, called "Down to Earth" in 1970, the single from which, a socially conscious song called, "The Christian," suggested he might be more at home protesting in Greenwich Village. Barnaby "lost" his second album, "High Cumberland Jubilee", though they would find it and release it after he became successful. Instead, he moved to Key West, FL, where he gradually evolved the beach bum character and tropical folk-rock style that would endear him to millions.

Jimmy tells the story:
"I was always a lover of the lyrical song, and I think the people who influenced me in those days typified my upbringing. I grew up in Mobile, and my relatives on my grandmother's side were a kind of Cajun, Indian, wild people from that area. My grandfather was a sailing-ship captain who migrated from Nova Scotia. So it was a gumbo type of musical experience. I'd listen to the radio from New Orleans -- Benny Spellman, Irma Thomas, and great old black New Orleans artists -- which is contrary to what most people think. They assume if you come from Alabama, you listen to country music. I didn't really like it much; all my early influences were out of New Orleans".

"I first started playing in folk clubs, and I drew on all this great Gulf Coast, New Orleans, black input. I was also listening to people like Gordon Lightfoot and Joni Mitchell, who were great writers above everything else. I wanted to write clever, good songs like those people".

"I was in Nashville in 1971. I'd been turned down by 26 record labels and couldn't get songs published. I had wrecked my first wife's car, and I had no alternative, I thought, but to look toward warmer climates. So I took an expired Diner's Club card, held my thumb over the expiration date, went to the TWA counter, and bought a ticket to Miami. I was supposed to have a job at a little coffee house called the Flip, the "in" place for folkies in south Florida then. At any rate, I got to Miami, and of course there was no job. I was in Florida, with no job, and I was broke. Fortunately my old friend Jerry Jeff Walker had a house there and took me in. So I lived in Coconut Grove for about 6 months and worked the folk circuit. I had always wanted to go to Key West. Watching Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo was the catalyst that sent me farther South. So we got into Jerry Jeff's '47 Packard and took the old overseas highway to Key West. We got there sometime in November; the temperature was about 85 degrees, there was a sailboat race going on, I found a bar, and the rest is history".

Signing to ABC-Dunhill Records, Buffett achieved notoriety but not much else with his second (released) album, White Sport Coat & a Pink Crustacean (1973), which featured a song called, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" ("... and screw?," goes the chorus).

Buffett revealed a more thoughtful side on "Living & Dying in 3/4 Time" (1974), with its song of marital separation "Come Monday," his first singles-chart entry.

"I was in Europe on a film documentary, shopping in a department store in London, when I heard "Come Monday" over the loudspeaker. I thought I'd better call home and see what was happening, and by that time it was #10 or so. I had to stay in Europe for three more months, yet everything had taken off in the U.S."

But it took the Top Ten song "Margaritaville" and the album in which it was featured, "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" (1977), to capture Buffett's tropical worldview and, for a while, turn him into a pop star. The next release, the title track from the album, sounded so much like Margaritaville that it received little air-play and follow-ups got even less. Still, Buffett's beach bum image made fans flock to his concerts and he became a top draw.

By the start of the '80s, Buffett's yearly albums had stopped going gold, and he briefly tried the country market again. But by the middle of the decade, it was his yearly summer tours that were filling his bank account, as a steadily growing core of Sun Belt fans he dubbed "Parrotheads" made his concerts into Mardi Gras-like affairs. Buffett launched his Margaritaville line of clothes and opened the first of his Margaritaville clubs in Key West. He also turned to fiction writing, landing on the book bestseller lists. He also found time for his passion of flying, purchasing his own sea-plane and taking off in an F-14 Tomcat from the deck of an air-craft carrier.

His recording career, meanwhile, languished, though a hits compilation called "Songs you know by heart", sold millions, a 1990 live album, "Feeding Frenzy", went gold, and a 1992 box-set retrospective, "Boats, Beaches, Bars & Ballads", became one of the bestselling box sets ever.

Buffett finally got around to making a new album in 1994, when "Fruitcakes" became one of his fastest-selling records, reaching "platinum" status. The title track received plenty of radio air-play and the LP entered Billboard's Top 200 album chart at number 5. It was followed in 1995 by "Barometer Soup", which entered the charts at number 6 and went "gold" (with some help from The Weather Channel even), and the number 4 platinum selling "Banana Wind" in 1996, from which he got airplay with a radio single of James Taylor's "Mexico". The following year, Buffett began working on a musical adaptation of Herman Wouk's novel Don't Stop the Carnival with the author himself. After Broadway producers expressed little interest, the production ran for six weeks in Miami during 1997. In spring of 1998, Buffett released "Don't Stop The Carnival", an album based on the book and the play. He began mulling over the idea of taking the play on the road (it went to Miami and the Bahamas). He also released another book - the number one selling A Pirate Looks At Fifty.

1999 brought more successful live shows and the release of two new albums, "Beach House On the Moon" and "Buffett Live - Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays", both of which went "gold".

March of 2002 saw the release of "Far Side of the World", Buffett's first studio album for his new self-run label, Mailboat Records. In mid 2003 a double-album hits compilation "Meet Me In Margaritaville" was released and his 2003 Tiki Time Tour shows were recorded and released on Mailboat. Amidst the summer tour was a number one single with Alan Jackson on "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" - Buffett's first ever number one in music. The Tiki Time Tour ended in January of 2004 in Hawaii (the live album and DVD was released through Mailboat in the fall of 2004 and was released nation wide in the spring of 2005 with the same DVD from the two shows). In December, before the Hawaii shows, he recorded a new record in Key West with a group of country stars and various well respected musicians. Originally called Conchy Tonk , (and later changed to) "License To Chill" debuted at number one on the Billboard LP chart in mid-July of 2004 - Jimmy's first ever number one album. It spun off two Top Ten videos on CMT - the Hank Williams cover of "Hey Good Lookin'" and the Buffett / Martina McBride duet "Trip Around The Sun". Jimmy was even featured in Rolling Stone - the summer of 2004 was truly Buffett's summer. Part of the Chill tour was playing Fenway Park in Boston.

Just in time for Christmas of 2004, he released another book, a continuation of the travels of Tully Mars (from Tales From Margaritaville). A Salty Piece of Land did not get to number one but it did sell very well. Its first printing run included a song called "A Salty Piece Of Land" that was a leftover from the Conchy Tonk / License To Chill sessions.

A Salty Piece Of Land 2005 Summer Tour saw Jimmy playing in football stadiums (Pittsburgh) and another baseball stadium (Wrigley in Chicago for two nights) along with the usual ampitheatres.

In February, 2006, Buffett announced that he would take the summer off from touring. "I'm kinda taking it easy now," he said in a conversation with Radio Margaritaville DJ Miles Hampton. "It's the last summer with my kids before they go off to boarding school, so I'm gonna travel with them and work the spring and the fall. I don't want to do much right now."

Buffett has also been putting in time at his Shrimp Boat Studios in Key West, Fla., recording the follow-up to 2004's "License to Chill".

Jimmy Buffett remains one of the hottest concert draws ever, playing sold out shows to legions of "Parrot Heads" where ever he goes.

Here is one of the Best Party Songs By Jimmy..

 Found this Classic Chicago Rock.....Enjoy.........

 The B'zz


 The Boyzz


Pezband 


Off Broadway

Deluxury

"He's our kind of guy." -- Frank Beard to Billy Gibbons after Beard introduced himself to Dusty Hill in a bar. Hill passed out drunk before returning Beard's greeting.--1969
Best known for: Classic rock trio known for its Texas heritage, bearded, haggard look, reclusive mystique, hard-nosed business tactics, and blues-rock sound.

Born:  ZZ Top (aka, That Little ol' Band from Texas): 1969; Billy F. Gibbons (guitar): Houston, September 16, 1949; Dusty Hill (bass): Dallas, May 19, 1949; Frank Beard (drums): Dallas, June 11, 1949; Bill Mack Ham (manager): Waxahachie, 1937.

Family: Billy Gibbons, the son of a financially well-off family living in the Tanglewood suburb of Houston, never married. Dusty Hill is divorced with a college-age daughter. Frank Beard is married and has two twin boys and a daughter who reportedly goes to college in Houston and will be part of the University class of 2001.

Education: While growing up in suburban Houston, Gibbons learned about R&B music from his family's maid, who was African-American.

Career: Guitarist Billy Gibbons met his future manager, Waxahachie native Bill Mack Ham, backstage at a Doors concert in Houston in 1967. Gibbons' band at the time, the Moving Sidewalks, had a local hit with the song "99th Floor." They soon opened on the Doors' Texas tour. After later opening for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Hendrix named Gibbons his favorite guitar player during an appearance on "The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson." The Sidewalks broke up and Gibbons and Ham contracted to form a new band.

After a few false starts with other musicians, the Gibbons-Hill-Beard version of ZZ Top was founded in 1969. According to Gibbons, the name came from one or more of the following: the two brands of rolling-paper, Zig-Zag and Top, a tribute to blues legend Z.Z. Hill, and/or Gibbons seeing the two words running together on a dilapidated bill board. Hill and Beard had been members of a Dallas band called American Blues.

The trio spent its first few years playing mostly regional concerts. Ham's bosses, Houston record producer Pappy Daily and family, cut a deal with him to finance "ZZ Top's First Album" (1970). Five other records followed on the London Records label. The third album, "Tres Hombres" (1973), brought them national attention. Its hit song "La Grange," about a whorehouse, was allegedly based on John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen." It is still the band's signature riff tune. Also included was "Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers," the would-be anthem.

In an event that tried to be a rock-style Willie Nelson Picnic, the group was the featured headliner in the "Rompin' and Stompin' Barndance and Barbecue," held in Austin on Labor Day, September 1, 1974. Appearing with them before a crowd of 80,000 was San Francisco legend Bill Graham, Santana, Joe Cocker and Bad Company making its U.S. debut. This was ZZ Top's first concert in which they were seen as more than just a Texas act. It was the biggest concert in Austin's history, and the last to be held in Memorial Stadium on the University of Texas Campus for another twenty years. The stadium had been trashed by concert-goers, who had suffered from the heat and lack of food, water and toilets.

The year-and-a-half-long Worldwide Texas Tour, with stage props like haystacks, ranch tools and Longhorn cattle, began in 1975. It featured songs from "Tres Hombres" and "Fandango," their fourth album. Although their concert earnings were now in the tens of millions, by the end of the tour the group was exhausted. They took a break that ended up lasting three years. Manager Bill Ham stayed busy, however, shrewdly negotiating a lucrative recording contract with Warner Brothers that is still talked about in the music business. Their next two albums, "Deguello" and "El Loco," were well received with hits like "Cheap Sunglasses" and "Tube Snake Boogie."

The next album, "Eliminator," featuring musically controversial electronic instruments, debuted ZZ Tops biggest hits, "Legs" and "Sharp-Dressed man." The synthesizers and drum machines caused controversy in other ways as well. According to former roadie David Blayney in his book, "Sharp Dressed Men," sound engineer Linden Hudson co-wrote much of the material on the album as a live-in high-tech music teacher to Beard and Gibbons. Hudson claims that in addition to not getting songwriting credit, Ham worked to cover up his contributions to the album. Despite continued denials by the band, it settled a five-year legal battle with Hudson, paying him $600,000 after he allegedly proved he held the copyright on the song "Thug." Another copyright suit was brought by a co-writer of John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen," the alleged basis of "La Grange." That case was settled and sealed. The group's eighth album, "Afterburner," with its continued use of synthesizers, became a worldwide smash hit.

Until MTV came along in the '80s, ZZ Top had declined all offers for TV appearances. Their first video, "Gimme All Your Lovin'," set the style for follow-ups "Legs" and "Sharp-Dressed man." The addition of videos took the band's famous mystique and popularity to an all-time high.

In 1981, ZZ Top joined a diverse group, organized by art patron and civic leader Marilyn Lubetkin and including such philanthropists as Dominique de Menil, to donate money to purchase J.D. McKissack's Orange Show from his heir. The Orange Show, an open-air, multimedia sculptural installation dedicated to the orange, is Texas' leading example of an art form called "folk art environment." For their support of the blues and an art form, the band  was given a piece of wood from Muddy Waters' shack in Clarksdale, Mississippi. They had it made into a guitar, named it the "Muddywood," and sent it on a tour to raise funds for the Delta Blues Museum.

By 1990, the band had sold 50 million records. Tragedy struck in 1991 when Ham's wife, Cecile, was murdered. A 23-year-old man on parole with three prior convictions strangled her for her car so he wouldn't have to walk to his halfway house. In spite of hard times personally, ZZ Top's 1996 album, "Rythmeen" was considered one of their best. Gibbons called it the "first pure trio record of our career," because only the three of them played on it. That return to an earlier sound, made more pure and raw, continued on their 1999 album, "XXX," which celebrates the band's thirtieth anniversary. At the turn of the century, ZZ Top was the only rock group with its original members after three decades. Amazing !!!!