{"id":122610,"date":"2023-09-02T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-02T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=122610"},"modified":"2023-09-02T08:37:05","modified_gmt":"2023-09-02T15:37:05","slug":"guitar-talk-jimmy-buffett-on-his-evolving-collection-of-golden-era-instruments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/guitar-talk-jimmy-buffett-on-his-evolving-collection-of-golden-era-instruments\/","title":{"rendered":"Guitar Talk: Jimmy Buffett on His Evolving Collection of Golden-Era Instruments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jimmy Buffett passed away September 1, 2023 at 76. Republished here is a conversation with the “Margaritaville” singer-songwriter about his collection of rarified golden-era guitars, which originally appeared in the May-June 2021 issue of <\/em>Acoustic Guitar magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been spending a lot of time catching  up with all my guitars down here in Pandemic-ville,\u201d quips Jimmy Buffett, relaxing at his home studio in Palm Beach, Florida. \u201cY\u2019know, if you\u2019re lucky enough to get to that point where you\u2019re on the road and you\u2019ve got a little money, in any town you pull into you\u2019re looking at and probably buying guitars. The thing is, I buy them when I\u2019m on the road, and then I send them back home. Now, since I probably only bring five or six of my real workhorses with me on the road, these other great guitars sort of sit at home. Well, suddenly I find myself with the time to really enjoy playing and caring for these great instruments. That\u2019s been a silver lining in this whole damn thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buffett, of course, is the global musical avatar of sun-and-surf devotees everywhere, best known for composing modern island-infused standards like \u201cMargaritaville,\u201d<\/a> \u201cCome Monday,\u201d<\/a> and \u201cChanges in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,\u201d<\/a> not to mention his expansive current resume as a successful restaurateur, best-selling author, Broadway auteur, devoted philanthropist, and beacon to his legions of fans who dub themselves Parrotheads. The man has done very well, as they say. But even with his multiple projects and pursuits, he remains as passionate a guitar aficionado, player, and collector as you\u2019re likely to meet. These days he\u2019s been focusing on developing his Brazilian jazz chord and lick vocabulary, and, of course, hunkering down with his many rarified golden-era guitars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jimmy<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Buried Treasure<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Many of Buffett\u2019s most cherished instruments found their way onto his latest album, Songs You Don\u2019t Know by Heart<\/a><\/em>, a fan-curated collection of his lesser-known songs rerecorded in solo or duo settings, many performed with his longtime writing partner, songwriter and producer Mac McAnally. His guitar choices for diamonds in the rough like \u201cWoman Goin\u2019 Crazy on Caroline Street\u201d<\/a> and \u201cDeath of an Unpopular Poet\u201d<\/a>\u2014a remarkable song based on the tragic deaths of poet Kenneth Patchen and singer Richard Fari\u00f1a\u2014were equally deliberate, nods not only to each song\u2019s provenance, but also to the guitars\u2019 own histories, and the special demands of tracking live with guitar and voice at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A great example is Buffett\u2019s 1939 Gibson J-100. \u201cThose are not delicate guitars!\u201d laughs Buffett. \u201cThose guitars were built to be played loud, to create a big sound in a room, so they\u2019re perfect for those times when you\u2019re recording yourself singing and playing at the same time. I used it on this new version of \u2018Woman Goin\u2019 Crazy on Caroline Street,\u2019 because the original version has that same kind of solo-act bigness to the guitar.\u201d Great-sounding guitar, for sure, but wait until you hear Buffett\u2019s story behind it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jimmy<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was living in Aspen, Colorado, for the summer at that time,\u201d Buffett recounts, \u201cand the only guy I knew who had a Gibson Everly Brothers Flattop model was my pal J.D. Souther. But man, I really wanted one of my own. I just loved the look and sound of that guitar. I was finally able to find a 1962 Everly Brothers through a guy at a shop in Florida. A little bit later, J.D. came to Aspen to play a show, and we had a party for him. When he got there, I said, \u2018C\u2019mon over here, man, I want to show you something\u2019 I got out my 1962 Everly Brothers and started playing it, jamming with J.D., and it was going great. Then J.D. stops and says, \u2018Jimmy, I\u2019ve got to talk to you for a minute. I didn\u2019t tell you this, but my Everly Brothers got stolen about two months ago. And you\u2019ve been playing it for the last ten minutes!\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, I gave that guitar right back to J.D. on the spot,\u201d Buffett continues. \u201cAnd I contacted the guy in Florida that sold it to me\u2014he sold Moroccan rugs, guitars, and hash pipes, as I recall\u2014and I said, \u2018I don\u2019t know where you got that guitar you sold me, but it was stolen, and it belonged to a friend of mine, so I gave it back to him. So, unless you want to see federal investigators coming down here, you\u2019d better have something for me of equal value that I can trace the numbers on to make sure it\u2019s not stolen. And you\u2019d better have it quick<\/em>.\u2019 Sure enough, he showed up a few days later with that 1962 Gibson J-100.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another high-flying guitar tale concerns Buffett\u2019s semi-legendary \u201cPainted Lady,\u201d a 1969 Martin D-28 that he bought at George Gruhn\u2019s original GTR shop in downtown Nashville in the 1970s, and on which Gruhn<\/a> and repair tech Randy Wood had done some additional inlay work, along the lines of a D-45. \u201cThat was my \u2018A\u2019 guitar,\u201d recalls Buffett. \u201cHeck, I only had two guitars at the time\u2014my D-18 12-string and my new D-28. Around that time I had begun hanging out with writer Tom McGuane and landscape painter Russell Chatham. We were kind of running around in the mountains in those days doing some psychedelics. Well, we were hanging around the lake with these girls who kinda looked like mermaids, and I said, \u2018Russell, why don\u2019t you paint a mermaid on my guitar?\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s just say our thoughts had cleared a bit by the next day, and when Russell asked me if I still liked it, I said, \u2018Well, it kinda reminds me of the girl on the Herbal Essences shampoo bottle.\u2019 [Laughs.<\/em>] I\u2019d envisioned some Old World scrimshaw sort of thing! But y\u2019know what? When I moved down to Key West full-time, that\u2019s the very guitar I wrote \u2018Margaritaville\u2019 on. It\u2019s just my most trusted guitar for nearly anything I want to play, and on the new album I played it on \u2018Love in the Library.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jimmy<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t Stop the Carnival<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Other gems from Buffett\u2019s evolving collection include a 1951 Martin D-18 that he picked up in Paris and immortalized on his song \u201cRue de la Guitare\u201d; a ca. 1887 Martin 0-28 that he played on \u201cTonight I Just Need My Guitar\u201d; a cutaway Benedetto Andy 3\/4-scale archtop that he likes to play through a Henriksen combo amp; an \u201cincredibly loud-sounding\u201d 1949 Epiphone Emperor that was a birthday gift from McAnally; and newer Martins, including a clutch of his own signature D-18s, the LX Jimmy Buffett \u201cLittle Marlin\u201d Special Edition, and a \u201csweet\u201d 000-28 with a built-in L.R. Baggs pickup system and tuner that Buffett plans to use for a series of socially distanced \u201cboat shows\u201d across the Southern U.S. coast in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buffett extends his love of the instrument to the community. In addition to his long-standing work with the Singing for Change Foundation<\/a>, he is working with Fender on a buyback program that would allow underserved youth to buy less expensive Fender guitars and eventually trade up, at very generous rates, to more premium instruments. He\u2019s also offering many of his private collection instruments for students\u2019 use at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi (\u201cSouthern Miss\u201d), based on a merit system where the prospective use of these fine guitars helps motivate students to elevate their academic performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI never really saw myself as being a guitar collector,\u201d Buffett explains, \u201cbut after going to visit Vince Gill and later working with Mark Knopfler, they really got me into it. Not anywhere near their level, though. God almighty, Knopfler\u2019s got a lot of guitars!\u201d In order to house all his own lovely instruments, Buffett built a private studio at his home in Sag Harbor, New York. \u201cWhen it was all built and done and I was ready to take it all in,\u201d he recounts, \u201cmy property manager said, \u2018No, Jimmy, you can\u2019t go in yet. Just give me a little bit.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I did go in,\u201d Buffett recalls, \u201che\u2019d put all of my dozens of guitars up on stands, all of them standing up in the house. Wow. I mean, just taking all of it in at that moment, I remembered exactly which guitars I\u2019d written certain songs on and the feelings that drove those songs. It brought back exactly where and how I\u2019d come by each of those guitars, and the incredible backstories behind them. It was truly overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n\n<\/a>\n\n

\nThis article originally appeared in the May\/June 2021<\/a> issue of Acoustic Guitar<\/em> magazine.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n\n\n\n
\"Know<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jimmy Buffett passed away September 1, 2023 at 76. Today, we’re revisiting this conversation with the “Margaritaville” singer-songwriter about his collection of rarified golden-era guitars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":122229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Jimmy Buffett is as passionate a guitar aficionado, player, and collector as you\u2019re likely to meet. Take a tour of his many rarified golden-era guitars.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1696,1695],"tags":[1304],"ppma_author":[1597],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Back-Cover-photo_Julie-Skarratt.jpg?fit=750%2C500&ssl=1","authors":[{"term_id":1597,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"james-rotondi","display_name":"James Rotondi","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/roto.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/roto.jpg"},"user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","description":"James Rotondi is a guitarist, journalist, and critic."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122610"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":141861,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122610\/revisions\/141861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122610"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=122610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}