I sort of wince whenever I read the expressed shock of social media sharers taken aback at the death of aged musicians like Gordon Lightfoot, Robbie Robertson, or Charlie Watts. After all, no one should be shocked by the death of septuagenarians or octogenarians. The surprising thing to me is that these musicians managed to amass so many years given all the primary and secondary smoke they inhaled – not to mention the drugs, unsafe sex, and chartered flights.

Nevertheless, Jimmy Buffett’s demise did surprise me, maybe because he seemed unstoppable and forever young, a near (if not literal) billionaire who transformed his pop-a-top Texas-tinged Calypso into a financial lifestyle empire. I perhaps should add here that my cynicism prevented me ever coming close to being a parrothead. Despite my epicureanism, I’m not a fan of “resort casual” or much of his music after his AIA album. Maybe he was too much like me, or I was too much like him, to like him. 

That said, Jimmy seemed to be a genuinely good fellow. I saw him live once, not on stage, but sitting across the bar from me in Oliver’s Pub in Columbia, South Carolina in 1976. His girlfriend/future wife was student at USC at the time, as was I, sort of. I’m not one to intrude upon celebrity, so I let him and her be.

What does surprise me, though, is how much his death saddens me. “Know thyself,” the Delphic Oracle advises. Maybe I need to get around to that before it’s too late.

Me in 1976 on the left along with John Robinson and someone named Lee (photo credit Jim Huff)