Before the name Jimmy Buffett became synonymous with Margaritaville, with fans nicknamed Parrot Heads, and with an entire lifestyle that spawned its own industry, there existed a scruffier, stranger, and considerably less predictable band that was finding its way through the bars and backroads of Florida's Key West. Spin ↗
It is precisely this formative period that is the subject of a new documentary. Magazine Spin published an exclusive preview of it, capturing the genuine spirit of the original Coral Reefer Band lineup. In the excerpt, longtime Buffett tour manager Bob Liberman, known by the nickname "Lip Balm," recalls the late harmonica player Greg "Fingers" Taylor and how he refused to get a proper pillowcase. Spin ↗
As Buffett earned more money and the band moved into increasingly better hotels, the musicians naturally upgraded their luggage. Taylor, however, stuck with his modest approach: a pillowcase stuffed with clothes. According to Liberman, the sight of the band arriving at the Ritz-Carlton, where a uniformed hotel attendant waited for the luggage and received Taylor's pillowcase, became a constant source of amusement. Spin ↗
It is a small, wonderfully human story that captures the larger narrative the film is about: before the audience knew the polished Coral Reefer Band of the following decades, Buffett and his musicians were young players chasing a dream, living on the road, and figuring it out as they went. Spin ↗
The film was directed and produced by John H. Cunningham, with Ted E. Haynes as the second producer. It returns to the seventies and early eighties, when Key West provided both the setting and creative impulse for the music that Buffett was building with his original band. The film is built on rare, previously unreleased archival footage and interviews with founding members and people from the tour. Spin ↗
Jimmy Buffett died in September 2023 at the age of seventy-six.
Illustration photo: Official U.S. Navy Page from United States of America
PO1 Peter Burghart / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
Before Margaritaville Came. Documentary Returns to Key West and the First Lineup of Coral Reefer Band
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