Jimmy Buffett and Mac McAnally

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today are Jimmy Buckett and Matt mcinally. We
worked together and separately and make a great team. Gentlemen. Hello, Okay,
let's let's talk with you. Mac. Where exactly are you
right now? I'm in the Attic in Nashville, Tennessee. Uh,

(00:29):
in a little overdub room where I try to make
joyful noise. It's a regular place for me. Yeah. Do
you live in Nashville or uh? You have a house
in Mississippi, Alabama between here and Muscle Shoals, Alabama. My, uh,
just cross pollin ad a couple of a couple of
recording studios with beds in them. And for those who

(00:51):
were uninitiated, how far is Muscle Shoals from Nashville? It's
about two and a half hours, or maybe a third
of a song if you're writing, you know, I tend
to drive with my knees and play a mandolin back
and forth and so. But but it's about a two
and a half hour regular drive. And Jimmy, where are
you right now? I am in sag Harbor, New York,

(01:12):
Bob at my house here, summer house, and have you
the entire coronavirus house now, well that's my question. Have
you been there the whole time during since March in
the lockdown? No? Actually, I got locked down in California
for about almost three and a half months. I was
visiting my kids when it all happened, and there two

(01:33):
of my children are living out there, and we have
a house out there to where my wife likes to
go for like January April, so we were there, so
we just stayed and then we came back here in May.
And to what degree are you social distancing lockdown quarantining
near in sag Harbor. I am. I'm at a bubble here,

(01:53):
but it's a bit it's a pretty cool bubble, so
I can do things that I want to do. You know,
it's kind of like being at camp. But to me,
it's like, uh, you know, I've been talking about taking
a year off for forty two years, but this is
not what I intended to do. But you know, there
are some silver linings in it that my kids are
all here and I probably wouldn't see them this much

(02:16):
ever for the rest of my life. And it's been
great and uh and busy, and thanks to zoom and
to Matt, we've been doing a lot of stuff out
of this is a model my studio here in tach Harvard.
So we're doing a lot of zoom and the stuff
from Marguet Redeville Radio and margat Revill TV. Now you
mentioned camp. Did you go to summer camp? Yes, nothing

(02:39):
like this. Summer camp to me was in what Bellefontaine, Mississippi,
and a in a mosquito infested by you with the
dormitory with ex World War two beds in it. You know.
But I would look into my Boy Scout magazine and
see these beautiful pictures of camps in Vermont and Maine.

(03:00):
You had to sell Rick magazines to win a win
a trip to those camps. I never made it. So
one of my kids went off to one of those
camps up here. You know, we dropped them off. I'm
gonna stay at least have breakfast because it looks really good. Okay,
So the camp you went to, was it a boy
Scout camp? No, it was a Catholic school camp, Camp Gravolin. Yeah.

(03:23):
It was like where all the parochial schools but from
Mobile to Pascagoula to like Buluxie that's where you all
went camping. And were there girls there? Yes, there were,
and wrote life is just a time. No, there's a
there's a top much. Cousin Baxter went to camp with me,

(03:44):
but he got homestick after two days and I stayed
the whole two weeks because I knew I had a
little more sensitive benchure than he did. Well, I always felt,
you know, I would someone said you want to go
to summer camp for the rest of your life, I'd
make that deal. But that's where I had my first
real experiences with girls. How about you? No, No, this

(04:05):
is tackling, Bob. Come on, you know this is another
day in another time. I waited till I finished high
school and moved to New Orleans in the French border,
and I didn't and I made up for a lot
of lost time. Well that begs the question, what's your
view on Catholicism today? Well, uh, you know, I gotta

(04:29):
say to this about that um being taught by the
Sisters of Mercy and then the Jesuit's. Uh. They had
kind of a superiority complex to the other orders in
the Catholic Church, and they were educators and they were
warrior priests, so I went along with it for a while.
But then not now to what degreed you believe you're

(04:51):
negatively inhibited or affected by your Catholic upbringing. Uh, let's
see the good things. Where when we were alter boys,
we had had a friend Ricky Benson, and we they
they encourage you to have contest to say, you know,
served as many masses as you could, you can win

(05:11):
a Red Shandy second baseman's and mid for doing it,
and I want it. And we served more masses during
went than anyone. And then we got good at funerals,
and so we got out of school to go serve funerals.
So I was already making a high stuff anyway about it.
Red shandyd you you who pronounced it better than I did?
Were you a big baseball player as a second baseman?

(05:33):
Red Shandy says, one of my heroes, Red Shandyson and
Henry Aaron was from Mobile, so of course he was
a big hero. I just remember was in nineteen sixty
two with Bobby Richardson. You know, caught the lines right
from the Pirates to in the World Series. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Well yeah, okay, So Mac, what you do during the

(05:54):
summer growing up well, we uh we raised catfish uh
in Mississippi is uh so we were We were farmers
on several levels. We had about a five acre garden
because my dad, you know, was sadistic that way. It's
a lot of bending over, a lot of full of
peanuts and potatoes. But we we raised cat fishings and

(06:14):
that kind of took the joy out of fishing for
me for the most part, because my dad would volunteer. Oh, Michael,
go down the hill and catch a mess of fish
for Mrs Woodruff and dress him and bring him up
there and put them in the refrigerator. And that's that's
a few hours work. That that sort of takes a
little bit of the joy out of fishing. So consequently
I took a guitar down the hill and entertained myself
with that, mostly me in the shade, avoiding serious work

(06:37):
playing guitar. That was pretty much my my childhood. I
actually worked on a farm picking vegetables. Two days. That
was enough for me. It's not where where was the farm, Bob.
This was in Fairfield, Connecticut. You know, you need a
summer job. Remember the guy next to me had a
transistor in his pocket. But never again. I didn't even
get paid the second day. I just went home. Forget

(06:59):
it about raising raising catfish? Was that your father's mean business? Now,
my dad was a school teacher and my mom was
a gospel piano player, and he was a terrible business man.
We raised catfish and gave him away. I don't think
we ever sold a catfish, not one single catfish. He
just had. You just had me dressed him like I
was the entire staff, and and give him away. So

(07:20):
so patients. I learned a lot of patients from my
dad A little bit slower. How do you raise catfish? Well,
you you go down to a to a lake that
you either have or you made man made. We we
hit an artesian well looking for a lake and made
a couple of little lakes on the We had maybe
thirty five forty acres and uh and and you you

(07:40):
put catfish fingerlings in there and you feed them puring
a catfish chow, which was another one of my chores.
And uh and at that point, fishing is not really
hard because they will just follow my ass around. You know.
All I gotta do is walk around the lake and
there's a dark cloud of catfish following me everywhere. I go,
I could throw a raw treble hook out there and
catch three fish on it. It was not really a

(08:01):
great challenge other than I knew I was gonna have
to dress him and give them to anybody, So I
didn't even really want to catch him in the first place.
But that's, you know, another story. But that's that's how
it works. If you're in a catfish child, you gotta
you gotta have it. Okay. So how many kids were
there in your family. I was the oldest of three.
I had two younger sisters, and uh, and I kind

(08:21):
of was I kind of tormented them. I was probably
not a good big brother. Uh Mississippi tradition, I'm guessing, uh, well,
not big from Mississippi. What what is the tradition with
older brothers. Well, I know that I pretty much they've
come to like me in as an adult, my sisters,
but it took a long time, took a few decades.

(08:43):
I remember I remember spreading my baby sisters fingers out
on the table with a dart and just kind of
going between her fingers super fast, like like it was
pulp fiction or something like that. And I said, if
you don't move, it's gonna be fine, uh this, you know,
I thought I knew this guy really did. Well, I'm
just bring I'm bringing out some bad stuff, you know.
But you aread cat cat child and sticking Darcia. I

(09:07):
I was the oldest of three and had two sisters.
That's nice to mom. Well I'm nice now, I know. Okay,
since we're into this. Your two sisters, mac or how
much younger than you? They're each were stacked in three
year increments. So I'm I'm three years and six years
older than my sisters, and you, Jimmy, I am two

(09:31):
years older than my oldest sister and ten years older
than my younger sister. Well, this begs the question. Usually
the oldest, never mind a male, is the family favorite,
and all the hopes and dreams of the parents are
in the oldest and their supportive It was that your
experience of the oldest of the oldest female. My my

(09:54):
oldest sister was the dream girl. And uh, I was
supposed to go and followed the buffet NaN's uh uh
calling of going to the sea, and I was supposed
to gone to the you know, enaval academy. That didn't
work out. Okay, so you're the middle kid now, that's

(10:17):
what I thought. But all the hopes and dreams were
in the middle, sister, that pigs the pigs. The question
who dominated your family at home? Your father, your mother, Well,
it was kind of a mixer. And my mother worked.
She worked, She ran labor relations at a shipyard and mobile.
My dad was a project engineer home building ships. So

(10:37):
they both worked and uh, we were banging, you know,
so they kind of shared these. My father was a
disciplinary and my mother was the artist. Okay, and were
you this was a different era where you kind of
a free range kid, where we were troublemaker, were a
goody goody. Now I was like I was still you know,
I was still an altar boy until I was like

(10:59):
in high school. And know, I didn't I didn't do
much and we spent a lot of time. I had
no brothers, like I said, So I had cousins in
Pascor Google. Uh, two cousins, the three actually, and I
would go down to where my grandfather and grandmother lived
and all the cousins would would go there. It was
only but you know, my dad was from Pasca Google
and my mom from Gulfport, so I had family in

(11:21):
close proximity. But it was all on the Gulf coast,
so we did a lot of moving between that, and
then we go over and meet and see the wicked
part of the family married into an Italian kind of
low rent mafia group in New Orleans. Okay, And were
you a good student? I made two a's, uh, and

(11:42):
in high school it wasn't that interested in. One of
them was an art and that was the the semester
that we did float decoration from Marty Grath and type
I did. I made a and type in him and
a and float decoration. So that probably it says a
little about me. Hey, And that was the best course
I took in high school in retrospect with computers, just

(12:04):
for just once again for the ignorant northerners, of which
I include myself. How far is momobile from New Orleans? Okay?
Going back to you, Mac, So your father was a teacher.
What did he teach? Uh? You know it? I kind
of caught it in a in a poor loop. He was.

(12:24):
He was the elementary school principle when I was in
elementary school, So I was what was that like being
the son of the principle. I was watched, I was
watched really close Uh, and I got beat up by
about twenty kids the first day that I went to
school because and then then once once they've realized my
dad was the principal, it didn't never happen again. But uh,

(12:48):
all the way through school, he would move up. You know,
he moved up to Junior High when I went to
junior High, and then he was a sister principal high
school when I was in high school. And I I
actually dropped out of high school to put to play
in a band when I was in the lefth grade.
And and I had to had to make a presentation
to my dad to get permission. Uh, as a teacher,

(13:10):
that was a pretty good deal. I had a little
pie chart I had, you know it was it didn't
I had a little pie chart? Yeah? Yeah, okay. And
at what point did your father okay when you sold that?
Was it like I'm done or if this doesn't work out,
I'm coming back. No? No, Honestly, I wouldn't have done

(13:30):
it without his permission because I knew he was going
to catch the hell for me dropping out of school
because you know, I was a teacher's kid. You're not
supposed to drop out of school. You know, but I am.
Probably if you talk to musicians every day, Bob, you're
you're not going to talk to very many that are
what their parents wanted them to be. I'm a musician.

(13:51):
That is what my parents wanted me to be. They
probably envisioned that I would be a youth minister or
music minister at a church somewhere when they but they
wanted me to a musician from the time I hit
the ground. One one of my grandmothers said he's got
the call to preach, which is, you know, a noble
thing in North Mississippi. But the other grandmother, which I'm
very grateful for, said no, he's got the call to

(14:12):
preach music. The second grandmother, we're just about the same age.
So to what degree were you affected by the Beatles
or were you a big musician already before that? Well,
we we were in sort of a valley, and I
didn't really have much in the way of radio except
we could get radio late at night, so I never
I didn't hear we did gospel music at church, we

(14:35):
did played gospel music at the house my mom. That's
how we entertained ourselves. We were one of the last
families in my hometown to get a television. So our
entertainment in the evening, maybe three nights a week, was
my mom would start playing piano, and our neighbors would
just come over to the house with whatever instruments they had.
They didn't necessarily fit together. It's just literally like the
old joyful noise biblical thing. It might be a dulcimmer in,

(14:58):
a soprano, saxophone, disparent instruments, just all clanging and smoking
cigarettes and drinking coffee and singing songs. That's that's what
happened in my house, like two or three nights a week.
So actually, my first record I ever bought was Let
It Be. In the Beatles had already broken up when
you know, you know I got a Beatles. Yeah, mine

(15:21):
went backwards. I started with Let It Be and went backwards,
you know, because I was late to the game. I've
been playing music. I mean I was playing. I was
playing in bars before I had ever even really heard
a lot of the songs that we were playing. Okay,
were you a good student? Uh? I was a ridiculously
good student until about the seventh grade, and when I

(15:43):
was thirteen, I started playing in Honky talks at the
State line. I played in church up till then and
from thirteen. My my home county is a dry county.
There was no legal alcohol sales, No, no honky talks. No,
you couldn't buy a beer untilteen. You couldn't buy a
beer in my hometown. But since you wrote about it,
where is your hometown? Well, uh, Bell Mint, Mississippi, the

(16:06):
very northeast corner of Mississippi is my hometown, not far
from Tupelo, where Elvis came from. A matter of fact,
we're we're sort of cousin in laws. Elvis and I.
My aunt Maverine mcinally married Flavis Presley. A little bit slower,
tell that part again. Well, Flavius Pressley, who was the
first cousin of Elvis, married my aunt Maverin mcinnally. Uh,

(16:30):
And so we were sort of cousin in laws, like,
which is not rare in North Mississippi. Pretty much everybody
we are cousins. Yeah, we've run back, Yeah we have.
We have we have a blood connection, which is also Mississippi.
But at any rate, Uh, Tupelo is where Elvis came from. Uh.
But he got all the he had all the musical
ambition in the family. I got maybe a little bit

(16:52):
of the talent, but it was left, when did you
start playing an instrument? In what instrument was that? It
was piano first for me and my mom was she
was a great gospel piano player, and she played both
by ear and and the old fashioned shape notes, which
is a whole that you could do a whole other
podcast on shape notes. Sometimes I don't even know what

(17:12):
that is? What is that? Uh? They there was a
shape for every note of do REMI fossil la t do.
There's a there's a triangle is dough and you know
there's a different shape. And so it's very similar to
the Nashville number system basically, like like if you're in
the key of C, C is one in Nashville, and

(17:33):
C F and G is one, four and five. Well,
the shape notes, you can look at the shape notes
and you can play in any key. It doesn't matter
if you're looking at if the triangle is one, you
can just you can just look at those shapes and play.
My my mother played that way, but she wanted me
to learn traditional classical, so she put me in what
was to me much more boring piano lessons because she

(17:55):
wanted me to learn correctly in a way that she
felt like she had not. And I took those from
like the fourth grade to about the sixth grade. And
then I negotiated the guitar because you can take the
guitar to the lake, and we didn't have air conditioning
in our house and I wanted out. Uh So the
guitar was a good trade. And and you know went

(18:17):
from there. Okay, two questions. Were you a popular kid? No? No,
I was an alien? Uh So are you more of
a loner? Are you a guy who fits in with
a group or what? I like everybody. I've always kind
of gotten along with everybody. But but I honestly say
I never really felt so much like I fit in.
I wasn't part of any click. Uh And I and

(18:40):
I Jimmy will tell you I'm pretty easily entertained. You
can you can leave me on a porch for a
week and I won't do anything. You said, find something
to eat? You know, pretty bad. But he he won't
wear a hat. And what is the what's behind that mac? Well,
it's it's twofold one. As I an enormous head. I'm

(19:02):
a big guy. They wanted me to play football in
junior high school, and the high school did not own
a helmet that would go on my head. I had
this sort of tearful meeting with the coach. The high
school coach came in there and said, son, you're a
big boy, and we'd like to have you out there
on the defensive line if you can get any one
of these high school helmets on that junior high head
of yours, I want you out there on the field.
And uh, And sure enough, I sat there in the

(19:24):
high school locker room when I pushed as hard as
I could on every helmet at Belmont High School loaned
and I got one down to maybe my forehead, and
the fast face mask was actually all the way up
above my hairline. And I go running out on the
field and he's like, no, that's not on. I'm sorry son.
I couldn't play football even in junior high because there
was no helmet that would go on my head. Now,

(19:46):
if someone sees you now, you do have quite a
head of hair, quite a bush. Yeah, we had crew
cuts back then, and it's the same. It might as
well say spaulding up there is. It's just a big round.
I would love to say there's a brain in there.
That's the it matches it. But it's just grizzle. It's
just a big hit full of gristle. And then just
one final question on this topic. You played Hockey Talks.

(20:07):
We always here and we see in movies even the
Blues Brothers of the chicken wire and people throwing stuff.
Is that real? I never had the chicken Go ahead,
Jimy go, you take the first one. I'll take one too, Yes, yes,
and uh I wrote I wrote it in a song
called the pastor Google Run one time about because I

(20:30):
had one of my uncles was a merchant seaman and
he was kind of a little a bit of a
wild person. And so he got off of a boat
one time and came in two mobile and said, and
as my dad saw, I said, well he maybe you
need Jimmy to take to try to be the rest
of the way at Pasca Google. These were in those days,

(20:52):
and so I thought, and he had like a Triumph
t R three because in whether it was stole owner
or there, or they were after me or whatever. But
I drove him to that and in the state line
he stopped at every bar and that was the first
place I saw chicken waring a bar in front of
a van. And it's the first place where the guy

(21:15):
there was a drunken there. I'll never forget this. And
they threw the guy out and he came back with
the chainsaw. I started cutting the bar whoa, and we
got into Triumph and I drove him home. And I've
been behind chicken wear too, Yes, spat Muse Louisiana and

(21:36):
I can remember that yet, Mac, you wanted to add
that or did Jimmy cover cover that? Well? No, I'm
gonna add a little bit because it's it's it relates
to him. I after after growing up only in church,
I've never been to a hockey talnk. You had to
go across the Tennessee line to get the one, which
is about an hour away. I was thirteen. This guy

(21:56):
came to our house and knocked on the door and
introduced him off to my parents and told him that
he had a band called Dean and the Reefers. Get that, Jimmy,
that was the first band I was ever remember I
of Dean and You were not my first reefer band. Yeah,
the thirteen years old and he he had heard that
I was a good piano player, and his piano player
had quit. I was actually not a good piano player,

(22:19):
but he had heard I was, and he made a
pitch to my parents to let me play five nights
a week at Iron City, Tennessee, at a place called
the Circle E Club. And I had to go through
muscle shoals to get there. But at any rate, I'm
I'm figuring my my dad's about to throw this guy
off the porch. Because my parents had never been to
a honkey talk, We're never ever gonna go. All the

(22:41):
years I played honkey talks, so they would never come
and hear me play. They wouldn't walk in the door
of one of those places. They were very religious. It
was not their deal. And I'm thinking they're about to
kick this guy out. But he he kept talking and
he said, well, I'm a good Christian man, and I know,
I know you want your boy to be a musician.
He needs to learn to play with other musicians. And
I will drive down here and pick him up, and

(23:02):
I'll take him up to Tennessee and i'll bring him
home and I'll make sure he behaves himself and uh,
and I'll pay him two hundred and fifty dollars a week.
And I was thirteen years old in nineteen seventy, and
that was more money than my dad was making teaching
school in Mississippi in nineteen seventies, more money than my
mom was making at the Wrangler factory in Belmont making

(23:25):
blue jeans. And something in that guy's presentation made an
impression on my parents. And that Friday night, I was
at the Circle E Club in Iron City, Tennessee, wearing
a lime green leisure suit that was a hand me
down from George Jones's band that did not fit, and
I was playing songs that I've never heard in my
life on the piano. And although I didn't have chicken

(23:46):
wire there, there were live chainsaws in that club. There
were a couple of guys that would rev up their
chainsaw instead of applauding at the end of the song.
So I was afraid, you know, I was. I was.
It was like deliverance or something. I was a ready
to get off stage. We would take a break and
I would just go hide behind the piano and uh
and wait un till he's played again. But but I

(24:07):
made two or fifty bucks a week, got home about
two thirty in the morning, and got up and went
to school. Of seventh thirty in the seventh grade. Wow, Jimmy,
So you went to Catholic school. Yeah, all twelve years. Okay,
what kind of student were you? I was. I was

(24:27):
an average student. And there there's something I loved history,
and I would things that I that inspired me. I
like I like in English, I like reading. I like
reading all the classics. And so then that was my
mother was the reader and the family and she at
that point wanted me to be a you know, another
Mississippi literary person, I think, because she adored the people

(24:49):
like you do are wealthy and uh and and William
Farker and people like that, and she made us read them.
And then you know, and then the and the music
you listen to is your parents music, because this is
before there even and so they had great musical taste.
And you know, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Rosemary Clooney, people
like that that I heard. But Frank Sinatra I really

(25:10):
liked as a kid. And then my grandfather would bring
him all records because he was still a captain of
a steamship and he his run was from New Orleans
to uh down to the Caribbean to Argentina and Brazil,
and he loved Clipso and Bossanova music, and he'd buy
albums down there and bring them to my mom. And

(25:32):
so that's where I first heard Caribbean music, was those
records my grandfather broke back to my mother. And at
what point did you start playing an instrument? I didn't
play the guitar until I went to I went off
my first year in college to Harvard University of Plays
I did not want to go to, and i'd I'd
blown the whole thing with the Naval Academy and uh,

(25:52):
well wait, how serious was this Naval Academy thing? Well,
it was serious in my parents eyes, but obviously not
in seriously it should have been. And I, you know,
the good news now is, uh, I'm kind of a
part time uh instructor on on offshore sailing as as
like what they call auxiliary at the Naval Academy. So

(26:13):
I kind of I went from not men here to
get in to being a sailing teacher there. So I'm good.
Did you actually applied? Yes, you had to have a
congressional appointment in those days, which I think you still did,
and that was all politics, do it? You know? My?

(26:34):
You know my? Like I said, my mom and dad
worked at the ship, right, they knew some people had connections,
but I blew it on the tests. And then so
I went away to Auburn. What what what? What before
you get there? You want to go to the Naval Ecademy. Yeah,
but I guess not bad enough, huh. And so I
wound up at Auburn, and um, you know, it's one

(26:55):
of those first things. And I still was a pretty
shy guy there. I mean, I you know, I went
to one of those pledge parties plitched, you know, in
the opening of school at this fraternity house, and there
was a guy playing guitar, and all the girls were
rather interested in what he was singing. And I noticed that.
And and so when it when it came time to

(27:18):
you know, pledge of fraternity, I knew nobody there. Knew
nothing about the fraternity system because we never had those
in in in Catholic school. So I said, you know,
this guy was playing the guitar. I like this place.
I'll pledge here. So ironically enough, when I did, they
they gave you a room assignment in the house. And
my room assignments wound up being with the guy named

(27:40):
Johnny young Blood who was the guy playing on the guitar.
So he I walked in the room, I show him
a little and you know, they bought guitars and I
kind of faith seeing Elvis songs and my parents parties
or Marty raw Thing, but I never really played until
I got to know Johnny young Blood And I said,
how do you do that? How do you do And
he said, I only know three course G, C, and D,

(28:02):
and I would teach me those cords and that's about
all I'll learned it all and with those three chords,
and it worked out, and Johnny young Wood was ironically enough, uh,
I was clear. I was, you know, doing some other
chores around her, cleaning out guests and things that we're
doing now. And I looked through a whole stack of
letters that I had because I always used to keep

(28:23):
all the letters, and I had letters from Johnny Youngwood
because by that time he had had a little trouble
in his life and had an alcohol problem and and
was up and was in jail from anslaughter, but then
cleaned up around the program in prison, and I got
letters from him there. I don't know if he's still
allowed now, but I'm gonna find out. I read that

(28:44):
three days ago. Okay, your dream of going to the
academy is dashed. Prior to picking up the guitar, did
you have a vision what you wanted to do with
your life? No, I knew. I knew I was in
serious trouble because I did not tell my parents. I
flunked out in the UH after in the middle of
the second quarter. I knew it was not gonna happen.

(29:07):
And by then I was playing with Johnny, and Johnny
had had gigs in Panama City, so I kind of
made a deal with him. I said, you know, the
little bit of money my parents were sending me for school,
I said, I'll let them keep sending it to you
and I'll split it with it, but I'm gonna go
down to Panama Sit and try to get into junior
college down there because Vietnam was bubbling up and I

(29:29):
can work down there. So that was my motus Opperremdi
and uh it did not work out, and I kept
trying it out at other junior colleges, UH that, and
and finally it wasn't happening, and I knew I had
to go home and face my father. And I drove
normally I'd always drive Highway Downy along the coast because

(29:49):
that's where all my family lived. But I was so
depressed about what was happening. I said, I'm gonna go
home and join the Marines and go to Vietnam. I'm
just blown everything. And Uh. On the way there, on
the back road US eleven, I went to stop light
and I look up and I see a sign says
Pearl River Junior College. And there's this very charming and

(30:11):
very pretty girl walking through the cross walk and smiled
and wait at me. I went, I don't know, So
I pulled in. I went to the admissions that what
does it what does it take to get in here?
And they said a point five nine overall, and I went,
I got a point six and it was It turns
out it was a flunky school for everybody from l

(30:33):
s U or Old Miss or anybody. So they were
in junior college to stay out of Vietnam. And I
signed up and I went to Pearl River Junior College
and there was a guy there I started playing with.
So I continued playing there, met people, then went to
the University of Southern Mississippi just up the road, and
by then I've been in New Orleans kind of playing

(30:53):
and hoot Danny Knights for free, you know, for for
the pickup nights. And I at that point New Orleans
is already in there, and I knew that's what I
wanted to do. Then, Okay, were you a popular kid
in school? Kind of but not? You know, I was okay,
but I wasn't like kind of running then. I wasn't

(31:15):
a class blown and I wasn't an a student, so
I was somewhere in the middle. Now, okay, so what
point in this his era do you decide that you
want to be a musician professionally? I knew. I knew
it because I was working by that time. We had
a band and we were we were working. Uh very

(31:37):
I was gonna tell the Beatles story I had was that,
Uh I was, I was working on Bourbon Street and
in the folk group. And when the Sergeant Pepper came
out and by that time, I'm at school in Hattsburg, Mississippi,
but basically living in New Orleans and driving back and forth.
And uh, Sergeant Pepper came out and we bought it,

(32:00):
and we and we said, you know, we gotta chank,
we gotta become a folk rock band, and we bought
the Sergeant Pepper album and we said, all right, here's
the plan. We're gonna drop acid to night and learn
this entire album and go in and audition the next
day to the club owner and say we want to
play next store at the Gunga then and and be

(32:20):
it because we knew they had an opening for a
band there, and so we did it. We staid, and
then back at school, well a little bit lower. Hey,
did you smoke a lot of dope and drop a
lot of acid before this? Uh? Not. I didn't smoke
a lot of week because I never smoked cigarettes. But yeah,

(32:42):
during that time, yeah, I took a little acid at
the time. But then you know, then I kind of
you know, that's enough of that. But the fun thing
was that at this point I was day to a
girl in the theater department, and I knew that there
were costumes in the theater department. So after we learned
the album, we drove back to Pettisburg. She gave me

(33:04):
the key and we went in and borrowed outfits that
looked similar to what the Beatles had on. Sergeant Pepper
put those outfits on, who ran back to New Orleans
audition and got the job, and you played Sergeant Pepper.
Yes everything, We played the entire album. We became a
very popular Beatles cover band, and we started playing fraternity

(33:26):
parties all through that part of the South. Okay, you
graduated from college, yet how do you stay out of Vietnam? Um?
At that time you had to fill out forms for deferments,
you know. And uh, and and by that time I
started flying. I had two roommates who were in r
RTC at the Mississippi Southern, and they were flying in

(33:48):
a little a little airport in Hannisburgh, English flying Service
because it was part of the Navy program. So I could,
and I was making a little little money then, and
I wanted to find my dad was a fly or
in the war. And uh, he was the only one
that didn't go to see you. He flew. And so
I started flying a little bit. And so when it
came around, Uh, what happened was I was late for registering,

(34:12):
and you had a register for the draft in and
this girl in the office admissions helf has just gave
me all the forms. And I looked at him, and
I thought, man, that's I'm not supposed to be filling
this app that that's the uh, that's the selecting service
for him. I filled it out. It was this was
nineteen sixty eight and it put expected data graduation. I'm
supposed to graduate and six at the end of sixty eight,

(34:35):
I put in nineteen seventy two, and I just I
forgot about and nothing ever happened, you know. But the
thing of it was, by that time I was playing
in a bar in Hattisburg and Camp Shelby had a
had a jungle warfare training facility there and there were
people coming back from Vietnam who were training people to

(34:57):
go and they became clientele and this are and that's
the first time because I was always thinking what they
get caught. I can fly now and I will go
and they want you don't go there. And that's the
first time I heard soldiers telling me not to go
to war. And so that was a very there's a
there's a chapter in the first book or for Vietnam Mississippi,
and that's what it was about. So by that time, Okay,

(35:20):
I get ready to graduate. A call comes in to
go to the office and there's the head of our
OTC with my form that I had forge and he said,
not only am I going to see that, you go
uh into the arm I'll make sure you're in the
infantry and you go to the front lines to Vietnam
for full inness off. And I went hell with that.

(35:40):
So I went over to the naval recruiter, passed the
task as I've flown some to go to officer candidate school.
Said if I'm gonna go, I want to go as
a flyer, and so I passed that. Went for the
physical wound up. I had a peptic ulcer pod from
drinking too much in New Orleans when I was eighteen
and I was one. While that was it. I never
saw another thing there just was lucky for you. Wow,

(36:02):
you were really lucky. And then I went right back
to New Ords and just kept playing. Oh yeah, it
was like the greatest day in your life. That point
you've been okay, going back to you back you're playing
piano in this band, but a right, you would really
viewed yourself more as a guitarist. At what point do
you start writing songs and at what point do you say, hey,

(36:25):
I want to be a singer songwriter or what do
you say to yourself? Well, I was Jimmy says he
was a bashful kid. I would have been competitively bashful.
I was really bashful and uh, and I gotta say
to you also, Jimmy, I was in Dean and the Reefers.
But the interesting thing about Dean and the Reefers is

(36:46):
a Dean, the lead singer, did not know what reefer was.
He just thought it was a cool word. He was
extremely straight laced, with a crew cut, and you know,
butch wax on his hair, and and he had Dean
and the Reefers painted on our van. And he could
never figure out why all the long hairs gave us
the peace sign when we drove by, Like why did

(37:07):
they do that? You know? He had a different observation. Yeah,
but uh, but my I was I wanted to be
a guitar player, but I couldn't be. If you knew
the notes on a piano, you were sort of the
piano player. And in bands up there because everybody played guitar,
and whoever was the worst guitar player played bass. That's

(37:28):
just the way it went. You heard the old Willie
Nelson line. Ray Ray Price asked, Willie said, can you
play bass? And Willy said can't? Everybody? Uh, in reality
that not many people can play bass, but but it
was perceived that anybody could play bass. Back then. I
I would play piano, and when we took a break,

(37:48):
I would sit down behind the piano and pull out
my acoustic guitar and and and try to practice fingerpicking
when I was at these nightclub gigs and just the
physics of doing that. Uh. The guys from muscle shows,
the muscle shows, Rhythm section, guys that Roger Hawkins and
David Hood and those classic musicians, if they wanted to

(38:09):
play live, they had to go to the Tennessee Line too.
They went up above the honky Tonks. They would come
up there and sit in That's how I met those guys.
And they would come and say this idiot kids sitting
behind the piano playing acoustic guitar on the breaks. They
just come and see what I was doing, and and
they decided that I could play a little bit. And
they said, hey, man, would you would you like to

(38:30):
play in some studios? Shoot you out? And I didn't
you know, I knew what was going on in muscle shows,
but at that time, for all the music that was
happening in muscle shows, there wasn't really a dedicated acoustic
guitar player. Uh, And so they said, well, you know,
give us your number and we'll call you and you
come play some acoustic guitar. And you know, Dwayne Almand
had already gone from there, but there were great guitar

(38:52):
players there. Pete Carr was there, and and uh, Tippy
Armstrong and Eddie Hinton and Larry Byron from Stepping Wolfe
was still in in in town. But there wasn't an
acoustic player. So I started at fifteen. I started playing
Muscle Shoals sessions as an acoustic player, and I didn't
know what in the hell I was doing, but I
was in the in the presence of some people who

(39:13):
really did. I got to work with Rick Hall, and
I got to work with Terry Woodford, Clayton Ivy and
and Jerry Wexler, and great record producers came to Muscle
Shoals and I got to sit at the feet of
those guys and just be a sponge. And I didn't.
I was too bashful to say I want to be
a songwriter or a singer or the guy in the
middle of the stage. And to this day, I'm extremely

(39:37):
grateful to have this guy over here in the zoom
meeting to stand next to and uh and draft off
of in the in the NASCAR sense of drafting, because
Jimmy has that kind of ambition that I was born without.
My ambition is just to make music and try to
make it a little bit better tomorrow than I did today.
That's what drives me. And the fact that I get

(39:57):
to to be a coral reefer. Uh men. And and
in the cracks of Jimmy schedule say the little things
that pop in my head every few years and and
go play a solo show and sing that to the
listening room full of folks that want to hear. That
makes me about as lucky a guy as I could
possibly be for for what I like, I wouldn't change
anything about my life. So, Jimmy, were you always ambitious?

(40:23):
I think so? I mean, yeah, I learned, you know,
because after that kind of you know, we I was
always you know, taught to the industrious. And I did
small jobs because I wanted my independence in my own money.
So you know, I've worked in I was a bag
boy horse store on Mode lawns and that as a kid.
And uh and you know when when when school came along,

(40:45):
I could I could work again in the shipyard, but
I was going off to school and make some decent
money to help my parents because they were trying to
trying to send me to school. So but the thing
of it was when I started playing, um, yeah, I
kind of had more ambition than the other people I
was playing with. So it kind of made me the
leader because I would get stuff together. I wouldn't do

(41:07):
the set list. I would, you know, I would say,
these are the songs we ought to be playing. And
then you know, when it when it came time to
have a real band and we were going to really
go for this, I was still kind of working at
this show. You know, I had like real jobs then,
and so I had I had actually a credit at
the music store and mobile. So when we started to

(41:27):
do this, I said, well, we're gonna need a sound system,
and uh, everybody else had went well, I'm very I said, well,
I'll I'll get and I went on and I applied
for a loan and I got a book full and
I got a credit that was a Bogan p A
system and I bought and I said, well, I bought
the A system. So that I'm gonna have to be

(41:48):
the leader of the band because I'm not gonna let
you all break my p A system and I gotta
pay for it. And so you know, I liked being
the leader of the band and it worked out. Okay.
A couple of questions. While you were playing in New
Orleans and in this era after college, do you ever
have a day gig? Uh in New Orleans? No? I played,
h I played, you know, I played honors other you know,

(42:11):
the only thing I had to I could make extra
money by when we were off. We played a half
hour on half hour off, you know, like nine to
nine at night at two in the morning. But I
could get it making extra money going out and being
the barker on the street on Bourbon Street. And I
think that kind of that kind of sharpened my edge
or being a shameless performer because you had to be

(42:32):
shanless go out into that. But I had fifty extra week. Yeah, absolutely,
I could never do that like the guy standing on
the corner in the subway outfits, etcetera. So at what
point does it turn from a band into a singer
songwriter thing? For me? Yeah? Yeah, for you, Jimmy, well,

(42:53):
everything to have the band broke up as they do,
as they will, and the band oca and uh, so
I still had made connections with agents that booked some
of these other bands playing, which this was like the
big when folk music was still big and and folk
rock was big. These two clubs, and you gotta remember

(43:15):
at that time Bourbon Street was just about as much
music given out, more so on Bourbon Street as you know,
strip joints and beer parlors, because Pete Fountain Alhert had
a club there. Uh you know, um and the Neville
Brothers were playing at the Ivanhoe. Uh Preservation Hall was there.

(43:37):
Um Allen Toussaint had a stuck Cosmo Studios downtown. So
there was a lot more music that was going on
on that street. So I was immersed in and I
loved that stuff. So when the band broke up, I
mean I immediately went back down there and tried to
get a job in a band, and I played drums
one night in the band. They fired me after the

(43:57):
first step, and I remember I was playing local up
by Sergio Mendez, and that's I thought I was doing
a good job. And because I played drums and the
third grade marching bandage, so Anyway, I had connections up there,
and I had been't doing solo gigs, and so I
found that this booker up in Minnesota that could put

(44:21):
me on the road doing doing stuff. And I played
that and then those those shows when I could. Then
I went back to Mobile when I graduated from college,
kind of figure out what what else to do, and
I got a job at a bar called the Adimal
Sims Hotel, in a hotel right downtown Mobile, and I'm
uh again. I was following a friend of mine who

(44:44):
had worked in New Orleans together and he's the one
that brought me up to kind of jam. Next thing
I knew when he left town. I had the job
and I've worked there for almost a year and I
created a following this as a solo act and people
my parents friends at first within you know, it was
on a soul out every night and uh, and that
kind of worked. I was And from there I wanted

(45:06):
to make a record to sell in the bar, and
I went into a little uh record coming Audiomobile Records,
and this guy Milton Brown heard me play and said
that's pretty good, and he had Nashville connections, and Milton
eventually took me to Nashville to do demos there, and
that's how I got to Nashville. Okay, what was the
dream at this point, Since we've established you're a very

(45:28):
ambitious person. I wanted to be the next modern Lightfoot. Okay,
let's go back to you. Mac. You know you're very
humble guy. But at a very young age, you get
you get record deals. You're making records, so you may
be Bashville, but something is happening. Well, but the way

(45:49):
I got a record deal isn't just ridiculous. Because we're
sitting We're sitting in muscle shows and I'm I'm the
acoustic player on a on a session and the artist
misses a plane in doesn't show up. So we're just
a band sitting in a studio with nothing to do.
And they start asking, Okay, who's since we're here, let's
cut something. Who's got a song? And all the other

(46:09):
guys were the regular guys. I was the new guy,
and they had already cut everything they had they had
already cut, so they said you got any songs? And I,
being the way I am, I said no, I don't
have anything. And they went around the room about three times.
I said no three times kind of biblically and then uh,
this this engineer, Steve Moore was the engineer in the
studio and he had played in a couple of bands

(46:31):
with me, and he says, this guy or here is
just bashful. I know he got songs. I know he
writes songs. And they made me play a song, and uh,
and I pulled up my guitar and I played this
little song called It's a Crazy World that I wrote
when I was sixteen, and they went, jeez, we're just
gonna make a record on you. That was it. I
played a song for them that I had never played

(46:53):
for my parents. I had never done a gig, I'd
never been in a and I'd never played a gig
and sung a lead vocal as me in my life anywhere.
My sisters had never heard that song, and all of
a sudden they cut a record on me and went
to l A and got a record deal. And I
mean it took about three Old Testament miracles Daisy chain
together for me to have a record deal, because I

(47:15):
would have never gone anywhere and asked anybody to listen
to me and said, you know, even though I wasn't
that far from Nashville, I never would have gone to Nashville.
The fact that I could go to Muscle Shoals, which
was forty minutes from my hometown and and fail and
be back home by supper time made the physics of
it more workable for me. And and somehow or other,

(47:36):
I got a record deal and and they put out
It's a Crazy World as the first single, and that
was a chart record. And and I'm riding around the
country and my granddad's hand me down overalls with a
Scottish afro, a pretty easy to spot, might as well
have been on Mars. But I was in l A
at the Larramattage with this room that came with a
Bentley and a driver. Nobody in my family had ever

(47:59):
been driven by a driver, and nobody in my family
had ever been on a plane. I mean they when
I when I flew to l A to sign the
record deal, they like broke out into prayer groups, wondering
whether I was gonna crash on the way out there
or get killed by the folks in Los Angeles. One
of those two things was almost a certainty. And so
it was it was sort of like Marco Polo, you
know who played you that record? Bob Who, Uh, Howard

(48:24):
Stark and Jay Lasker. Wow, ready for this? Yeah, I'm
my ears are open. Uh. So I was doing okay
by then and uh him Al was on ABC Dunhill.
They signed me in Nashville. Didn't know what to do
with me, but they got a corp. Donnyhue, I don't
know if you ever ran into corp. He kind of

(48:44):
took a liking to me. And uh and and I
was in Key West by that time, living you have
a bar gig in the daytime, were working on cocktails
perfect were cocktail out of five to nine. And then
I go out and raise hell and I get up
on a fishing boat and worked forward to working offshore,
charter fishing and playing at a bar. So I didn't

(49:07):
want to go anywhere else. And this guy said we
need to come up to New York. And I went
and played, uh Sam Hoods Max's Kansas City and the
next thing I knew, they took me to l A.
They signed me, and you know, and Jim Croachy was
still going there at the time, and uh, you know
they were they were kind of I wasn't a little
bit slower. How do you get from Key West to

(49:28):
New York. I was, I was told I was called
because I did White Sport Cone, a pink crust station.
We did the album in Nashville for three days and
eleven thousand dollars, and I saved some money and got
the key West, paid off my student loans, and bought
boat and so I figured that was my insurance policy.

(49:51):
So I was down there and living the life when
I get a call from Corbe Donohue, astead of Artist
Relations at ABC. Doniel said, this is not a country record.
This is really good and we want to get behind this.
We're taking over from from l A. So they didn't
know what to do with in the Nashville and so,
long story short, had a nice run there with when
Jay and Howard were running ABC Dunhill and then they

(50:15):
got fired and then they had what was it the
name of the audio Ariel Ariola America, Ariola America. So
I just was, you know, I was. I was doing
well then, but I'd always go see those guys because
Jay Lasker was the guy said Jimmy, you know, yeah,
we're gonna we're gonna try to take your money from it.
Your job is to find out how we're doing it,

(50:38):
and so I had a great relationship with those guys,
you know, and and I went to see them and
they said, come in here, come in. You gotta hear this.
You know, you're the next Jim Approach. This is the
next Yu And they played me It's a Crazy World
and that Mac that album with him and those overalls
on it, and I went, that that kid write songs

(50:59):
like William Flinger a book. I gotta find out where
he is. And they said he's trying to miss a
simpy like you. And I went, I went in search
of back back and now I found him. Okay, in
this peripatetic journey. You get married? What's going on there?
How old were you when you got married? Yeah? What Jimmy, Jimmy? Oh?

(51:22):
I was was I was? I think twenty one or something.
You know. I've been a crazy musician and I thought
I needed a stable the Catholic girl to settle me down.
And I knew a sus and then I was going
to Nashville and uh, she was my girlfriend at the
time that she's gone off to be a t wh Stewards.
And I drove from Mobile to Kansas City and asked

(51:45):
her to marry me and come back. You know, by
the time we got married, went, oh, that wasn't such
a good idea. But she's a great girl. We were
last we went to Nashville together. She wound up working
in the music business and actually wound up being a
pretty big executive with Capital and was married to Bob Mercer.
I don't remember Bob Mercer Frum who ran Capital, but uh,

(52:08):
we we have. We stayed in touch and then you know,
after that was over, then best when I went to
key West. How long were you actually together? Two years? Okay,
how did it end? Uh? It ended? Let's say it
ended amicably after the event that ended it because by

(52:30):
that time I was also working for Billboard. Then you know,
I had to get a had to get a day
job there. And when I out answered an ad in
the National Banner and said journalism degree needed the reporter
I want, I got a journalism degree and it was
Billboard Magazine and I went to work for Bill Williams,
the southern eritor Billboard and taught me more about how
the music business is stacked against you and anything. That's

(52:52):
where I learned about the music there. So you know, um,
Margie was working at Capitol Records. I was there and uh,
and that that's you know, and then so we were
we were kind of, you know, when we're getting along,
and it was Jerry Jeff Walker came to town and
a friend of mine was hosting him, who worked at

(53:14):
ascap Of course, we went out to the bar that
night and Jerry Jeff wound up at my house and uh,
and it was not a very uh, it was a
very good waking up call from my life at the time.
And so we kind of knew we were kind of
going in separate ways, and so I was trying to
be nice. But at that time, everybody had a Mercedes

(53:37):
in Nashville. I wanted to look good, so I bought
a old Mercedes that we shared. So part of the
deal was I said, you know, I'm I'll send you
some half of whatever I make. Now we'll figure out.
We had no kids, and she wanted to stay there.
I was gonna go to Key West and try to
find work, and uh, so I borrowed I said, kind
of borrow the car for one more night and just

(53:59):
before I leave down so I went out my friend
Tod Andrews, who played in Mother Earth at that time,
and as we were, I was kind of sneaking home
to get out. I opened the door and a car
came by and knocked the driver's side door off of
the car. And I'm still kind of drunk from night before.

(54:20):
I went out until we went somewhere, found duck tape
and disc gleen and I taped it up and left
the note there said I'm really sorry about this, but
I'll send you some money when I gets to working.
Us and I went to Fariva and then we eventually
got a divorce, and uh, but we remained friends. Okay, back, Uh,

(54:45):
So you get a record deal, and during act you
have some success. You have Minimum Love that is a
hit with a radio charting track with Geffen. You continue
to put out solo record, You have some success us
on the country chart. You know, at that point do
you see yourself as an act? At that point do

(55:06):
you see yourself as a side man? What's going through
your head? Well, you know, I also married young and
had and was having kids, and I tried to Uh, well,
let's slow down a little bit. How old were you
when you got married? I was I was two weeks
from twenty one. I was I was short of twenty one. Okay,
A couple of questions. How experienced in that realm were

(55:28):
you when you got I was not very experienced in
that realm. Uh, as evidenced by the fact that I
got married two weeks from twenty one. But but how
long did that last? That lasted twenty three years because
we were both really stubborn. Uh. She's she's awesome, and
were We still do family vacations together with the kids

(55:49):
and everything. She's amazing. But uh okaykay wait, waitit, so
did she get remarried? No? Did you get remarried? Both
both have a significant other. But but everybody, everybody hangs out.
We do family meals and birthdays and holidays and all that.
And how many kids? I've got three daughters, And how
old are they? Let's see, thirty eight, thirty three, and

(56:12):
thirty Okay, are they on the family payroll or the independent? Uh?
My youngest daughter is production assistant for FOR. I occasionally
am in what I called the produce section as in
Mr Buffet's records, to be a co producer for for
for Jimmy's records. She but she you know, she works
for several producers here in town. Busier than me, and

(56:33):
she occasionally books her old man on a on a session.
But uh, but I've got one that one in the business,
and uh and and one at the moment, a journalist
and a nurse. So I got all three gainfully employed daughters. Okay,
so you were telling a story before I interrupt you
toy to slow down, so you get married and you
were talking yes, uh and I the nice thing about

(56:56):
muscle shows is that you you know, you could play
most everything that came to and still have time too
to write songs for yourself and go out on the road.
And it was the pace of that worked pretty well.
But when when the kids started coming, uh, I kind
of wanted to be homeboar, and so I kind of
I stopped doing really much in the way of road.

(57:16):
And I was always, I don't want to say, a
reluctant performer because I like it, but uh but but
I always I really liked the studio, I really like
record and I like it writing and arranging, and I
sort of felt more like that was my calling. And
uh so I stayed home and watched the kids grow
up and and made records less frequently, and and started

(57:40):
writing songs for other people because my My contracts that
I had signed were such that I was never gonna
make enough money to pay the electric bill. Jimmy could
he could elaborate on the No. Nobody taught me about contracts.
I was. I signed one that's on the wall of
a lot of lawyers, like watch out, or this can

(58:01):
happen to you. It's got my name on it. But
uh at any rate, uh Uh. Being home and watching
the kids grow up, I started writing songs that other
people began to record, and I had some hit records
and and made a living kind of as a songwriter
publisher and and sitting around and making records for people.
A couple of my friends started saying, well, you help

(58:22):
me produce this. We and I've been around studios so
long at that point to be a relatively young guy. Uh.
It turns out I knew most of the things that
you needed to know to at least half as producer
record and became kind of a record producer. And I
didn't really do much traveling until Jimmy called, Okay, the

(58:44):
songs that you wrote that were hits. Two questions, how
did you get them to the artists? Indeed, deal own
them out writers or a publisher involved. Early on, there
was a publisher involved, and then and then later on
it was my policing company. But uh, it uh oddly
enough that the beginning of it came out of uh
when I went out to meet with David Geffen, when

(59:05):
I signed the deal with Geffen Records and he was
just starting Geffen. He had, as a matter of fact,
my contract. I was the first artist. I was before
John Lennon or or Elton John or any of the
folks that he signed there. My contract says too and
as yet unnamed joint venture between Warner Brothers and David Geffen.
He didn't know it was going to be Geffen Records yet.
But uh, but I met with him at his house

(59:29):
and he said, uh, something I'll never forget, actually, because
nobody had ever said anything like this to me. He said,
I think you are a real artist, and I would
like to be an old fashioned patron of the arts.
I would like to be associated with you, and whatever
you do, I'll never tell you what to do. I'll
never tell you how to do it. I just want

(59:49):
to be connected to it. So you go home and
do whatever you do. And nobody had ever said anything
like that to me. At that time, I had people saying,
we want you to be the next Jackson Brown, or
we want you to be the next whatever. Uh, we'd
like for you to dress this way and you know,
and cut your hair this way, and uh, and I
did not. You can, and jim You'll tell you this.

(01:00:10):
You can ask me to do anything and I'll do it.
You can tell me to do exactly the right thing,
and I'm probably not going to. I just don't take
direct authority very well. Uh, But Geffen said, go do
what you do, and and I went home and just
had this burst of songwriting. And some of those songs
were country songs, and I didn't have a country record deal,

(01:00:31):
so I was playing on a lot of country records
and and so by virtue of that, occasionally people say
you have any songs? And sometimes people would just cut
a song off one of my albums, which happened a
few times. Jimmy did that with It's My Job. That
was our first connection. But uh, but people, I had
a couple of songs, and Alabama cut a song of

(01:00:52):
mine called Old Flame and had a number one record.
And then after after you have a number one record,
other people say, what do you got and I would
give them a song, and and I had some more
number one records, and and all of a sudden that
I was making actual money. You know that that was
you know, put me up legitimately into the middle class
of muscle shows Alabama. And uh. And I could stay

(01:01:14):
home and watch the kids. And and I also like
it's sort of it was Pavlovian for me. And from
that point forward, if I wrote something that sounded like
a hit, I would rather give it to one of
my friends that has a personal trainer and a bus
or an airplane and some ambition that I don't have. Uh,
And it works out better for everybody. I got to

(01:01:35):
watch my kids grow up in a way that no
really unemployed person gets to spend as much time with
their kids as I did. You would have to be
unemployed or or a trustafarian, you know, to be able
to see your kids like I did growing up. So
I was really blessed in that way. You have a
country hit with back where I come from, and then
ultimately Kenny Chesney covers it. How do you how do

(01:01:58):
you have the solo record? Then how does he come
to cover it? Uh? You know, the solo record was
I was writing some songs and Jim Ed Norman at
Warner Brothers Records. Uh, we got to be friends. And
the bad record deal that I had signed got drug
across several label deals. But it ended in a way

(01:02:22):
that the guys that had signed me to this horrible
record deal had had taken a budget from David Geffen
to make an album and they blew it and then
they filed bankruptcy. So I owed, I owed a record
that I couldn't make, and and jim Ed Norman. I
saw the bind that I was in. I couldn't finish

(01:02:42):
my obligation to them to get out of this production
deal that I had signed, and I owed David Geffen
a record, and jim Ed Norman came to me and
David Geffen to Geffor together and said, if I let
Mac Mac make his pop album that he owes you,
will you let me make a country out? Will you
loan him to me like a cup of sugar and
and let me make let me make a country album

(01:03:02):
on him with these other songs he's got that we
think our hits, and and Geffen's like, yeah, I always
knew he listened to him talk. I always knew he's
you know, he's got this country thing. I mean, Geffen
thought the Eagles were country anyway. Uh, But so so
Jim ed let me make my last pop album my
obligation to Geffen Records. He gave me the Wonder Brothers

(01:03:23):
studio and my my just departed. Buddy and Alan Shulman
and myself went in there and made that record. I
played pretty much everything and Alan recorded it. And and
at the same time we made the album Simple Life
that had back where I come from and down the road,
and that album was full of songs I honestly probably
never intended to sing myself. But over the years, the

(01:03:45):
the eleven songs on that album have been recorded like
thirty nine times. I've had thirty nine cuts from that
one album, uh, with various you know, some number one
records and a bunch of album cuts. And and Kenny
at that Kenny told me this. I didn't know it
till later, but Kenny cut a record and Barry Beckett
Fromussele Shuls was producing Kenny, and he gave him a

(01:04:06):
copy of That Life, that Simple Life album of mind.
And Kenny had to drive to Canada to play a
gig and the only thing he had in his car
was that that record, and he learned that album. He
pretty much memorized it, and and he he recorded back
Where I Come From that Barry Beckett produced it on him,
and we became buddies after that, and and then from

(01:04:29):
that we he and I did a duet of down
the Road that was a number one record later on,
like twenty years later. Uh. That that was also on
that same album. And he's he's just been a great
advocate of a couple of my best songs. And anybody
that knows Kenny knows what a great guy is. So
I've had between David Geffen and Jimmy Buffett and and
Chesney as well, and and jim ed Norman and David Geffen,

(01:04:51):
I've I've been I've been so shepherded. Uh, in the
context of my total ineptitude about business, I've been very
shepherded through the business. And I'm so grateful for that
because there's not many other ways that I could possibly
be here talking to you guys. Okay, So, Jimmy, how

(01:05:11):
do you end up deciding you want Mac in the band? Um?
I knew that day the the Jay and Howard played
me the record I got and they gave me the record.
I went on and then I started going to two
friends I knew and said connections I had in Nashville,

(01:05:33):
and said, who is this where is this guy? You know?
And and now now because I didn't really know because
the time, it took a long time to get him
to come to work for me, and I, you know,
I had kind of sherry picked some people and we
we've done some band reconstruction and and the first person
I really wanted in my band was Michael Uvely because
you know, he had worked for Jerry WEXLERND and I

(01:05:53):
met him in Miami when he was part of the
Dixie Flyers and and uh and he and he eventually
he was working with Chris and Read at that time.
And then uh, he came to work for me. So
I had Utly in there. And I wanted him because
he was such a solid person experience, like Max said,
And I I didn't know then that Mac had been

(01:06:16):
in the studio since he was fifteen. But I learned
pretty quickly and and I we just you know, I
got him on the phone, I got a number, and
I said, you know, if you ever want to come play,
and it was a while and he'd come out two
shows occasionally to see us in the band. And and
then you know, now I know that he wanted to
stay at home with with with with his kids more

(01:06:36):
than that, but he was, you know, and I couldn't
quite understand why didn't work in the Croprim band go
on the road. And now I know because he wanted
to stay at home and raising his kids, you know,
and me me having that nomad gene, you know, Uh,
it bothered you. It gets in the way of some
things at that time, like so um and we just

(01:06:58):
I stayed in contact with him, but there was no
pressure to do it, and I said, if you want,
you know, you know, come out and try it, if
you want to do it, and then makes some extra money,
and uh, we could really use you because I knew
how good a songwriter he was and how the good
of a range and just but I've also seen him
do solo gigs. I go him to some of the
solo gigs and he you know, that's one thing he

(01:07:21):
as we all know, he's a very shy man. And uh,
but he's probably one of the top solo performers I've
ever seen take a stage and with an audience and
know how to work an audience and has more ability
on a guitar than I could ever possibly uh have.
And I was in awe of his solo performances and

(01:07:43):
I didn't want him to. I said, you know, you
just go do that whatever, because you're good at it.
And and uh, but if you want to come playing
the band, we love to have. But I think that's
the where it went. It is. And to how many
years before? Did you ask before he became a permanent
member of the band, I'd have to ask the uh,

(01:08:04):
my wing man here, how how long you know it
was at while there? But uh, but you know we
did we did a little thing during the band transition.
We did a thing together called the living Room Tour
in nine nine and uh and and my last my
my youngest daughter was born in eighty nine. And but

(01:08:25):
we in the winter of eighty nine we went out
and did you know, half dozen shows or what We
rehearsed and did a half dozen shows there and just
the two of us with living room furniture, and uh,
you remember, Jimmy, we're following Hunter Thompson around. He used
our set on a couple of those shows. Playing colleges
and theaters and uh, and that was just a blast.
You know. I always knew, and I think Jimmy always

(01:08:48):
knew we we were going to get along and that
that we were going to be of used to one another.
Me and because he has a zillion ideas and and
he's got all this talent and all this inner g
and and and I my nature is is I'm a
little bit more of a finished carpenter. So so sometimes
the idea is that that Jimmy has it are great

(01:09:09):
and gets up and running, I can I can sit
there and and spackle for a while and maybe put
a little bit better shine at the end of him
because I was there. So we provide a great service
to one another, because he just generates all this energy
and and and I'm kind of a one track mine.
Who can you know, I'll sit there for the next
two and a half months and and try to make

(01:09:30):
it this much better or whatever. So we got a
good team. And do you remember what year you became
full time coral reefers? Uh? You know, we went out
and did the live album Feeding Frenzy, and then I
think it was ninety five was my first full time
year and I don't know if you remember what you
actually asked me, Jimmy, but you said, if you're ready

(01:09:50):
to come out, and your kids can come out. My
kids are gonna come out. I only want you to
play two songs and the intermission of the show. That's
all I want. That's all you gotta do is just
come out. We'll do two acoustics songs together in the
middle of the show. And I don't believe I've been
off stage since then, except the except the weekend I
had the heart attack. Uh, had to cancel one. But

(01:10:11):
I like to play. I would rather play than stand
on the side of the stage and wait to play.
But but he initially asked me just to play a
couple of histic songs in the middle. UH, And I
was and I was honored about that. But but I
love to play, So I'm really happy to get And
the Coral Reefer Band and and team and crew is
second family. They are my second family, and I wouldn't

(01:10:31):
change the thing about any of them. So, Jimmy, what
motivates you to go on the road, and obviously not
during the COVID era. What keeps you going in that avenue? Um?
I think Mom it's just that having been so lucky
to have learned from people before and mistakes. It's like

(01:10:52):
we're talking about about Geffen and uh, you know, I
always bring my sea Geff and I bring Mac up
to me. He smiled. He's still has a warm place
in his heart. And I thought, I think it's pretty
amazing that somebody is as successful as David has been.
I saw that artist in Matt, you know that that's

(01:11:12):
that says something about both of them to me, and
knowing them both pretty well, I like the fact that
how in the hell David, Geffen and mc mcilly get
in a room again, that's pretty cool, so you know,
and uh, it was it was just the as it
as it went on, the fact that it was to

(01:11:34):
me performers. If you're a performer and cam wright and
sing that, that's okay. But learning to be a performer
was what got me there. And two years of working
on Bourbon Street. I couldn't have learned that in any
finishing school or music school ever, because I knew that,

(01:11:55):
you know, I had learned to to have to play
when you don't want to play, and uh, and have
to play things you don't want to really do because
you want to do your own stuff. But if you
do own stuff, they will fire you. So that that
gauntlet of performing, that that I was lucky enough to
get into an eye and I knew that if I

(01:12:16):
could make my way up the ladder of success in
that little locale and to the top club in New
Orleans from from then you know, a hooting and United singer.
You know, That's all I really wanted to do at
that time, because I thought, well, that's pretty good and
people have come here. You're making good money and people
are coming and to see you. But that's what it
is when you when you start performing. To me like that,

(01:12:38):
you connect with an audience, uh, in a true and
authentic way. It's not something that's that's put on television
and you create something. Uh. I think that audiences can
can can connect you know, as someone said, it goes
in here as well as here, it goes heart as

(01:12:59):
well as your years. And and I think that that's
what keeps me out there is you have the success.
You know, the part the part about the success I
learned a Nationville from Bill Williams and others that the
music business basically as such sacked against you, and you
better hold onto as much of your own creative stuff
as you can, and that that you know, that worked

(01:13:21):
well for me and I never and then, you know,
I didn't want to rent a piano from a promoter
who charged me back for it. I bought one and
put it in a bus and paid for it in
in about two months and sold it to Billy Joel
for timing tim grant. He sold it back to me.
It's in the studio Key West now, So you learn
those things come along. But it's part of the fun

(01:13:42):
of doing it to me, you know. And so there's
some nights you have to play and you have to
play hurt, but you don't ever ever show it. And
that's that's that's what real performers do. And it's still
and in this day and time, we simply have nothing
to prove out there anymore. So for me for a
good time and having Mac and having only my friends,
my my compadres, my wingman who I can take I

(01:14:06):
can take orders from and and and will because I
know they know more about certain aspects of this than
I do. You know, I can, I can certain I
can start some ship. Then they can make something out
of it, you know, And uh, having that and the
camaraderie of like Max said, the band is our second family.
And uh now we have nothing to prove. So all

(01:14:28):
I want to do is is make things that people
that really like what we do can add to their collection.
You know, I've got I've got a segment of the
following and called the Church of Buffet that doesn't think
we did anything worth the ships. And since nineteen forty two,
I mean since nineteen seventy five or something, you know that,
But the Church of Buffet they're still there for that.

(01:14:49):
I love having that, you know, you don't you know
they're they're still fans of certain things, and you know,
but I think it's an artist you have to evolve,
but you've got to try to say true to who
you are. It's just simply tried to do that. And
I've been very lucky, and I've got people around me
from you know, a lot of friends and band members,
my my lovely wife Jane, who who keeps try us

(01:15:11):
to keep a tight collar on me, but sometimes I
can leggle loose. But all of that, all of that
is part of this. And I don't see any you
know anything. I can't wait to get back and I
tell people, you know, there there will be an end
to this at some point, you know. And I've been
lucky enough to uh to have the success that I
can take care of the people around me, my band

(01:15:33):
and my crew and stuff. As we go through this
and wiggle our way through. Where can we play? What's it?
What's gonna be left for us to do until we
can get back on that stage and do the show
that people really like, you know, and so that that's
what we're working on now. And just you know, and
you know, so you know, there's everbody's got ideas, and

(01:15:54):
you know, it's hard to kind of think about doing
shows without people, but you may have to do them.
But I can remember with great audiences, and in behalf
to I'll up there and do it to remember them.
And I'll do a show for two people as well
as twenty thou people. I'll give him the same show.
So that's that's I gotta I gotta interject and brag
on this guy a little bit. That's what he has
from building that muscle, playing playing bar gigs, good and

(01:16:16):
bad bar gigs. You you have to have both of
those things. There's no treadmill that teaches that entertainers that
you can't build that muscle any other way than by
succeeding and failing on stage. And I will say about
Jimmy because I'm a solo performer as as he was,
to the fact, the fact that he cut his teeth

(01:16:39):
in those small rooms making everybody feel like that they
got something personal and unique in that room has has
developed into him being able to sit there in front
of thirty five thousand people and make them go home
thinking they got a unique, individual, intimate performance. And and
that's a trick. But I don't know anybody else that
can do I don't know another magician that can make

(01:17:01):
thirty five thou people feel like they just saw a
small gathering, private concert that was just for them. And
he can do that, and he can repeat it, he
can and and he can do it on a good day,
and he can do it on a bad day when
he's when he's got a sore throat, doesn't It's it's
no different. And yeah, I'm proud to know him because
of that, because I don't think anybody else in the

(01:17:24):
business does that. Okay, So, Jimmy, how do you decide
after seven years to make a new album? Well, it was.
We had talked about it because there were some other
busy things that I wanted to do. The Broadway thing
was something that came to me with and my mother
had taken me as a kid to see every road

(01:17:45):
show of Broadway and she was she played any Name
and uh and Mobile Theater Guil, she was Bloody Mary
and South Pacific and I had to go see those
shows and I really liked musical theater thanks to her.
So off I go, and somebody tells you they want
to take you to Broadway. I want hell, yeah, I'm
gonna try that. You know. I knew what was up

(01:18:05):
there too. It wasn't like this is gonna be ruffles
and flourishes, because they were not to jukebox musicals was
the term that was already being spread around. But I
wanted to try it. And so that took about five
years of a lot of work on getting the getting
the writers to the show to get from yeah we're

(01:18:26):
gonna do it, so yeah we got the money to
yeah we got the cast, so oh we got to
rewrite this. That was like five years of steady work
as well as going out on the road. So you know,
and most of my creative energies was going to that.
So I didn't feel I had really good songs at
that time, and I just didn't want to put out
anything just to go fill the gap. Okay, before we

(01:18:48):
move on, what did you learn from doing the Broadway
show and what are your thoughts about it now? Well,
I was very happy with it. I would uh when
I do it again, Yeah, I probably would have somebody
asked me to do it. Uh. But the thing of
it was, again, it regardless of what you know, it was,

(01:19:09):
it was a critic. It was not a critical because
success in New York. But everybody, the politicicket of that
show loved that show because it was happy and it
was fun. And but I knew that going the end
and we were gonna you know. But the thing of
it was we we played for almost nine months on Broadway,
and uh and when we came out we had two years.
I knew we would work on the road, would work

(01:19:31):
so and it was working very very well. Uh when
when we had to shut it down Albuquerquin, New Mexico
because of COVID. So um, and I still love the
theater and I'm I'm invested in a couple of shows
now and I still love. I love the fact of
it is that there's so much talent and those kids
that don't really make a lot of money, and the dedication. Uh.

(01:19:54):
And it was my friend Frank Marshall, you know who's
my partner, my long friend, movie producer. Yeah, he hired people.
I could so many people whose careers he made. He
went to New York to find actors, not movie stars.
That's what he told me and so and then when
we go through the process of auditioning, there's so much

(01:20:16):
more talent there than I ever thought about having in
my little finger. I just I'm an admiration of that.
And I love those kids and how hard they were
for so little Okay, so now once you pass that hump,
you say it's time to make a new record. How
does Paul Breedy become a part of this? Yeah? Uh,

(01:20:40):
Paul Gray came came to us through Martin and Mark. Okay,
I'll start from the beginning. Jimmy, is there anybody you
don't know? Let's see, I want to know, not really know. Okay,
So how do you know Martin Boffler? I I know him,

(01:21:01):
know him from the fact that I was a huge,
huge fan and at one point time he had passed through.
We we did the Volcano album in George Martin studio
in Montserrat, and we were the only American band to
ever go down there. But mccargan did an album there,
Clapton did an album there, and and our strikes my
brothers in arms when we met there somewhere in an occasion.

(01:21:24):
And then he was using musicians and his bands from Nashville,
great players that we all know that our friends and Max,
and he's a great admirer of Max too. So uh,
I think we met the first time through chet Atkins,
who I knew pretty well in those days, and and
we just became friends and state in touch with each other.

(01:21:44):
And so when when we started to go over to
you know, we every year, we almost ten years, we
played Paris every year and just for the fun out
it and and but the shows became like things people
had to have other bucket list. So we know, hadn't
played England in a while, so we went to London
and we hadn't played Dublin, and I wanted to play
because the Irish would come to to the shows in

(01:22:06):
Paris and hang banners over the balcony going and they
sit there in the middle of Finns when everybody's going
completely crazy and like this, and with a sign on
a flight said, the Irish are patiently waiting. And they
got to me and I went, I'm coming. So we went.
So where we went, Um, you had to have an
opening act and so and I knew that like going

(01:22:29):
to Australia or New Zealand, you take local acts on
there and it's a great thing, you know, for people
to support their local talents. And so I didn't know
whether they needed one or not in Dublin. So I
just was in touch with I was talking to Mark
about something else, and you know, we worked at his
studio over there and stayed in touch. And I said,

(01:22:51):
you know, you know my band and you know me
and you know what we do. And I said, we
had to have an opening act, Uh to go to Dublin.
Before I finished the sentence, he said, Paul eighty. Now
I've heard about Paul Brady from Bonnie Ray and they
wrote some things together and then he was he was
in Nashville. Uh, who does he stay with? Mack? Uh?

(01:23:14):
He stays with Jerry Douglas somebody Jr. Bara Douglas is
a good buddy, so I knew a little about him,
but I didn't know the depth of his material. So
I started getting it. I went up on Spotify and
I got a Paul Brady Settlers and by this time,
I'm now in California, kind of running around and driving
back and forth listening to and I went this, I
felt the same way everybody when I heard Paul Brady

(01:23:34):
song where I did when I heard uh Mac's first album.
And I said, I gotta get in touch with him.
And then uh Mark gave me his number and I
called him and I said, you know, Martin Novel gave
you your number and I said, he said, oh yeah,
I know, as I just got back from New Zealand,
and I said, you know, we're coming to Dublin. We're

(01:23:56):
playing one night at at the Olympia in uh I Love.
We need an opening act and I would just luck
for you to open for us there. And I heard
him laughing on the phone. And this is the first
time I ever spoken to him. We did shange email
and he said, well, you know, Jilly, uh last time
I Plater did ten nights there. Oh you don't open

(01:24:18):
you know, I'm going, you know, and he just laughed.
He said, but maybe I could do a joke up
on that, you know. And then by that time I
heard the songs and there's incredible, unbelievable, unbelievable material. And
then so he we did. We went over and he
opened for us, He came, he did a couple of

(01:24:39):
songs in the show, and uh, and then I was
just then at that point and knew about the material,
and I said, up, it inspired me to go back
to start writing stuff again. I had a lot of
stuff there that I thought was pretty good stuff. But
listening to him and going back and listening to a
couple of us earlier um uh uh Mac albums and

(01:25:02):
earlier novel albums and earlier Gordon life. But I went
back and listen to those guys that I really wanted
to be like a write like, a play like and
it got me going again. And so I started churning
out some some pretty good stuff for this and as
as well as and then Paul sent me a song
called out the Lotty Donard w wasn't finished and uh,

(01:25:22):
we finished it together. So it is now like you know,
it's one of those people you meet once and you
know them for fifty years. Well, you know, I know
him an email and he sent me the world is
what you make it. And I was on my computer
and on a different screen I had to and I said, wait, wait,
what's going on here? Really cracked me up? Well, that
that song was that song got to me. You know,

(01:25:43):
that is a great I mean to me, what I
like in a song. It's a very very strong point
of thing to say, but it is it is. It
is uh is presented and in a fashion and it's
a great song and you're gonna wind up listening to
it and later on going man that there's a lot
of me that there are a lot of media that though,

(01:26:04):
you know, which is that? To me is what Bob
Marley is so great. He was a political force, but
he gave it to you in the really wonderful songs
that had you know, people singing before they knew what
he was talking about. And I think Paul writes the
same way. Okay, so Mike and Mac produced the record.
What does that mean? Were you really hands off? What

(01:26:24):
was the process there? I know what I know what
I do best, and I know what they do best,
you know, And as producers we've done this for a
long time, and you know, it's it's to us, it's
an extension of writing a settlers for a show. Now
it's you've got to have a certain amount of energy
and for a certain amount of recognition and a show.

(01:26:44):
And so I looked at, you know, getting a song
one together because I wanted it to be a project
and and uh, the the original title was gonna be
slack Tied because I've written the song slack Tied and uh,
and then you know, we wound up another title. But
we started writing together and Paul was in the mix,

(01:27:07):
and it just kind of felt really good the preparation
and now but you know, and this is before coded time,
and but we were all exchanging kind of ideas and
songs were coming together. So I put together what I
thought were the best songs to do going to the
studio in the fourteen or sixteen tracks, and we hadn't

(01:27:30):
been a studio with our band and their people. Everybody.
This band can play way above what is required for
Jimmy Buffett songs, and I, you know, I dine out
on that because you get them in the studio and
they can really shine, but they stay they stay true
to you know what people like to hear us play,
and it's just a great experience to go into the
studio with these musicians you've been with us for you know,

(01:27:53):
from Robert Greenwich to Eric Darthan and mac Ugly to
the Mayo Brothers. I mean, it's an amazing lucky guy.
I am that you're standing in front of that band.
But everybody was really in the same mood to go
in and do this, and we cut how many sixteen
tracks in four days? I think, yep, ye, you're behind
the board. What are you doing as a producer on Jimmy?

(01:28:15):
I'm not behind the board. I'm sitting on a guitar.
You don't you don't want me. There's there's no empty
hands in the studio. Everybody's playing something. So what is
your role other than playing on Jimmy's record. Well, because
we're writers and we like from from the from the

(01:28:39):
German nation of these songs, Jimmy and I and and
Utly are sending, we're sending things around. There's you know,
they're parcel songs are going for for a while, you know,
as they're being written, and some of them weren't written
until we didn't weren't finished until in the studio too.
But the the love jury of of being a Coral

(01:29:01):
Reefer is the fact that that band can go in
and create and listen and play at the same time.
And we we we were confident going in that we
had we had the great the shell of a really
good album. You know, we had we had the cornerstone
songs that the you know and and I think you
know we Jimmy, because of the nature of the business

(01:29:24):
the last few years, there was a couple of times
he said, I don't know if people are even gonna
make albums anymore, and I go, you, you got fans
that want them. I still, you know, I grew up
listening to albums sitting in the middle of a sofa
holding an album cover, double folded out. And I don't
multitask if I'm listening to music. I'm listening to music.
I'm not sweeping the floor and listening to music. I

(01:29:46):
listened to an album, and I still want that, even
though I know there's a whole generation that maybe has
never even done it. I still want it to be
an album. I want there to be a thread. And
we have that in common, he and I and ugly
the same way. So we were we were conscious about
that in product from the very beginning, and to have

(01:30:07):
it all come together kind of in a hurry, you
still get that rush of energy. There's there's still a
couple of brand new songs, and then there's some things
that we've been looking forward to cutting for four or
five months because we've been working and polishing, so so
you you get different levels of gratification from that, the
cornerstone pieces and the brand new pieces that like, you know,

(01:30:27):
slack Tide wasn't actually finished until the very last day,
so and and that was the album title, and it
just kept getting better and kept getting better until until
I get chill bumps thinking about the actual track going
down right now, just telling you guys about it. Uh
And and Jimmy was there. There's there's some chill bumps
on that, you know, and coming from the whole band.

(01:30:49):
And and the fact that it was it was hypothetical
until it was magical, and and the fact that we
got to experience that, and you know in a little
concrete block building and Key West, I will not ever forget.
So you know, me being in what I call the
produce section is mainly me just having a whole bunch

(01:31:09):
of joy at being in the proximity of well made
music played by phenomenal musicians. Well, I gotta tell you
about when you get out of the studio, you just
you hand something over there. It's life, he said, He's
the he's the Finnish guy, you know. And somebody's got
to do the vocal comps, somebody's got to do the mastering.
Somebody do that. I just I put it in their

(01:31:31):
hands and they called me if they need anything, because
I trust them they know what to do with with that. Because,
as as Max said, you make magic in in a
studio like that, and we're not the only ones that
do it, but that's there's something about camaraderie and music
together that you can if you can do that once

(01:31:53):
or twice in your life. And I've been lucky enough,
I think they do it four or five times on
records that were truly magical. And this one album well,
and and there's there's a really almost a generation of
artists who who don't have that as part of their experience,
sitting in a room full of phenomenal musicians playing and
listening at the same time. That doesn't happen as much

(01:32:14):
as it used to happen. Well, I don't want to
say that. I mean, really that's almost almost like a
lost art. Anyway, simultaneously you're working on and you put
out an album just very recently. How long have you
been working on that and what were your thoughts? Well,
my records traditionally are are kind of spackled into a
schedule of other things that I'm doing. Uh, And it's

(01:32:37):
just just as well for me, because I considered a
luxury that I don't make a record based on having
a tour that I have to support, or a record
deal deadline that I have to make, or or you know,
as as Jimmy does, which I'm grateful that he does,
a pile of employees that you have to make viable
business wise. I only make a record when I when

(01:33:00):
I think maybe I've collected enough things that I have
something to say, and and that usually takes three or
four years of life for me to cook down into
a reduction sauce of thirty forty minutes of music. That's
the way it historically has worked for me. That Uh,
this particular record is uh. We we started cutting tracks
I think June of last year, and of the twelve songs,

(01:33:23):
I think nine are are just myself and Eric Darkin,
who's our percussionist in the Coral Reefer Band. My show,
my life show these days is just the two of us.
I'll do half an hour by myself and then bring
Eric up and and we you know, we we make
a fair amount of noise for two guys. It's sort
of impressive what we're able to do from a stage.
But but the record itself, at the core is the

(01:33:45):
two of us. He added some percussion that's more than
he can play at once, and I might play a
bass in another couple of guitars and and and some
harmony vocals, but it's really the core of it is
just the two of us. There's one track that's the
whole Coral Reefer band, and and one acts an old demo,
But but in general it's it's it's us and and

(01:34:05):
the pandemic. As bad as it is for for on
so many levels, it actually afforded me the opportunity to
to finish this one out in the same way that
I finished Jimmy's Out. Sometimes sometimes I hurry mine, but
this one because because I was sitting around here at
the house. I got to I got to a stay

(01:34:26):
true to my original perception that it be primarily simple
just myself and Eric and be. I got to I
got to really you know, I had to sing some
high harmonies that God never intended me to sing, uh,
because I'm the only guy in the damn house, and
I and I got to play some bass that I
should probably shouldn't have played. But but on the other hand,

(01:34:46):
it is it is me and probably closer to my
total vision of the of these songs than I usually
get to do on a record. I was I was
afforded some time that that I don't always have. So
I feel pretty good about this record being similar to
what it was in my head when the songs were born. Now,
what are your expectations in terms of reaching audience? You know,

(01:35:11):
for me, Bob, from the beginning, I just wanted out
of my head into some other storage medium. You know,
I'm thank God for binary code because I got terrible handwriting.
I never wrote songs down in the beginning. I just
figured if I couldn't remember them, I didn't have the
right to inflict them on any any of the public.

(01:35:31):
But you know, I'm I'm in my sixties. I'm not
gonna I'm not gonna buy a tour or or get
a personal trainer or or a tour bus or but
I'm gonna play shows. I've got some folks who who
like what I do, and I can you know, it's
It's not an enormous group of folks, but it's enough
folks that I can make a living just doing that.

(01:35:52):
If if that's but I don't want to do just that.
I don't want to just be a mac artist. I
want to be a coral reefer. And I want to
play on George Strait albums and kenn each As the albums.
I want to strump beside my buddies. So my particular
life works so that I could do those things at
that level, and I can play awesome little listening rooms
and small theaters and and get whatever self aggrandizement that

(01:36:14):
comes from being in the middle of the stage and
having somebody overly brag on me every once in a while.
That's that's cool. But I don't I don't anticipate a
mass audience or I don't pine for one. I'm really
grateful for folks that connect and that my songs mean
something too, and I'm super grateful that that I can
be the rhythm guitarists in the Coral Reefer band and

(01:36:37):
and and play on other folks records as well, and
still write a song for somebody and every once in
a while, Like I said, I have the ideal life
for the way that I'm built. Okay, just one question
relative to that. Once you get it out of your head,
you put it on the record, you ever listen to
it again? Uh? If I gotta relearn it, like about

(01:37:00):
to have to learn how to play some of this
tough live, I gotta go listen to it again. What
it's What the hill did I do sitting up there?
Or why did I? Why did I sing that? Now
that I gotta go out and do it on the road,
That's what I'm doing here too. But I'm I'm learning
these songs very well, the ones that I wasn't that
familiar with. I mean, if I got to do cussing Island,

(01:37:21):
I gotta go and learn it again, you know. But
that's a big mouthful. But you're gonna do it. We're
gonna make you do it. But I gave the Mac
album and listen, I took it out of the boat
with my with some man and my daughter and her husband, Josh,
and we gave him. We gave it worked very well
on the boat. But I just I love the fact
that I knew there was just the two of them,
but it sounded that's what my kids are going. Boy,

(01:37:42):
is that the band I went on one cut and
you know the best of what Matt can really do.
But you know, as the as the owner of mail
Bowl Records, I'm glad that I'm in the same category
as Dave Deaf that I let this man be an
artist and didn't put any you know, do it when
you turn it in, when you're finished, okay, flipping it

(01:38:04):
over to you, Jimmy. Uh, the bit you may or
may not have changed, sort of like the Joe Walsh's
song Life is Good, but the scene is completely changed.
The records in the Spotify Top fifty have never been
so small and cultural impact, not like when the sixties
said that you had to hit. Everybody knew it, so

(01:38:24):
you said earlier, you have a good opinion on it.
You're making this for your audience. But to what degree
do you pine, if at all, for a larger impact,
which is difficult for anybody, Never mind people irrelevant of
the quality of the record, you know. You know, like
I said, I'm seventy three now, and and I've been
a lucky, lucky boy from from those early days, you know.

(01:38:47):
And and uh again, it's like, there's not really much
out there that I haven't done that I want to do.
I want to go to space, that's the one thing
I would like to do that. And I did you
sign up for Virgin Galactic? I did? And uh and
uh I've actually played a show for it, and uh,

(01:39:08):
I had a deal with Richard Bramson and I got
But anyway, but Johnny Glenn Win he was he was
seventy seven and I'm seventy through. So I'm you know,
that's that's like one thing. But as far as and
you know, the way the business thing is is gone
and stuff that was just a byproduct of a brand

(01:39:29):
that was basically authentic in the beginning. And you know,
you see so many other people trying to create something
that's authentic. It doesn't happen that way. It's got to
be authentic, you know, and and and so um, you know,
there's not that much left to do. I'll tell you
what I'm thinking about, right now is because of the
roadblocks against that that have been put up by the

(01:39:53):
COVID nineteen. The world that we live in, of music
getting out there, of love music being played by bands
and and clubs, you know, and I understand why you
can't do it, but I'm also looking at how can
you do it safely and reach your audience? And so
I leaned back to for whatever reason, I'm the reason

(01:40:15):
I started radio. Margaint read bills because it can never
get on the radio. And I came back from Australia
where I heard, you know, there were twelve radio stations
in Australia in those days, but they programmed for what
what the hours people were listening And I got that
idea in my mind. And when when the Internet came
out and I started seeing it radio stations, I went,

(01:40:35):
We're just gonna do one of our own up there
and find find out if anybody wants to listen, and
they do, so, you know, with with that and with
Margaint Red build TV. Right now, we're basically supplying those
two entities we started fifteen twenty years ago with products
like Max album comes out on that and then you know,
we've got we've got we do wednesdayson Saturday nights and

(01:40:58):
replaying shows so our au and so I know we're
still out there. So my job right now is to
stay in touch with the loyal parent head audience. And
I get sneaky, got sneaky things that I can go
out and do, like uh, you know other people are
you get on other people's tracks. And it didn't hurt
that Alan Jackson asked me to come come played all

(01:41:18):
five o'clock somewhere and and there's something else coming out
now that you get people that are doing duets and
being honored by other people. That's enough to kind of
stay uh, to stay current, you know, and and not
have just your audience to be people your age. And
I think we we have gone generational by just being

(01:41:41):
who we are and people being able to play their
music for their kids. And we're like four fits generation
and we see it in the shows when we go
out there, and so I'm just gonna still keep doing
that in the limited way that we have we are
able to do it now waiting for that day. I mean,
I'm not going back until people going to parking lot
and tail game, because that's part of the show. I mean,

(01:42:03):
un two of you do that, it's a half as
show as far as I concerned, because people aren't getting
the bank or the buck that they want. And when
it's safe to do that and we can do it,
you know, we'll go back and do big shows. In
the meantime, Like Max said, you know, we both have
avitability to play solo or with smaller bands. You know,
I'm looking at that very very closely because I love

(01:42:24):
to do it, and because that's all you can do now.
And if you don't have an audience, we better in
a club then you got one up online. So I'm
looking at being able to utilize what's what it's available
to us now in order to get back to where
until we can get back to where we want to be,
this question go on, mac I was just gonna interject though,

(01:42:45):
that in in the context of of whether you want
a larger audience or not. He did. He did just
have the number one country album with Life on the
Flip Side, and the number two pop album behind Lady Gaga.
Who's who's not you know, you know she she's no slout,
She's amazing. But uh, but the folks, at the point

(01:43:06):
Jimmy is in his career that are that are having
number two pop albums and number one country albums. Uh
are are rare. I'll be surprised if too many, too
many folks get to match that. Okay, uh both of
you grew up in the South, and needless to say,
from when you were little children is not today. But
what does the rest of the country not understand about

(01:43:28):
the South? WHOA, that's you got about eight hours. I'll
tell you the one thing they don't understand that there's
more Souths than you can possibly imagine. It's not one place.
And as a traveling musician, I know Matt knows that,
and I know that, and that would be the one

(01:43:49):
thing about it is like you know, living in the
Northeast as long as I have, you know, New York
is not New York. New York is boroughs and neighborhoods.
So they people tend to think of the South as
a place. And you know, and if you go back
to the Civil rights movement started in the South, you know,

(01:44:09):
out of brave people like mar lud King and John
Lewis and and you know, and John Siginfaller a good
friend of ours. And I admire those people because I
was I was brought up by my parents, not to
heke and what Mac, Do you have anything to add
to that about people not knowing about the South, Well,

(01:44:34):
I think, uh, you know, through through the things that
we've done poorly and the things that we've done correctly
over the years and learned hopefully from mistakes, uh, slower
than we should have learned. The one thing that that
comes out of here is because the South as segregated
as schools where the South has been generally rural and

(01:44:55):
and not necessarily affluent. I believe that that people from
the South have a sense of community that's not necessarily
all over the world. I think it's spread. That part
spreads well that what's Jimmy's talking about their South in
the rest of the world, those folks that have gone
out have have represented the best of what the South
has in a good way, whether it be literature arts.

(01:45:18):
I joke about spare time being the major export of Mississippi. Uh,
but uh, it kinda is. But but you look at
what's come from that. Uh. And And as you said, Jimmy,
I I although Mississippi doesn't have a great total track
record in regard to civil rights, a lot of civil
rights was born out of it. In my particular family,

(01:45:39):
we're just so wonderful, and in saying that we were,
you know, nobody's better than anybody else. We all need
one another, we all have a use for one another,
and we all have an obligation to one another to
make everything work. And you can see that in a
small town, in a small community in a way, sometimes
it might not be so obvious in a in a
pile of millions of people. You know, if you if

(01:46:00):
you're sitting in New York City, which I love New
York City, but if you walk out the door and
you decide you're gonna punch out the first person that
comes down the street, there may literally be no repercussion
from that. But if you go out the door in
a small town and you punch the first person, not
only do you know that person and you know their
family and your family and how those two family intersects.

(01:46:21):
You see the effects of your accents. You see the
effects of what you do, and you see how it's
better to get along than to not get along. Even
if there's some of those folks as you don't care for,
it's better to get along than not get along. And
that that as just a singular, abiding message would would
benefit the world a lot right now, If every if
everybody took a little bit more of a grip of that,

(01:46:42):
I think it'd be we'd be better off than we are. Okay,
needless to say, we have a very fractured country. And
uh so, Jimmy, hey, do you believe music has a
part in this forthcoming election and bringing our country together?
And I don't mean to be all kumbaya, but nettles

(01:47:06):
to say we grew up. We could we could point
out that people are on the other team now, they're
music fans that are both on both sides of the fence. One,
to what degree do you feel an obligation to go
on the record? Do you feel it works? To what
degree you inhibited? Because obviously your entire audience doesn't feel
the same way. Yeah, you know, I've always been uh

(01:47:29):
you know, my politics. I've never taken on the stage
because I believe that there's a place oasis is are
there for reasons people to rest and uh and I
believe that that's what we are. And everybody tends to
go into the political world of it, but uh, music
is is the universal language. I've I've I've lived it,

(01:47:51):
I've experienced it. I've going around the world, uh and
play places where I can sing in other languages and
where I can or I can I can listen to
songs that I don't know what they're saying, but I
love what it's the way it's making me feel. And uh,
you know, it's to a degree. You know, I think
there's been a little too many celebrities getting into the
political world. And then you know, in the beginning it

(01:48:13):
was pretty interesting. And and of course politicians want your
audiences because they think they're there's uh and I've done
that and uh, you know, but my polife were like
I said, I was raised not to hate in the
South by my my mother and uh and and friends
around her. She worked in labor relations in a shipyard
to was segregated. So I came up that way, and uh,

(01:48:37):
I'm gonna stay that way. And yeah, I'm gonna go.
I'm gonna go do work I always have in the past.
But you know, if you don't like it, I don't
see how I'd like to see less equating politics with music. Uh.
You know that sounds weird because protests songs have gone
out there, but and done, done good. But in this climate,

(01:48:57):
you know, there's has to be some agreement on something
which there's a very little degree on. But I think
people can agree on bands and probably their favorite baseball, football,
or basketball team. And if that's what we got, that's
our job right now. Well, gentlemen, this has been wonderful.
We've explored stuff that certainly I wasn't aware of, and

(01:49:19):
I really thank you for taking time out of your
day to appear and tell us your stories. Well, yeah,
thank you for being Bob Lester's absolutely and I also
want to want to thank you, Bob for for for
the the letter last week, the kind words and uh,
because as you know at this point you you're bound

(01:49:41):
to know how terrible of a self promotor I am.
So the fact that you're helping is much appreciated from
the mcinally daughters for sure and myself as well. That's uh,
it comes straight from the heart. I mean, it's you
look for things to connect with, you know. It's kind
of like people say, kids today have a really short
attention spin no, they just have an incredibly good ship detector.
They go no, no, no, and if they find something

(01:50:04):
they like, like a series, I'll watch all day I
am looking for those tracks, and when I find a track,
I will literally play it out infinitum. I made a
Spotify playlist of those three tracks. When Hiking in the
Mountains played only those three tracks. They set a mood.
I will play them into the ground. You'll get a

(01:50:25):
few thousands of a penny from Spotify for me, but
it's certainly hit me emotionally. Well. That's music is one
of the only things in the world that can make
bad good. It can turn bad into good, and we
get to be associated with that. And I know I
know from your letters over the years that you're passionate
about it. I know that this guy in the in

(01:50:47):
the florally in the pretty shirt. You got a pretty
shirt there, Jimmy, that guy, I must to him. Yeah,
it's not a costume. And I know what it means
to me, and I know how grateful that I am
that we all get to talk about it and go
out and do it again tomorrow. Thanks so much for
doing this. Until next time. This is Bob left Sex

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