Jimmy Buffet dead? It can’t be. The man epitomizes joie de vivre. He’s been in the background of my life, via Radio Margaritaville. I often listen to the recorded concerts as I work on the computer. I know the words to the songs and the schtick between the sets by heart. It is truly a sad day. And I don’t know that it will be alright come Monday.
James W. “Jimmy” Buffet was born on December 25, 1946 and died on September 1, 2023. He started his college career at Auburn University. According to several interviews with Buffett, he said that he saw a guy with a guitar at a fraternity rush party. That guy had a bevy of young women enthralled by his playing, even though he later admitted to Buffett that he knew only three chords. Buffet asked the guy to teach him to play the three chords and from that encounter, a Parrothead Nation emerged. Buffet pledged Sigma Pi at Auburn but wasn’t initiated. In a 1979 performance at Auburn, Buffet admitted he left Auburn with a .32 GPA and “never looked back.” (A transcript on the internet reveals it was a 0.47, but why quibble?)
Jimmy Buffett on the Auburn University of Sigma Pi composite
He was a 1969 graduate the University of Southern Mississippi where he became a full-fledged member of Kappa Sigma. In his book A Pirate Looks at Fifty, he said, “Fall semester in a Southern college town has little to do with studying and more to do with football and fraternity rush. Heck, at the time I was really an Ole Miss fan, and to this day I still can’t figure out why I didn’t enroll at the University of Mississippi.”
My condolences to his family and friends and Parrotheads everywhere.
Buffett is to the right of the “67” on the composite.
