Buffett Puts Energy Into the Easy Life
Charleston Post & Courier
Saturday, October 31, 1998

     Jimmy Buffett climbed the stairs to the office at Margaritaville Charleston, remarking on how much he liked the dark, polished look of the place.
     "This is cool," he said.
     Yeah, the King Street store is a cool place. But what's really cool is sitting down for a while with Buffett on Friday afternoon and hearing his reflections on the space shuttle, his latest concert tour and the state of popular music.
     Buffett was at Cape Canaveral, Fla., this week on assignment for Rolling Stone to write an adventure sort of piece about John Glenn's space shuttle trip. It's the kind of story he wrote for the magazine earlier this year when he went to Cuba to cover the Pope's visit.
     "I really always wanted to be a journalist and a writer. This music career kind of got in the way. I had to pay the rent, too, and it (music) was fun," he said.
     Buffett had some fun as a journalist this week. He was in the company of baseball's Ted Williams, NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and broadcasting legend Walter Cronkite.
     "All of a sudden I was surrounded by heroes," he said. "We're in the middle of the shuttle launch, and Ted Williams is showing Tom Brokaw how to improve his back cast on his fly rod casting."
     For his Cuba story in Rolling Stone, Buffett took the angle of a correspondent seeking an audience with the Pope. He approached the shuttle story in similar fashion as a journalist trying to get near the rocket.
     "I did get pretty close to it. Not on launch day but the day before. I followed a hunch that led me there. I was glad that my investigative sense was still right," he said.
     How close did he get to the rocket?
     "I can't tell you that. Pretty close."
     You mean, like leaning up against it?
     "No, no, no, not like that," he said, laughing.
     "Closer than most people. It was a unique kind of vantage point that few people got."
     Buffett has seen three shuttle launches, events he talked about over the sound of his hits such as "Changes in Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes" and "Margaritaville" as they filtered upstairs on the store stereo.
     "The first time you see something like that, it's just the power and noise. You just can't get over that. It's kind of an indescribable moment really," he said.
     Buffett, a seaplane pilot, said he interviewed Glenn in August for the Rolling Stone article he is writing and plans to interview him when he returns.
     "He's a personal hero because of what he accomplished in aviation. He's a very unassuming, down-to-earth guy. In this day and time it's refreshing."
     He also interviewed Cronkite, which he said was a thrill.
     He said his experience as a pilot gives him a different perspective on the shuttle.
     "The thing about it is, I'm also a pyromaniac," he said, laughing. "So you combine your piloting with your pyromania. It's about the best show that there is out there."
     Buffett has long been one of the most popular shows on the American concert trail. He made Charleston his home base for his last two tours, rehearsing at the North Charleston Coliseum. His band likes it here, the coliseum staff treats them well and he enjoys the fishing.
     "Charleston is kind of like our spring training home. It's always been a unique and a charming place. I've always felt some kind of attraction to it. I guess it's that seaport thing," he said.
     He noted that his grandfather was a sea captain.
     The Buffett concert tour is primarily an outdoor summer event, and this year's tour went well except for a 4th of July deluge in Raleigh, where 47,000 Buffett fans endured a fierce storm that wouldn't let up.
     Buffett has never canceled a show in 30 years but said even he would have stayed home from that one if he were a fan.
     Buffett plans to record a new album in January and will be fading from the public eye for a couple of months. He plans a few shows in December in Florida and a few shows in New York in February.
     "I'm going to go fishing and take it easy. It's time to do an album. I haven't done a collective album of new songs in a couple of years. I'm going to kind of go back under the radar and write," he said.
     Something has been bubbling up in his brain lately that blends Charles Lindbergh, Lewis and Clark and John Glenn.
     "But not a shuttle song. I don't write like that. I kind of write it as it comes," he said.
     He attributes his success to dedication and teachers and tutors in his early days who taught him the critical importance of being a performer. Music videos have changed that because they have short-circuited the apprenticeship approach to becoming a seasoned act.
     "Record companies to me are more to blame than the artist because they create the environment. And these days they're all owned by huge corporate conglomerates. The entrepreneurial spirit is really a dying entity in the music business," he said.
     He spent 15 years experiencing nothing but rejection, but kept going because he had dedication and patience.
     "When it comes right down to it, it beats a nine-to-five (job) any day. That was the first thing about it. I didn't want to go back to work in the shipyard and get a real job," he said.
     He said he thought about retiring a few years ago but he's riding on top now and has some balance in his life, things that have taken a long time to accomplish.
     "Now, they'd probably have to drag me out of here," he said.
     With that, Buffett, 51, headed downstairs at Margaritaville Charleston to greet the members of the Lowcountry Parrot Head Club waiting for him.
    

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