Jimmy Buffett, the beloved musician behind songs like “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” died Friday night at the age of 76.
Buffett’s beach-bum persona and laid-back island style endeared him to flocks of fans, called “Parrotheads,” and earned him the unofficial title of “pirate laureate” in Key West, Fla.
But the “son of a son of a sailor” was also drawn to the mountains of Colorado, where he developed a five-decade relationship with the Roaring Fork Valley and a dedicated following of skiers and other high-elevation types.
“I think there’s an exceptional appeal here, and more Parrotheads than probably the average mountain town like this,” said Wade Waters, a local musician in a Buffett tour T-shirt at this weekend’s Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience.
Buffett had headlined the music festival himself in 2021, joined by the Coral Reefer Band that toured and recorded with him. While it was his first time performing at a JAS event, Buffett had been a familiar face at valley venues since the 1970s, when he arrived as an emerging musician and planted roots as his celebrity grew.
He first came to the area in 1972, according to a comprehensive account in The Aspen Times, and bought a home in Old Snowmass a few summers later. By the end of the decade, he had married his wife Jane at the Redstone Castle, welcomed his first child at Aspen Valley Hospital, released two platinum albums and established friendships with other local heavyweights like John Denver and Glenn Frey of The Eagles.
(In 1977, for a “very early” performance of “Margaritaville” at Aspen High School, Buffett performed with Frey, Steve Weisberg from Denver’s band, and, briefly, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson; Grassroots TV, a local community-access channel, recorded it after an interview with Thompson.)
Buffett later sold his Old Snowmass property to Frey, who transformed it into Mad Dog Ranch and Studios. But he remained connected to the area, sometimes performing as himself and sometimes under the pseudonym “Freddie and the Fishsticks.” He became so locally beloved that people built a shrine to the artist on Aspen Mountain, with street signs like “Margaritaville Way” and “Parrothead Parkway” nailed to the trees; up until Friday, it was a rarity as a shrine dedicated to someone still living.
And even in a catalog defined by boats, booze and beaches, there are traces of Buffett’s Colorado life in his music — and not only in “A Mile High In Denver,” either. Buffett drafted the song “Incommunicado” on the way back to Aspen from Leadville, referencing his drive over the Continental Divide in the lyrics; “Gypsies in the Palace,” which he co-wrote with Glenn Frey, is a nod the raucous parties that caretakers would throw at Mad Dog Ranch while the musicians were away.
“He was an amazing storyteller,” said Geoff Collins, another local Buffett fan at this weekend’s JAS Labor Day festival who estimated he’s seen two dozen of Buffett’s shows. “His music — you know, some of the stuff really brings tears to your eyes.”
Like Waters and other “Parrotheads” at the festival, Collins was eager to reminisce after news broke of Buffett's passing on Saturday morning. While concertgoers shared their memories milling around Snowmass Town Park, bands prepared musical tributes that would fill the venue with Buffett’s music.
The Brothers Osborne and Old Dominion both performed country-rock covers of “Margaritaville” on Saturday — strumming their six-strings on the same stage where Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band played the original two years earlier.
