Who Is Jimmy Buffett At The Royal Farms Arena

For my performance paper I went to see Jimmy Buffett at the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, MD. Buffet is a popular country music artist. Buffett’s music is known to exhibit a high level of what is called “Island escapism” in his music. Buffett’s grandfather was a sailor which influenced him immensely in his younger age. After graduating college Buffett went on to work as a first mate in Key West, aka the southernmost point of the U.S., for much of the 1970’s. While working as first mate for a ship in this remote island in the southeast U.S. Buffett perfected the guitar and what he called the “Caribbean Rock n’ Roll” genre. As his music developed and became more popular, it started to become known amongst the popular scene as “gulf and western”.
Implying that he mixes the beach, fun, and sun musical style of the coast with the contemporary and down to earth musical values of “western” country music. This is seen in the participatory performance at the concert: Such as making a shark fin with your hands over your head and waving it back and forth or providing the waves of the oceans with your body and arms during songs. Buffett has won multiple country and pop music awards in his career, but most notably of his career: Of his thirty albums released since 1980 eight of them went gold and nine of them went platinum or multi-platinum. This solidifies him as a significant player in the popular country music scene.
Generational, cultural, and class identities are the three main factors in Buffett’s music.
The first thing I noticed when walking into the Royal Farms Arena to attend the concert was that at least 85 percent of the people there to see Buffett were baby boomers. It’s strange how large of a market Buffett hits when you realize how niche his market is. Almost everyone at the concert hall I could tell, either by analyzing them or talking to them, that they were specifically of the upper-middle class. The class that can’t necessarily afford to retire yet, despite being in their late-50s to early 60’s, but still has the financial security to take trips throughout the year to the warm southern parts of the country. Especially the Florida Keys in the instance of Jimmy’s fans. Jimmy Buffett fans are all part of a collective that they call “Parrotheads”. Half the people at the concert were either wearing huge parrots on their heads or some other sea animal like a shark fin. This is important to notice because it shows us how most of the people at the concert shared the same cultural identity. Sure they share the same language and mostly the same origins, but most important of all, they all identify with each other as relaxed beachgoers. So Buffett has accumulated a huge number of fans. Almost entirely within the specific music identity of an older upper-middle class person with the desire to live on the ocean and relax on
beaches.
For the first citation I look to use it to prove the generational foundations in the identity of Jimmy Buffett's music.
His book, A Pirate Looks at Fifty gives the reader a good look at how Buffett defines himself and how not only he, but, by association, also his fans identity with his songs. Part of what I will use this book for is helping solidify my argument of the generational identities in Buffett’s own words and stories. This book also provides for a cultural examination of Buffett’s “Gulf and Western” genre and lifestyle in it’s subtext and I will connect it to that in my essay to strengthen my cultural definition. The second citation, which is the Google Scholar source, provides for the examination of class identity. I will use it to this effect as evidence towards my class identity argument. It also has hints of cultural definitions, but I will mostly be focusing on the book citation earlier referenced for the cultural source of Buffett’s identity. This citation can also help me explain Buffett’s “Island Escapism” style and why it connects to Buffett’s generational identity so
much.