Buffett friend, bandmate to honor icon in hometown concert

Ten-time Country Music Association Musician of the Year Mac McAnally plans to honor his friend Jimmy Buffett, with a concert in the singer -songwriter’s hometown of Pascagoula in November.

McAnally will return to the Grand Magnolia Ballroom on Nov. 12 with a tribute concert to his friend and fellow Coral Reefer bandmate. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are on sale at grandmagmusic.com

McAnally was Buffett’s right-hand man for some 25 years, playing with the Coral Reefers on tour .

It will be McAnally’s sixth show in Pascagoula in the past six years. He played a pair of consecutive sold-out shows last year in May, just several days after he and Buffett led the Coral Reefer Band on stage at Jazz Fest before 80,000 fans.

He also played to a sold-out crowd in June of this year, and now he returns yet again to the birthplace of his longtime friend and bandleader who died on Sept. 1.

“I am without words for about three weeks now. I usually have too many,” McAnally said on Monday in a Twitter post. “The closest thing I ever had to a big brother left this world on Sept. 1. I’ve been comforted by so many beautiful tributes and am grateful for them. It is my intent to offer comfort and tribute in words and music for the rest of my life. I’m just slow getting up to speed. Jimmy would be laughing at me (or IS laughing) for dragging my feet.”

“What I can say in lieu of the right words that continue to evade is what an honor it is and has been to ride shotgun with a one man fountain of positive energy that saw fit to take me under his wing forty some odd years ago,” McAnally added. “And to the folks who only knew him from the stage or through the speakers, I can tell you he was the same fellow in person that you saw and heard. Trying to help everyone he crossed paths with have the best day possible. Rich folks, poor folks, strangers and friends. Blue and white collars, all religions and political camps. He saw life as a gift to enjoy and his calling was to spread that joy. I’ve never seen anybody do it better. Godspeed JB.”

Pascagoula has become sort of an annual destination for the highly-acclaimed McAnally. He also accompanied Buffett in his performance on the beach in The Flagship City in 2015 and Buffett also joined McAnally in his first show ever at The Grand Magnolia in 2017.

Another longtime Buffett collaborator is also headed to Pascagoula in a few weeks to pay tribute to his long time friend as well.

Mobile native Will Kimbrough will headline “Bubbles Up for Buffett” on Oct. 7 at Resurrection High School. Tickets for that show are also on also at the Grand Mag Music website.

The now Nashville-based singer/songwriter Kimbrough had four co-songwriting credits with Buffett on Jimmy’s latest release “Life on the Flip Side” and will have as many as seven co-writes with both Mac McAnally and Buffett on the Pascagoula natives’ posthumous release next month “Equal Strain on all Parts.”