Jimmy Buffett - Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA, 6-3-1978

Jimmy Buffett died yesterday as I write this on September 2, 2023. He was 78 years old, and died of complications related to skin cancer.

I hate that so many famous musicians keep dying these days, but when they do I usually feel obliged to mark their musical legacies by posting something from them. So here we go again. I'm not a big fan of his music, so I had to do some research to determine what best to post, and then go find something worthy. 

I decided that I was most interested in hearing a concert from the late 1970s. By that time, he'd written and released most of his famous songs. But in the 1980s, the popular and critical acclaim of his albums went down, even as he increasingly became a cultural institution. Being a savvy businessman, he was able to parlay his image of island escapism into a cottage industry of restaurants, bars, licensed hotels, casinos, cruise experiences, packaged foods, beverages, spirits, outdoor furniture, home goods, appliances, clothes, and more! By the time of his death, he was estimated to be worth as much as a billion dollars! That makes him the second wealthiest musician from his era, behind only Paul McCartney. (Not bad for a guy who only had one Top Ten hit!) Additionally, he was a best selling author in both fiction and non-fiction, and acted in many TV shows and movies.

So good for him. He clearly was a multi-talented individual. But I fear all those other interests increasingly cut into his actual music career. However, back in the 1970s, he was still a singer-songwriter first and foremost. The name "parrothead" to describe his fans hadn't even been invented yet.

Thus, I looked around for full concerts with soundboard quality from that time, and came up with several. But this one had the best sound without any flaws, such as cut or missing songs.

However, there were a couple of problems that almost caused me to pick a different concert. One is that it has many similarities to his official live album from 1978, "You Had to Be There." That was recorded at a bunch of different venues in August 1978, and this is from June 1978, only two months earlier. Both have 19 songs and are about the same length. However, I decided both are different, and I prefer having a complete concert instead of songs picked from many concerts (which in this case also were not put in the usual order they were played). 

One key difference is this has a bunch of songs not only the official album, most especially one of his most famous songs "Cheeseburger in Paradise." According to the Wikipedia entry on the live album, it is speculated that wasn't included because it was a hit in 1978, and the record company didn't want to have two different versions potentially played on the radio. Other songs here not on the official album include: "Banana Republics," "The Coast of Marseilles," "Manana," "The Last Line," and "Livingston Saturday Night."

The bottom line is, if I just want one live album by Buffett, it would be this one and not "You Had to Be There." It also serves as a de facto best of collection, featuring all of his best known songs, with the exception of "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere," which came way later, in 2003. 

The other reason I hesitated to pick this album is that while the recording is a soundboard, and the songs sound excellent, the banter between songs was strangely murky. Perhaps he used a lot of reverb and didn't turn it off between songs. Murkiness isn't something I can fix with the UVR5 programs or other AI programs like it, at least as far as I know. 

However, I decided to try something new to fix it. I searched the Internet, and found there's a different kind of AI program that focuses on improving the clarity of vocals. The best one seems to be something called "Enhanced Speech" by Adobe. So I tried that out on some of the banter here, and wow! It made a big difference. I liked it so much that I used it on all the "talk" tracks between songs in this concert. Additionally, I used UVR5 to boost the lead vocals relative to the instruments on all the actual songs.

As an aside, this "Enhanced Speech" could open up more possibilities for sound editing. It seems aimed more to help with speech as opposed to singing, but I'm going to test it out some more to see what it can do. If you can think of any recordings that generally sound great except are marred by muddy vocals, please let me know.

Anyway, although I was familiar with Buffett's best known songs, I'd never heard a full concert from him before. I was generally impressed. Eventually, he turned into more of a caricature and a brand than a musician, but back in 1978 he'd written or covered many good songs, and put on a good show. May he rest in peace.

This album is an hour and 33 minutes long.

01 Son of a Son of a Sailor (Jimmy Buffett)
02 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
03 Pencil Thin Moustache (Jimmy Buffett)
04 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
05 Wonder Why We Ever Go Home (Jimmy Buffett)
06 Landfall (Jimmy Buffett)
07 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
08 Manana (Jimmy Buffett)
09 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
10 Livingston Saturday Night (Jimmy Buffett)
11 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
12 Margaritaville (Jimmy Buffett)
13 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
14 Grapefruit - Juicy Fruit (Jimmy Buffett)
15 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
16 Banana Republics (Jimmy Buffett)
17 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
18 God's Own Drunk (Jimmy Buffett)
19 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
20 Why Don't We Get Drunk (Jimmy Buffett)
21 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
22 The Coast of Marseilles (Jimmy Buffett)
23 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
24 Cheeseburger in Paradise (Jimmy Buffett)
25 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
26 Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (Jimmy Buffett)
27 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
28 A Pirate Looks at Forty (Jimmy Buffett)
29 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
30 Come Monday (Jimmy Buffett)
31 Tampico Trauma (Jimmy Buffett)
32 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
33 Morris' Nightmare (Jimmy Buffett)
34 Dixie Diner [Instrumental] (Jimmy Buffett)
35 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
36 The Last Line (Jimmy Buffett)

https://www.imagenetz.de/bWcJu

The cover photo is from an appearance on the Saturday Night Live TV show in May 1978. I found the fancy lettering of his name on the Internet and squished it to fit the available space.