Jimmy Buffett
A Good Life All the Way
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to Cart failed.
Please try again later
Add to Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wish list failed.
Please try again later
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.00 for first 30 days
LIMITED TIME OFFER
Get 3 months for $0.99/mo
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm PT.
Amazon Prime member exclusive: get any 2 titles with your free trial. Terms apply.
Just $0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 audiobook per month of your choice from our unparalleled catalog.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Buy Now for $25.99
-
Narrated by:
-
Gibson Frazier
-
Written by:
-
Ryan White
About this listen
In Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way, acclaimed music critic Ryan White has crafted the definitive account of Buffett’s rise from singing songs for beer to his becoming a tropical icon and inspiration behind the Margaritaville industrial complex, a vast network of merchandise, chain restaurants, resorts, and lifestyle products all inspired by his sunny but disillusioned hit “Margaritaville.”
Filled with interviews from friends, musicians, Coral Reefer Band members, and business partners who were there, this book is a top-down joyride with plenty of side trips and meanderings from Mobile and Pascagoula to New Orleans, Key West, down into the islands aboard the Euphoria and the Euphoria II, and into the studios and onto the stages where the foundation of Buffett’s reputation was laid.
Buffett wasn’t always the pied piper of beaches, bars, and laid-back living. Born on the Gulf Coast, the son of a son of a sailing ship captain, Buffett scuffed around New Orleans in the late sixties, flunked out of Nashville (and a marriage) in 1971, and found refuge among the artists, dopers, shrimpers, and genuine characters who’d collected at the end of the road in Key West. And it was there, in those waning outlaw days at the last American exit, where Buffett, like Hemingway before him, found his voice and eventually brought to life the song that would launch Parrot Head nation.
And just where is Margaritaville? It’s wherever it’s five o’clock; it’s wherever there’s a breeze and salt in the air; and it’s wherever Buffett set his bare feet, smiled, and sang his songs.
I read / listen to biographies as inspiration and help to set my personal mindset.
I expected to hear details of how Buffett got started, but details included incredible imagery. No point describing something in a sentence, when a half of a chapter will do. The author does share names of people, perhaps only their families and the absolute most diehard Buffett fan might know.
I hoped to learn of how Jimmy turned a song career into a successful entrepreneurial business, and in that, this book delivered, but it just took way too long to get there.
Heck, I don’t think the song Margaritaville was even mentioned until chapter 11.
But if you want to hear every detail in Jimmy’s life, this is the book for you.
The narrator was absolutely awesome. His ability to change voices, kept the listener engaged. The book was also well edited.
Worth the listen.
Everything you want to know about Jimmy … and more.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.