Jimmy Buffett’s Gulf Coast Legacy Gets Permanent Home In Mobile

Jimmy Buffett’s journey from Gulf Coast kid to “Son of a Son of a Sailor” is getting a permanent new chapter in Mobile, Al., where the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf will open the Jimmy Buffett: Son of a Son of a Sailor Experience on Sept. 12.

The 6,000-square-foot installation will go well beyond a traditional museum exhibit, bringing together more than 130 artifacts from Buffett’s life and career, including many that have never been publicly displayed. Among the highlights are Buffett’s 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame statue, the 12-string Martin guitar he used to write and perform “Son of a Son of a Sailor,” handwritten lyrics, personal photographs and memorabilia, and never-before-released concert and recording footage.

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The experience will also recreate Shrimp Boat Sound, Buffett’s Key West recording studio, and feature interviews with family members, bandmates, crew, friends, fishing buddies, boat builders, producers, authors, musicians and business associates. The goal, according to the museum, is to tell the story of Buffett not simply as a musician, but as a sailor, pilot, author, entrepreneur, adventurer, philanthropist and storyteller.

The Mobile location is particularly fitting. Buffett grew up in the city, where his family had deep ties to the maritime industry, and the museum sits on the waterfront across the Mobile River from the area where his parents worked at Alabama Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Co. The institution also preserves artifacts connected to his grandfather’s maritime history.

Roughly coinciding with the third anniversary of Buffett’s death from cancer at age 76, opening weekend kicks off Sept. 11 with “Margaritas and Memories,” featuring longtime Coral Reefer band members Mac McAnally and Scotty Emerick at Mobile’s Saenger Theater. The following day will bring the exhibition’s grand opening along with the unveiling of a larger-than-life bronze Buffett sculpture, plus live music and a nautical-themed mural festival at Cooper Riverside Park.

Museum executive director Karen Poth describes the installation as a “living exhibit,” one that will continue to evolve as new stories and artifacts emerge. That seems particularly appropriate for an artist whose musical mythology has always been inseparable from the places, people and Gulf Coast culture that shaped him.

Meanwhile, the Coral Reefer band’s back story will be chronicled in the upcoming Jeff Bridges-narrated documentary Occupational Hazard, which digs into the musicians who shaped Buffett’s sound for decades. Click here to see the film’s trailer.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.