One is the release of his latest album “Equal Strain on all Parts,” which was released earlier this month. Featuring a laid-back Jimmy strumming his ukulele, the album has 14 tracks that showcase his melodic songwriting, smooth vocal style, and skilled musicianship. Joining him on the record are such musical luminaries as The Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Paul McCartney.
The other reason is that I get a chance to listen to his 1996 holiday CD “Christmas Island.” It has been one of my favorite yuletide collections for decades. Besides the title track it has nine other songs. Traditional classics such as “Jingle Bells,” “Up on the House Top,” and “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” are on there. But there are also tunes that are more attuned to Jimmy’s island vibe. Those are “A Sailor’s Christmas,” “Mele Malikimaka,” and “Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum.”
Buffett actually had a special connection to this holiday. He was born on Christmas Day.
He wrote about feeling cheated as a kid by sometimes only getting one gift for both occasions until his mother made it clear to the relatives that he should get a present for each. “On the whole it worked out quite well, although there were a few Scrooge like occurrences where I would get socks for my birthday and a tie for Christmas,” he noted in the album’s liner notes. “This probably is the reason I never have liked to wear either since.”
Reading some of those lines now shows that even at that point, 27 years before his death, he had already lived a long and satisfying life. “I can look back at five decades where fun and joy have been far more visible in my life than suffering and sadness, and think that I was truly born under a lucky star.”
The birthday boy considered “Christmas Island” a gift to his fans writing, “Christmas Island is a collection of songs, not ladled over with sugary sentimentality and not too far out there in the strange corridor down which my mind sometimes wanders, and I hope it is what you would expect from the Christmas war baby turned island boy …”
It certainly is. Thank you, Jimmy. Merry Christmas and happy birthday.