A giant billboard in Tuesday's Mobile Mardi Gras parade read: "Jimmy Buffett's last hit. Changes in Altitude."
That is a takeoff on Buffett's early super hit, "Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude." It is also a reference to Buffett's love of flying. On September 1, 2023, Jimmy Buffett flew high.
The drawing on the parading billboard showed a saltshaker that had morphed into a tombstone. It read, "RIP JB." The drawing is a takeoff on the Buffett lyric, "..looking for my lost shaker of salt" from his signature hit, "Margaritaville."
Each year, an entire parade of billboards is written and drawn by a parading Mardi Gras society named "The Comic Cowboys."
Tuesday was "Mardi Gras" day. The term means "Fat Tuesday" in the French language. The celebration of Mardi Gras in the United States started in Mobile. The celebration spread from Mobile to a lot of cities, including latecomer New Orleans.
This year marked the 140th anniversary of one of the most entertaining of Mobile's parading societies – the aforementioned Comic Cowboys. Talented Comic Cowboy writers imagine and compose slogans highlighting local issues. A few talented Comic Cowboy artists draw the slogans and illustrations onto giant billboards which are placed onto floats and parade in front of 200,000 Mardi Gras day parade watchers:
SEE: Slideshow — Comic Cowboys hit the streets of Mobile for Fat Tuesday on 140th anniversary
The slogans on the dozens of parading billboards are mostly satirical, taking clever shots at Alabama politicians and state leaders. Only occasionally does a special parade slogan honor or commemorate someone – the death of Mobile's home run king, Hank Aaron. The death of Alabama's country music king, Hank Williams, Sr.
This year, a slogan of honor and remembrance was for Mobile's own Jimmy Buffett.
Buffett had grown up in mid-town Mobile, graduating high school from "McGill Institute," now McGill-Toolen High. His first musical performances were as a trombone player in the McGill band. To purloin a phrase, he was "unsung." Buffett's old high school band often parades during the month-long Mardi Gras season.
Some early days as a singer and guitarist were at The Admiral's Corner, the bar at the corner of Government Street and Joachim Street in the famous Admiral Semmes Hotel. Mardi Gras parades pass right by the Admiral Semmes, literally a few feet from where Buffett played solo. He played mostly for Mobile friends and a few hotel guests. He earned $5 a night plus tips. $5 was real money back then.
Buffett had a difficult time then getting the popular local radio station, WABB, to play his early records. That experience resulted in a Buffett song and recording that also did not get much airplay. His WABB song, "If I Had a Saxophone," was such a non-hit that many Buffett fans do not remember it.
Buffett's parents lived during most of their working careers in Mobile.
Across Mobile Bay from downtown Mobile lies Alabama's Baldwin County. Buffett's parents, James and Peets Buffett, moved to the Eastern Shore of Baldwin County and enjoyed the sunsets and jubilees in their sunset years.
Buffett's first known recording sessions were at a small, struggling studio in Baldwin County's Daphne.
Buffett would often headquarter in Baldwin County with his parents or his sister Lucy Buffett (Lulu) in frequent visits home.
Living and working in New Orleans, Nashville, Hattiesburg, Key West, the Caribbean, and in the sea and air (he was a pilot), he gravitated home to the Alabama Gulf Coast.
He performed dozens of impromptu, unpaid sets at Buffett-ambianced spots in Baldwin County – Lulu's (a Gulf Shores restaurant owned by his sister, Lucy Buffett); famous dive, Judge Roy Bean's (owned by Buffett friend Jack West); the Hangout; and fundraisers after hurricane damage and BP oil spill.
Jimmy Buffett never forgot where he came from. On Mardi Gras day, the parading Comic Cowboys and the 200,000 parade watchers in Mobile remembered him.
Fly high, Captain. Changes in Altitude.
Jim Zeigler is a former Alabama Public Service Commissioner and State Auditor. You can reach him for comments at ZeiglerElderCare@yahoo.com
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