Pirates Look At Forty

Jimmy Jams Nantucket! Jammy Buffet is back on the ACK for two nights starting today (7/7-8) at The Box Nantucket — I, unfortunately, have to miss it — but You Ha[ve] To Be There! Meanwhile, enjoy some shots of Buffett around the island, including at The Chicken Box itself and with its owner P***y 🐟

And don’t forget, Jammy Buffet in Wellfleet 7/9 (and I will see YOU on the Cape!)

Jimmy Buffett’s Independence Day song… JB wrote this tune about an adventure with longtime friend and captain, Larry “Groovy” Gray, who owned a fireworks company in St. Barts called Moon Glow. Jimmy would describe the operation as a “ragtag affair,” always with a laugh.

Once upon a time, Groovy invited Jimmy to help with a fireworks show on neighboring St. Martin. After everything was wired into the control box that was supposed to fire the show automatically, something went wrong. The crew suddenly found themselves scrambling through a sandy trench in the dark, lighting some fireworks by hand while rewiring the rest of the show.

Jimmy admitted there was a little panic, but in the end it all worked, and afterward, “we had a laugh about it.”

“I dug in the sand like a boy on a mission,
And there in my hands,
A pyro’s delight…”

Jimmy also loved telling another part of the story. In St. Barts, Moon Glow’s shows occasionally set “the hill” on fire. The fireworks would end, and everyone would stick around to watch the firefighters put the hill out. Another one of those “ragtag” moments that always made him smile.

When Jimmy revisited the story years later with Delaney’s Songs You Don’t Know By Heart, Groovy had been gone for some time, having died in a plane crash in 2003. The song was crafted almost two decades earlier, but the memories—and the friendship—clearly stayed with him.

Jimmy closed the story with a smile: “I’ve always loved fireworks.”

Wave that flag 🇺🇸