Part 2 From Buffett to Backroads: A Life in Song with Will Kimbrough.

In Part 2 of our conversation with Grammy-nominated songwriter, guitarist, and producer Will Kimbrough, we go even deeper—into the stories, the songs, and the legacy.

We dive into Will’s decades-long relationship with Jimmy Buffett, including what it was really like being part of the Coral Reefer Band and co-writing some of Buffett’s final songs—most notably the emotional and enduring “Bubbles Up.” From behind-the-scenes moments to the personal impact of those collaborations, this part of the conversation is as real as it gets.

We also explore Will’s songwriting process, the stories behind some of his most meaningful work, and how it feels to hear your songs carried into the world by other artists. Plus, we rewind all the way back to the beginning—how it all started, the moments that almost changed everything, and the lessons he’s learned along the way.

This is the full-circle moment—where craft meets legacy, and where a lifetime of music comes into focus.

If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, go back and start there—you’ll want the full story.

Will's Core Collaborations / Major Mentions

• Jimmy Buffett, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Todd Snider, John Prine & Guy Clark

Legendary / Industry Icons, Additional Artists & Collaborators ,  Musicians / Nashville & Session Legends, Writers / Producers / Key Figures Mentioned & Bands / Cultural References Mentioned 

• Paul McCartney, Mark Knopfler, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix & Neil Young
• Toby Keith, Roger Waters, Jerry Jeff Walker, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt & Dolly Parton, Jerry Douglas, Luther Dickinson Alison Krauss & Yo-Yo Ma, Mac McAnally, Gary Green  & Daniel Lanois, Little Feat, R.E.M., Allman Brothers Band & Pink Floyd

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is part two of From Buffett to Back Road, a life in song with Will Kimbrough. If you haven't heard part one, head back to episode nine and then come right back for the rest of the story.

SPEAKER_07 0:13

There'll never be another guy like that. Um open-minded artist, popular performer. It's kind of like knowing Will Rogers or something, you know.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Welcome to the hook. Where music and art come together with the people that created it.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

I'm Johnny. I'm Jess. You're on the hook. And then come right back for the rest of the story. A songwriter is a songwriter. A guitarist that other guitarists study. But also someone who has toured the world, produced records, and written songs recorded by some of the biggest names in music.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

He's worked with legends Emily Lou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Todd Snyder, and has spent years as part of Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer band. He's one of those rare artists who can walk into any room, studio, or stage and elevate everything, quietly shaping the sound of American music for decades, whether you realized it or not.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

And let's not forget that he's a Grammy nominated singer and songwriter.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Will Kimbro, you're on the hook.

SPEAKER_07 1:24

One of the good things about being older and having written a bunch of songs and put out a bunch of music is that you you have like a a long set that you can do. The hard thing is to choose if you only have like 30 or 45 minutes to play. It's a dreamsickle guy, so Dave McKinney's sitting in the room with he drove me over here today and he fronted the band last night and we did a great show. And I opened with some songs, mainly specifically, that I either wrote with Jimmy Buffett or that I wrote and Jimmy Buffett recorded. And so there were a couple of them that I had not done the night before at the Cross Mill, so I wanted to play some other songs. It was a great night. The audience was so receptive. Sometimes it's just like that. You know, sometimes you have to kind of earn their trust, and other times they're just ready for you and welcoming you. And either way is cool, but certainly better if they're welcoming you. Like I have this newer song that'll be on my new album called The Margaret Truman Drop Off Launderette, and it's about a laundromat in Key West and kind of what I imagine that it is for people that move to Key West and sort of follow their dream of becoming like the cool poetic beach bum like Jimmy Buffett or Ernest Hemingway or Jerry Jeff Walker.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

I believe you sang that the other night at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_07 2:29

It's one of my favorite, and it's not a heavy song. It's just I made these characters out of my imagination of walking past this place over and over again over the years. I had this fun idea of what I imagined it would be. And I'm I guess once I get the song out, I'll go in there, maybe make a little video or something. But I just wanted it to be this like a place you open up and it's like way bigger than you thought, and it's full of all these cool people. I mean, I know it's just a laundromat, but that's just how it works. Like the thing that sparks your imagination, you never know what it's gonna be. So I want to record my live oak tree song, and I want to record my Margaret Truman launderette song, and I want to record Bubbles Up. And then I've also got a song that's actually Jimmy Buffett's sort of autobiographical story of the living in New Orleans in the 60s, late 60s, and playing in his first kind of rock and roll band. It was just a cover band on Bourbon Street, and they failed and went broke, and they weren't that good, but he fell in love with the idea of being in a band, so he went from being this kind of like guy that wanted to be a folk singer. Can you imagine Jimmy Buffett being like a serious folk singer? I mean, he was he had songs that were serious and heartfelt, but he wanted to be like these folk singer guys that were like, you know, I went on down to the railroad track. You know, he wanted to be that, but he but he failed at it, and that's what led him to be who he became. And even Emmy Lou Harris has a story. She has one of the best albums ever made, Wrecking Ball, legendary Hall of Fame singer who's also crossed paths to rock and roll, like Neil Young and Bob Dylan and Little Feet, Bonnie Rae, Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton. She told me that Wrecking Ball, which is her album that gave her a second career from like an old country singer to like a modern. She was working with U2's producer Daniel Lamois and made this atmospheric record and kind of invented a new style of music that's like kind of country, but also could be anybody could listen to it. You could be like a Metallica fan and listen to it and get this like deep atmospheric like thing. She told me the only reason she made that album is it was the 90s and in Nashville, and everybody wanted her to make her. Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood kind of successful 10 million selling album. And the label said, we it was Warner Brothers. They said, We've put your records out for like 35 years. It's time for you to have a hit single. And she said, Okay, okay. So she worked with this producer in Nashville that at the time was the hot producer making the hit singles for everybody. And she's friends with him, she liked him, she's like, Okay, help me make a hit record. So he's like, All right, we'll put the team together, the A-list players, and then we'll pick you the songs. And they made the album and then she delivered it to the label, and they called her in and said, We can't release this album, Emmy Lou. And she said, Why? And they said, There's no hit singles on it. And she said, You're not even gonna release it at all? And they said, No. And she said, Well, what do I do? And she saw it, they said, Well, we're gonna let you go. Instead, they said, What do you want to do? Which never happens, right? She reached in her purse and she had a cassette of Daniel Lanois' solo album. And he's the producer of U2 and Bob Dylan and the Neville Brothers Yellow Moon, like famous producer of rock music. And they said, Well, do you want to go talk to him? So then she was on the next plane to New Orleans and she made Wrecking Ball, which transformed her career and gave her like this 21st century career anyway. So Jimmy Buffett and Emmy Lou both had to fail at what they had been doing in order to succeed. And I think everybody has to do that.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Everybody.

SPEAKER_07 5:36

But when you're in in music, you do it publicly, and people know, oh Warner Brothers refused to put her album out. That's an important thing to remember. And it's hard to do. Like when you are failing, then you just feel like a failure. You can tell like your kid, you know, oh, don't worry, you'll you'll learn from this, and they're like, Yeah, whatever. This is depressed, you know. But then later they can come back and say, You were right. You know, they you could it's always right to say you'll grow from that. So I'm certainly an example of that. I've I've never had a hit, but I've had a career, and I don't know if that's the right story to inspire people, but I've just been in love with what I do for like 40 years, and and it keeps coming back. And the older I get, the more I'm able to understand how fun it is. Uh, one thing I'll do is say, you know, with Jimmy Buffett, I can give you a little overview of some. The first song he recorded of mine was called Piece of Work.

SPEAKER_10 6:28

I'm a piece of work, I'm a little ease. Jump right up in your face. I'm all dumb founding dumb as an ass.

SPEAKER_07 6:51

And so all I could do is just send him all the songs, you know, sort of I had. Because I I'm not a salesperson, I'm just a person who can improvise and create on the spot, and that's that's really my gift.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

For people that don't understand that process, is that pieces of paper or is that recorded music?

SPEAKER_07 7:08

I was sending him like CDs. This is like 2003. So I sent him two CDs I had released, and then I sent him a C D R. Remember those you could burn a CD back in the day, back in the Dizzly day. Back in the Dizzle. And so I sent him some other songs, and then he responded with, I want to record these two songs. It's kind of got that O Diddley beat or that New Orleans second line beat, you know. And I'll sing it in my scratchy. I've been on the road voice, you know, I'm a piece of work. I'm ironing lace, shy right up there in your face.

SPEAKER_08 7:44

I'm all dumbfounded, stubborn as an ass, sharp as an arrow in a pile of glass. A sweetheart, genius, reckless jerk, and Lord have mercy, what a piece of work.

SPEAKER_07 7:54

So Lord have mercy, what a piece of work. I didn't even remember or realize that like Jimmy had like Good God Almighty and Lord have mercy in like his song Cheeseburger in Paradise or something like that. And I think he recognized, he thought that I was sort of name-checking stuff from his songs, and I think I was unconsciously. But what an amazing thing that I didn't even know that. So then there was song The Champion of the World. That was the song that he didn't record, but then Little Feet recorded, because the piano player from Little Feet from 1970 to today was there, and he's one of my heroes, so he was like, What if Little Feet recorded it? And so it's like this well, I'm weak and I'm worthless, and I can't make up my mind.

SPEAKER_08 8:32

When they handed out ambition, I was next to last in line. I was a lost little lamb until I found that girl. When she holds me in her arms, I'm the champion of the world.

SPEAKER_07 8:53

So that got cut by little feet. And then Jimmy agreed to write with me. I bugged him for a year, just very tastefully, once a month. Email, how you doing, Jimmy? You want to write songs? Piece of work sold a million, so come on, let's write some songs. He finally said, Let's write. Next thing I know, I'm flying down to St. Bart, French West Indies. We had lunch with Roger Waters from Pink Floyd and the keyboard player from Bon Jovi. And then we had dinner with Roger Waters, who's Jimmy's friend. So there is like the guy from Pink Floyd that wrote The Wall is hanging out and asking me, What are you doing here? And I'm like, I'm a songwriter. He goes, Oh, I'm a songwriter too. I'm like, no shit. He wrote the wall. So then we wrote wings. I've been up around the stratosphere, 31,000 feet.

SPEAKER_08 9:35

I'm gonna fly on out of here on wings that you can't see. And if you're ever gonna fly without fear, you're gonna have to learn to love the atmosphere. You gotta learn to use those wings that you can't see. I've got wings that you can't see. I have wheels on my feet. Well, hi, I feel free on these wings that you can't see.

SPEAKER_07 10:07

And then we just kept going from there, like we wrote. I went body surfing in a lightning storm in a wild night when in my 20s, right before I moved to Nashville. It was like my last big night in my hometown with my old friends, and we did things that young people do in the middle of the night and went body surfing in a lightning storm. Don't try this at home, don't do it. But it was amazing. So I wrote this little ditty that was kind of like a Johnny Cash, you know. I like bodysurfing in a hurricane. I like making love in the pouring rain. I ain't afraid of dying. There ain't no fear in my brain. I like bodysurfing in a hurricane.

SPEAKER_08 10:51

And so Buffett was a surfer, so he was like, I feel like going surfing in a hurricane.

SPEAKER_09 11:00

And I'll surf guitars.

SPEAKER_10 11:10

I ain't afraid of dying.

SPEAKER_08 11:13

There's a no fear in my brain. I feel like going surfing in a hurricane.

SPEAKER_07 11:22

So we wrote that. Love it. You know, it just goes on and on. And then on into when Jimmy was struggling with Merkel cell carcinoma, which eventually took his life. He was getting treated for that for like three or four years. So we made two albums during that time. One was at the beginning of 2020, and that was when I really felt like embraced by the Coral Reefer band and Jimmy Buffett as like a member of the family. Like, and I think it was more about me. It wasn't how they were treating me. It was that I kind of grew up into like, oh, they like me fine.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Well, you're described online as an honorary or so.

SPEAKER_07 11:55

It's official. That made me feel better by myself, too. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. So yeah, I felt at home. And then I didn't really understand. Jimmy was in his 70s, he was having some kind of cancer thing, and that happens a lot. And I don't mean to downplay it, but he was so positive and upbeat and looked so good and sounded so good, and it just seemed like, well, he's just dealing with it.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Something to get through.

SPEAKER_07 12:18

Yeah, and I didn't know the diagnosis was such a hard one. You know, the Merkel cell carcinoma, they just tell you, take that trip to Paris, get your affairs in order. When you were working on Bubbles, did you know it did occur to me, okay? So 2019 we wrote a record, we wrote a third of the songs of a record called Life on the Flip Side. Jimmy, he was in the moment. He was a mindful, momentary, like, what's happening today? If he needed to make a record in January, he was gonna write all the songs in December. You know, it wasn't like he'd been working, like me, I'm like writing songs over years and thinking about it. He was like, Oh, it's time to make a record. Let's write. Hey, Will, you ready to write? And he would call me and say, You're ready for some homework. And I'd say, sure. Except it's Christmas time and I'm gonna be busy, but I didn't say that in my mind, I'm like, how am I gonna work this out? And I'd tell my wife, and she'd go, Well, just make the time because you need to write with Jimmy. Do it. He would say, I gotta go get barbecued in Boston or so. He'd say some funny, like dark humor thing about it. And I'd be like, Oh, you must be getting radiation or something. But he didn't tell me. So we wrote a bunch of songs. That record came out during 2020. But then he called me in 2022 and said, Are you ready for some homework? And I said, Oh, you're making a record. And I said, like in three weeks, he goes, Yeah, exactly. So let's hunk her down. And so he sent me three ideas. One was he's written several songs about his brushes with death. Like he got shot down or by the Jamaican army one time because he was flying a plane and they thought he was a smuggler. And so he said, I want to write another song about my close brushes with death. So he wrote this song called Close Calls. He'd send me this like a storyboard for a song and say, Are you comfortable with just running with the idea? And I was like, sure, because at that point I sort of like, he trusts me, so I'm just gonna do it. And I'm um we've already written for 19 years, so I guess he must like what I do. It took me that long to kind of be comfortable with it. Like, does he want me to try to be like him and like try to make it sound like Beachy or something? You know what I mean? But he just wanted, he wanted another creative option. So I made up close calls, close calls, I will survive.

SPEAKER_08 14:12

Brick walls, big balls, lucky just to be alive.

SPEAKER_07 14:19

And remember the, I don't know if you guys are old enough to remember Walking Tall, but it was a big movie about this guy, Buford Pusser, who had this run-in with like organized crime, and I fought Buford Pusser in a honky tonk joint.

SPEAKER_08 14:31

He whipped my ass. That's beside the point. Close calls, close calls, lucky just to be alive.

SPEAKER_07 14:41

So we wrote that song, which is just goofy, but it's true. And then we wrote the University of Bourbon Street. But this is me sitting in my living room by myself with Jimmy's notes. I wrote a version of that song, sent it to him on my phone, like a phone recording. I started writing this song called The University of Bourbon Street, which is I played it the other night, but you know, it's like this jazz, you know.

SPEAKER_08 14:59

We got high class, low rent voodoo information, Pat O'Brien's hurricane accreditation, old school sex education, and I learned how to eat. From the music and the people to the cooking and the joy. It really ain't a mystery. I just followed my dancing feet.

SPEAKER_07 15:22

To the University of Bourbon Street. Song about his experience in New Orleans in the 60s and how much he loved all the stuff. So it's got voodoo, Pat O'Brien's, Sex, Food, Music, People, Bourbon Street. We get in Tennessee Williams and Streetcar Named Desire and The Neville Brothers and Smoking a Joint with the Beautiful Hippie and the Pirate Jean Lafitte, Gris, which is like voodoo things, and his parents. This is in one day I'm sitting around like trying to come up with these ideas for Jimmy. So I sent him those two, and then he had Bubbles Up. I played it the other day, and this friend of mine, Claire, this great songwriter from Mississippi, played the song. She goes, Well, what does the reference bubbles up mean? And everybody kind of laughed because they had all heard the song before. And I said, Well, he took the Navy diving course. And so that's a big thing with like diving and scuba and just anything underwater is like if you're in a situation where you don't know which way the surface is. And so you then you have this limited amount of time before you drown, follow the bubbles up. They will always go up. You can count on it. The opposite of gravity, the bubbles go up to the surface. It's a mantra they teach you. And if you're learning how to be a military diver, okay, if you get in trouble, don't forget, bubbles up. And he said, I want to write a song that comforts someone who's struggling. And then I happen to have a record player in that room and a stack of old records, and the top record was a Jimmy Buffett record, an old worn-out copy I'd had since 1974 called Living and Dying in Three Quarter Time. And of course, three-quarter time is a walt. One, two, three, one, two, three. So I just started playing in that time. It was just a prompt that I took. You know what I mean? Like a self-chosen prompt. Three-quarter time. When this world starts reeling from that pressure drop feeling. Just treading water each day. He wants to write a song to comfort people. I had just come back from one of those Songwriting with Soldiers trips, too. So I just used his notes. I used his words. I finished the song and I tried not to F it up, you know. I used my Songwriting with Soldiers mantra and used it with Jimmy. And when I sent it to him, he said, Oh, that's so great. I can't wait to tweak the words. And the other songs I'm saving, like pralines on my pillow for dessert. And I've never gotten such a sweet note about songwriting because songwriters are very analytical too and very critical. And so, I mean, but this is from Jimmy Buffett, who also wrote, you know, as a son, son of a son of a sailor, I went out on the beach for out on the sea for adventure. You know, these great songs like for the ages that people have been listening to for 50 years. But he likes my song, you know, bubbles up, they will point you toward home.

SPEAKER_08 17:55

No matter how deep or how far you roam, they will show you the surface, the plot, and the purpose. So when the journey gets long, just know that you are loved. There is light up above, and the joy is always enough. Bubbles up to my friends who were jolly. When melancholy knocks, sometimes they let her in. They sit and share stories of flops and glories. It ain't half as bad as the bins. Sometimes living is a struggle. It's multiplied double, but they love it too much for the parte to end.

SPEAKER_07 18:57

And that was Jimmy wanted to say partay. Bubbles, because he wanted it to have humor too. Bubbles up, they will sh point you toward home, you know.

SPEAKER_08 19:07

And then it's got the uh, well, let's pop a cork to the rough and the right, to the bright blazing day and the sweet starry night, you know.

SPEAKER_07 19:18

It's a beautiful song, and that was the one that Paul McCartney name-checked, like the day Jimmy died. And so then the song wasn't out yet. And I remember like emailing the label saying, Are you guys gonna go ahead and release this now? Because Paul McCartney's talking about it. And I know that sounds crass, but I thought also Jimmy would have been thrilled.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Yeah, do it beyond belief. Carpadam.

SPEAKER_07 19:37

The Beatles like your song. Let's release it. So I did reach out and say, Are you guys gonna do something with this? Because I mean, it's finished. And so they they got it out there, and it's been really great. So Mac McInally was like one of Jimmy's, really his right hand man, but also Mike Utley, that worked with him for like 40, 50 years. I think Mac worked with him for 40 years, roughly. Let's just say 40. And Jimmy had been Mac's hero, and then he got to be his producer and co-writer. And Mac is one of the most talented people that have ever played music or just been in the world. He's a brilliant, brilliant person, but he's also Mac McGinelli from Belmont, Mississippi. You know, he's a small town guy, but he's been all over the world and met all kinds of people. All I can say is he's brilliant, truly brilliant. And Mac got Jimmy to sing the song. Jimmy had sung like a demo of it, and then he sang a really beautiful vocal in the studio. And then not that long before he passed, Mac went up to his house in the Hamptons, you know, and said, I think you should you could sing this better. Because he was the producer, and so he pushed Jimmy, and even though he was sick, and he said, You could sing this a little bit better. And Jimmy was like, What do you mean? I've already sung it because Jimmy was kind of like me, like not the prettiest singer in the world, but like a conversational singer. You know, not like you know, the voice or whatever. And Jimmy said, Okay, okay, Mac, I'll do it. You know, and that was one of the things that McCartney said. He said, Well, and the vocal on the song was really cool. I didn't know Jimmy was that kind of a singer, but it it knocked me out. And so anyway, we were out on tour last summer with the Coral Reefer band because Jimmy told Mac and Mike Utley, keep the party going if you want to. If you want to go play and call it the Coral Reefer Band, you have my permission. And so then afterwards, you know, you had to go through to the estate and the family and say, Well, he said we could play, and and and they gave us permission very graciously. But Mac said the other day, and I'm not trying to speak out of school, but he did say, It's been unreal that I got to work with Jimmy all those years. And he's also worked with he was like Toby Keith's favorite songwriter and all these people, very successful, and he's just done this new amazing Amy Grant record, which is another, you know, coming from like the sort of Christian music and 80s pop. Mac McInally has had this amazing career, and he's a brilliant, brilliant producer, writer, performer, storyteller, piano player, guitar player, mandolin player, whatever like a magic music person and storyteller. He said it's been unreal to have this beautiful responsibility to like bridge the time after Jimmy passes and go out on his own and tell all his stories and play all the songs so he can play. His hit songs he wrote for all these people, these number one hits through the ages. But also songs that he wrote like It's My Job, which is this brilliant song that only Mac could write, The Coast of Carolina, these beloved kind of Jimmy Buffett songs, but Mac really wrote them, you know. He goes, I know there'll be a day when I'm just back at home and I'm being Mac McInley again, and I'm writing songs for me and I'm making a record, and I look forward to that day. He said, but also this journey I'm on is like you, you have your version of it, and you're out there doing it, and I have my version of it, and we're out here doing it, and people need it, and I need it, meaning him and me too. Like, I mean, he worked with Jimmy for four decades, so the grief and the loss, it's like your whole life, 40 years. For most people, that would be a long career, and then you retire. But in music, you just keep going, right? If you can. That made me think about it too. It's like, you know, you just ride it out and then meanwhile, create new songs and tell new stories. And it's good enough for me just to go right with the veterans, even if nobody ever hears them. Because it's the life that you've lived, and your life is short and beautiful. And I just always tell the veterans and the first responders, because the guy that started Warrior Path is like a visionary veteran who wanted to help his people. He saw how people were struggling. He did a songwriting with soldiers song with writers, and he realized how much he was struggling through that. He thought, I'm a successful guy, I'm raising money and doing things for veterans and building these retreat centers. But when he wrote his song, he was like, Oh, I needed that. I never told that story before. And so that's why songwriting with soldiers is part of Warrior Path, part of the post-traumatic growth thing. He wrote a brilliant book about post-traumatic growth called Struggle Well, and that's the mantra. It's like, you're gonna struggle, but the key is to learn to struggle well. We're not erasing your past. Your past is part of your strength. And I take that to heart with what I do. I've just got the life of Riley of traveling around playing the guitar. I'm not a combat veteran or a first responder. I've had zero responsibility except to my family and my friends. I'm the luckiest guy in the world. Ken Falk would say, don't let the military or being a first responder be the last great thing you do. And I always say, don't let the military or being a first responder be the last creative thing you do. Like tell your story. If you tell your story, then somebody else feels less alone. Todd Snyder and Jimmy Buffett both made people feel like they were talking directly to you. Even if it was an outlandish story that you would never live, you're like, oh, he knows me. They know me, even though they don't. But it makes you feel that, and that's exactly directly related to feeling less alone because you made a connection. It could be a song or it could be a conversation. And I get it too, not everybody can just sit down and make up songs with prompts from Jimmy Buffett. But I was able to do it and I didn't know I could do it until I did it.

SPEAKER_03 24:46

Going back to Bubbles, what lines in there did he change? Well, just curious to see.

SPEAKER_07 24:52

So the original line was When this world starts reeling, from that sinking feeling. So we had all these like sinking, boat sinking, you know. So we changed it to when this world starts reeling from that pressure drop feeling. So a pressure drop is like a drop in atmospheric pressure, and that's when it's really low, you have a hurricane or tornadoes. And also there's a famous reggae song.

SPEAKER_08 25:12

It's like it is you you and it goes, you know, pressure drop, oh, pressure drop, oh, pressure gonna drop on you. And when it drop, oh, you're gonna feel it.

SPEAKER_07 25:36

Toots and the May Talls. We both love Marley and Toots and the May Tals, Peter Tosh, all their Jamaican music is so amazing. It's such a small place where all this music's come from. So it's a m a miracle, you know. Like Jamaica, so much music came out of this tiny island with not many people on it. Poverty, but yet it's all feel good.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

You know, like the music's just feel good.

SPEAKER_07 25:56

Even if you make a song like I Shall Be Released by Bob Dylan, you know, it's like they say everything can be replaced. They say every distance is not real, but if you do it reggae, and there are versions of it's like they say everything can be replaced.

SPEAKER_08 26:14

They say every distance is not real.

SPEAKER_07 26:18

It feels good, but it's this heavy message, and there's a lot of that, you know, like Bob Marley, Small Acts or 400 Years, those are songs about slavery. Everything and it makes you feel good at the same time. So it's like, man, a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. You can deliver a heavy message and make people still dance.

SPEAKER_03 26:37

Which is all songwriting with soldiers.

SPEAKER_07 26:39

Yeah, you're right. It's like lay your burden down and we'll take it. And one thing I've learned is that when you're writing a song, nobody's transferring their trauma to you. People are like, Do you ever go home and you feel that weight? And I'm like, no, I feel like I have no weight. I just can't sleep because I'm so overstimulated and happy.

SPEAKER_04 26:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 26:54

Because we got to do this thing and we did finish the song and we did use their words. Sometimes I wonder if it's corny because you know, so many the singer-songwriter, it's you know, you also have the opportunity to express like sadness and things like that. That because a lot of people are really good at that, especially singer-songwriters. And it's important and it's powerful. And I've certainly got songs like that. When you practice gratitude, you also have to be grateful for the hard things. It saves my life every day. If I'm tired, I'm like, well, I'm tired, but I'll sleep when I get to the bed or when I sit in the airplane. It's gonna be okay. Warren Zvon has a great song. I'll sleep when I'm dead.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

I think about that.

SPEAKER_07 27:30

He was right. Yeah. But he was great. You know, he's also got a song called Keep Me in Your Heart for a While. So if nobody's ever heard that song, go listen to it. He's got a line in it that says, I'll be close to you like the buttons on your blouse or something like that. It's like, keep me in your heart when you're doing things around the house. I'll be close to you like the buttons on your blouse. Keep me in your heart for a while. And I don't know, that just destroys me every time. Like with the good kind of feel. It makes me think about my wife, my mom, my sister, my daughters. So they wear blouses. I just wear shirts. I wear the shirts around here.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

And I love your shirt. His shirt says Fillmore East. We'll get a picture. Yeah, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_07 28:11

Folks, Fillmore East. If you're a music fan, then certainly you have a copy of the Allman Brothers band at the Fillmore East. And of course, everybody played there. There's the bootleg of Dwayne Allman playing with the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East. Everybody played there. So I found like a reproduction shirt of the old shirts they used to have for like the staff. It's great. I mean, that was the first record that I got that really taught me like about what the guitar could do. You know, the Allman Brothers at Fillmore East. It's not just a guitar record because the whole band have two drummers, amazing bass player, Greg Allman, amazing singer, and just one of the most beautiful people ever lived in his organ playing. And then Dwayne Allman and Dickie Betts, and they're all like 22 years old.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

We talked to someone recently, Willie, who is in a band of sky dog. Oh, cool. I forgot to tell him we talked about the Allman Brothers so much during that interview, and I forgot to say that my song growing up was Jessica.

SPEAKER_07 29:08

They changed the world. And they could play for like 20 or 30 minutes and nobody would ever get tired of it, you know. I remember getting that record and I got a slide, which I don't have today, but slide guitar, I can do it with a bottle or something, but or a pen, you know, like this sliding.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

It's one of my favorite things.

SPEAKER_07 29:24

I'm just a a pen, so that sounds terrible. But I went to the music store and I said, What is that sound? And they were like, What do you mean? And like the the Allman brothers, and they're like, electric guitar? And I'm like, No, no, but the sound, they're like, Oh, a slide. You need to you mean like slide. I was like 12. I was like, I guess, you know. And so they sold me a little tube, a little metal tube, and I started playing slide when I was 12. Because I'm a guitar player. I've played on like hundreds of records for other people, like a couple of hundred, and I produced a bunch of records for people. But when you're a singer-songwriter, the world wants to put you in a little box. I don't have a problem with that because I just go on and do whatever I'm gonna do. But I never get asked about like slide guitar playing, even though I've played slide guitar on about a hundred records because I haven't made that like my brand. But even though the slide's always on my finger, and it doesn't really matter because now I understand that my wheelhouse is the songs and the stories and then the music that goes with it. And like you said earlier, I feel the music just as much as the words. But there's so many songs I don't know the words to, but just the sound of it is such a universe you can lose yourself in. And it's important to lose yourself sometimes. You can always find yourself because you're always there. It's a journey. The road goes on forever. I used to joke and say the road goes on forever and the party never starts. Of course, that's a joke because it's so not true. The party does never end. And this weekend I stayed up too late because I was so interested in talking to everybody.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

Well, since we're talking about the crossmill arts in Ashland, Joey Davis was there. So we had Joey Davis on one of the podcasts. Yeah, one of our first ones. It was Joey Davis and TJ Peterson. And I think Joey Davis is an incredible, energetic writer, musician. And I hear the writer too, right? Yes, TJ's a writer too.

SPEAKER_07 31:01

Joey Davis played us some songs last night that he'd written with TJ and all of the club.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

And I believe they wrote them at the cross movie.

SPEAKER_07 31:08

Yeah, he was just playing his phone last night, and I was mind-blown. And of course, everybody knows Oliver Anthony, you know, his amazing story. And it is an amazing story. I mean, beyond, especially to get it with from Joey, who's like right there with it all. Yeah, Joey is unreal. Like I've been looking him up and watching some of the stuff. There's no re uh replacement for seeing something in the flesh live and feeling that energy directly.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

But I understand maybe you'll write something with Joey. I mean, that's gotta be interesting. You take somebody that's so seasoned like you, and we're we've been listening to your story forever and ever and ever, and you have this singer-songwriter, upcoming performer doing great, but to bring you two together would be amazing.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Well, I love the idea of your role has been such a supportive one. Yes. For it's an almost turn where you're maybe that's the next chapter for you is doing what Buffett did with you for young writers.

SPEAKER_07 32:03

Well, that would be fun. I mean, that would be cool. I mean, I don't have that clout, but I do have the creative clout. I don't have the financial fame clout of it. So yeah, I would love to do that more. It is an interesting time in music because it's all about going out and playing live, because like the whole world of like what your song is worth, like monetarily, is like way down. But from a live perspective, it's way up. Like I can work all the time, and then I can do my songwriting with soldiers work. And I'm going to England and the Netherlands with Emmy Lou in a few weeks, and we're gonna sing my favorite Graham Parsons song as a duet at the Royal Albert Hall in London for like 7,000 people with like chandeliers and red velvet. I mean, that's a place where the Beatles played, Jimi Hendrix played, Bob Dylan played, Miles Davis. I mean, everybody, you know, all the opera singers and the classical music. It's like kind of overwhelming to me. I keep thinking about that. And then I just put it off because I've got to go to Maine on Thursday and write a song with the veterans and then play these gigs in Massachusetts, and then you're just gonna be there all. All of a sudden I'll be in London and I'll be sound checking at the Royal Albert Hall with Emmy Lou Harris. But that's the way it works. And I've been with her so many times and learned from her that you can actually do things on the fly off the cuff because that's the necessity, and you can do it with grace, is the way she does it.

SPEAKER_03 33:20

And I bet sometimes it comes out even better than it could have possibly been planned.

SPEAKER_07 33:25

And it's not up to you as the performer to decide whether it was a good show or not. I mean, you can criticize yourself and go, I should have hit that note or whatever, but it's for you to just do it and walk away. And I've learned that from her because she's so good at that. And I mean, she's saying with everybody, everywhere, literally, on the level of at the Grammys, at the CMAs, in the Hall of Fame, with Bob Dylan, with Joni Mitchell. She said, I didn't even know the words, they forgot to give me the lyrics, and then we're up there, and I'm just like on the mic watching someone's mouth. And then you watch the thing on YouTube, you don't know that at all. And even me, I'm a pro, you know, and I'm like, it's fine. She just did it. And so she'll call songs sometimes because she's been doing this for 50 something years. She'll call these songs because she just assumes you know all her songs because you've been in her band off and on for like 15 years. She'll call a song and I'll be like thinking, I've never done that song with you before. She'll be like, Yeah, let's do you sing the duet part on that one tonight. And it's like an hour before showtime. And so I'll get on my phone and look look it up and get myself the lyrics and write the chords down, and then I'll knock on her dressing room door and be like, Can I come in for a second? You know? And I'll go, Can we run that? I never say, we've never done that one before because I don't want to make it a thing. And not that she would care anyway. She'd go, Well, we're gonna do it anyway. Being with fearless people, particularly Jimmy Buffett and Emmy Lou Harris, they're just fearless people, and they don't wear it like a fierce thing, like, I'm gonna get you, you know, or I'll show you. It's more like, maybe we're just gonna do something. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

It's just an eight to them.

SPEAKER_07 34:51

Yeah, and like while I was with one of the first shows I ever played with Jimmy, I was subbing for the guitar player, Peter Mayer, who's this brilliant musician who's been with Jimmy forever. And Peter wasn't gonna be able to be there, so they brought me in. Nobody gave me a set list. And so we're walking down the hall to the stage, and Mac, Mac and Allie starts telling me what songs we're playing. It was, oh, oh, we'll we're gonna start with blah, blah, blah, we're gonna do blah, blah, blah. And we're gonna do five o'clock somewhere. And you you start it right on the guitar, so it's all right. And then we're just walking to then we're and I'm just going like vertigo, like, and then we went out and played. But because Jimmy was there singing the songs, I mean, I do sweat the details, but the fact is everybody had a great time. The audience was thrilled and cheered, and everybody said it was great. So I believe it. I'm not gonna be like, well, you know, let me tell you why it wasn't great, because I've heard that a lot before. So sometimes it's good just to see what the audience is doing and go, okay, I accept that. We did that. I am gonna go home and make sure I know these songs better if they call me again for this. But enjoy the moment because life is just a bunch of moments.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

I do love how music is coming almost full circle to like a retro and it's all about the guitar. And even the younger kids are going back to the whole 70s, raw sound. Yes.

SPEAKER_07 36:04

It is hard work to travel all the time. I don't mind it. If I minded it, I would I would just do something else because it would be terrible if you didn't like to travel and do what I do. But the idea that people want to come hear you play and sing, like Emmy Lou's shows, she's legendary. Her shows in like the Netherlands or Amsterdam, Utrecht, they're all sold out already. They've been sold out for like a year. Her Albert Hall show. But I get to go do it too, and people want to hear it. And she wants me to be there with her. So again, who gets to do that? I mean, it I don't think of myself as the best at anything at all. I I'm totally self-critical, but I'm excited. The older I get, I realize how special it is. Less about like, oh my God, how am I gonna pull that off? It's more like, I get to do this. Let's just go do it. It's gonna be awesome. And I'll maybe be with my friends, the drummer in Emmy Lou's band and I have been playing together for 40 years. Who gets to do that?

SPEAKER_01 36:55

I love how humble you are. Yes. But I do need to bring up that you won Instrumentalist of the Year at the American Music Association in 2004, and that was after receiving, I believe, multiple nominations. So a huge deal in that world.

SPEAKER_07 37:13

Well, I'll put it this way Jerry Douglas had won three years in a row. So he is truly an instrumentalist. Like that's what he does. And so for me to win, it was kind of like I think they recognize somebody who's like works in the world of song rather than like instrumental virtuosity, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Might make sense if I hadn't seen you play. But I think you're underrating yourself.

SPEAKER_07 37:36

Well, I mean, we all do that.

SPEAKER_03 37:37

Um, your guitar sang. Well, don't make me get the big head.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Well, listen. No, but here's the th, and I'm not a musician, my husband is. And I leaned over to him Friday night and I said, I don't I don't know how to describe this. It's so clean. It's just so clean and and effortless, and it's like it's coming from God.

SPEAKER_07 37:57

I like that.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

So I'm gonna write that.

SPEAKER_07 38:00

I don't know what that is, but you don't want to hire me for your festival? I mean, you're good, what you're gonna miss out on is this so clean and wonderful, it's like it's coming from God. But if you don't want that at your festival, then that's fine. I'll just tell God to knock it off. No, I hear you. But that's the way music is to me. It's like you don't know where it comes from. Keith Richards said something like, the songs are just there, and you just every once in a while you get to get it. I do know how we wrote bubbles up, but we weren't in the same room. But Jimmy had given me these, he would literally send me handwriting, a photograph of his date book with some scrawl on it, and then he'd send me like an old newspaper article and then a picture he drew or something. Then he'd be like, Can you work with this? And I'd of course say, Yeah. And I just ran with it, and it is a song where we'll go play it this summer for like 10,000 people, and they'll all have their phones up and singing along. And it's not really like a hit single that was on, but it's almost better because people actually just like it. Not because it was crammed down their throat by a radio programmer. In fact, radio really won't touch it. Who cares? Because we're gonna go play the concert and we will play this song every night, Bubbles Up. Jimmy Buffett's biggest fans, the parrot heads, just the most loyal, beautiful, and kind of open-minded in their own weird, crazy way about music. I'm lucky too, because I wrote songs with Jimmy Buffett, so they accept me in. But when I play Bubbles Up, sometimes there's like this groan like they're gonna have to live their grief and cry. Bubbles Up is a happy, grateful, beautiful, positive message disguised as a sad song because of the circumstances under which it was released. Sometimes I play these shows that are so intimate. Like the other night at Cross Mill. Sometimes I'm like down face to face with people. I was in Washington, outside Seattle on the water there. Said I'm gonna play Bubbles Up and the lady sitting right where you are, was like just went, oh God. She knew she was gonna cry.

SPEAKER_03 39:41

You know, I cried when I heard it that night because it was so beautiful.

unknown 39:46

No.

SPEAKER_07 39:47

But I said to her later, I went up to her because it was a situation where I saw everybody that was there and people were just milling around this little small festival. It was awesome. So anyway, I walked up to her and I said, Hey, I just wanted to tell you that don't forget that that song, that's what Jimmy wanted to write. He wanted to say that, and it just says it's gonna be okay. Let your people who love you take you back to the surface and be in the sunshine. And he that's what he wanted to say, and it made him so happy to write that song. So I'm gonna play it every time I play, probably for the rest of my life. But it's also there's a reason why it's called a good cry.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

It's so fitting to have that be a final goodbye, I think. Yeah, and then and it like John eat her dad's funeral. I think that's gonna be a common theme. Maybe and it is the balance. Okay, so I want to go back to mobile Alabama. Yeah. It's 1964. When you picked up the first guitar, because you talked a lot about being 11, 12. When was the very first one?

SPEAKER_07 40:40

So I wanted a guitar as a child. I wanted an electric guitar and an amplifier. I didn't want an acoustic guitar. And so my parents were like, well, you've got to take piano lessons first. So I took piano lessons for a couple years, and it was great. Then when on my 12th birthday, they bought me the coolest-looking but hardest to play cheapo electric guitar and little amp. And I went to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in a 1,000-seat theater for $4.50. They were willing to also buy me a ticket for $4.50. May 1st, 1976. So I got the guitar, I didn't know how to play it, and the amp and a little chord, and I plugged him in and kind of went, you know. And then it's time to take you to the Bruce Springsteen concert, little Will. And so I went to see Springsteen, and this is 1976. So this is Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen. He's a skinny guy with a little beard and a leather jacket. That Springsteen, not the much young. He was, yeah, he was like 23. And so he did like a three and a half hour show. That was his third album. I had all three of his albums. And he played all the songs from all three albums, and it was just like wow. And I said to myself, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go home and learn how to play a chord on that guitar. So I remember going home and it was almost like that, you know, King Arthur and Excalibur. I opened up the little case, and there was the guitar like with the spotlight on it. Oh and uh and I formed a band like the next week with my friends, and like you gotta get a bass and you gotta get a set of drums. And then like six months later, literally, we were playing at Skate World in Mobile, Alabama, playing for like girls with like Farafaucet hair, like skating around with those Jordash, those and those, yeah, Jordash jeans and those and those big combs in their back pockets.

SPEAKER_04 42:21

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 42:22

And like skating around, and and I'm playing, you know, like cat scratch fever or something. Nice free bird. So that was it. I mean, I was just I was absolutely dyed in the wool. My dad didn't sit around and play a guitar. My parents were just southern professionals. We had a piano that nobody ever played unless I was practicing for my lessons. I mean, it turns out they everybody has music in their life. They had all kinds of music back in the 50s and stuff, but we didn't sit around and play the old guitar and sing together, but all of a sudden I was a musician. And my parents were really cool about it. They kind of hoped I'd go to college and do something else. And then after a while, they were like, Well, this is what you do, so cool. Where are you playing this week, Will? You know?

SPEAKER_03 43:01

At this moment, the guitar that you are holding is a Gibson 1948. Am I getting that right? 1948 Gibson acoustic electric guitar.

SPEAKER_07 43:11

Yeah, yeah. So this guitar was built in Kalamazoo, Michigan by people who had just lived through the Depression and World War II. They rationed wood and everything in World War II because spruce, the top of the guitar, they made airplane frames out of spruce, you know, before they had just lightweight metal. So this top of this guitar would have been rationed so that they could build warplanes. Wow. And mahogany and rosewood would have been used as veneers for like officers' quarters on ships. These guitars were made when the guitar industry got their wood back and the people got to have the good wood again and build guitars. So to me, there's like in these Gibsons and Martins of this era, there's like this story and this joy. And if you could see this, listener, we'll take a picture of it. It's kind of like got the Willie Nelson vibe. Like there's places where there will be a hole in the top at some point because it's been worn so much, but it's just a beautiful. Sounding thing and it just feels good in my hands.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

Sounds like a brand new guitar and it's in perfect condition.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

Just a little worn with happy music. I think there was a song written from the perspective of the guitar. My boy and his guitar. That's right. That was a great yes. What a I've never heard anything from that perspective. It made me so happy.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

Do you remember the first moment something in your life turned into a song in your head?

SPEAKER_07 44:28

I do. Okay. The first band I had, we didn't know how to play other people's songs. So instead of like getting lessons, we just wrote some songs. And I guess that was when I realized I was a songwriter. But I was 12, so I didn't realize that. I just did it. And then we'd play it for our parents and stuff. But what we really wanted to do was be able to play like Aerosmith and Leonard Skinner, you know, and The Rolling Stones and The Who or whatever. So then we learned how to play other people's songs. So then I had my sort of formative years of like playing all the songs I thought were awesome. And then I started writing again when I was about 16. It seems like such a short time now because I'm 61. And at 16, I met this guy from Atlanta who had just moved to Mobile for a job. He was 23, so he seemed like an old man to me. He had put up a three by five card in the music store with a thumbtack that said wanted to form band to play original music. And I had just heard like the pretenders and Elvis Costello. And it was just kind of new music that was coming out with the songs that were speaking to me. I heard brass in pocket, you know. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

I'm special. You know, I love that song. I got to have some of your attention. Give it to me.

SPEAKER_07 45:43

You know, and I was like, that is a good song, man. That is like my music. Because I've been learning all the 60s and 70s stuff, and then all of a sudden you feel like you're in your generation with some awesome bands, and Chrissy Hind was so hot and cool in their leather pants. And so my friend Richard Gallo was a bass player. We got together and he said, Yeah, in Atlanta, all the bands just play their own songs, and there's clubs, and people pack them out to hear and they make their own records and stuff. And then that band opened for REM, that story I told earlier, where it's like, oh, they're just like guys like us, and they have a crummy van and his amp is broken. They're just human. It made it human, made it possible. It made it possible for me to see that I could do it. Like instead of they're not like coming in and like a limousine and like wearing like silver pants or something, you know, like space aliens. It was more like they're just dudes who do it. And then when they got on stage, the chemistry and the energy was like, wow, they had it, you know, you could tell. But off stage it was like they're just guys with like a flannel shirt on and like a crummy pair of Converse that are dirty. So it felt very endearing. And so then, you know, like I said, we went and made a record and formed a band and went on the road and haven't been home since.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

Was there ever a period where you worked at like a grocery store?

SPEAKER_07 46:53

Uh I made pizzas when I was a teenager, but then I started playing in the clubs when I was about 16, and they'd like sneak me in and like ABC board came in, they'd hide me in the cooler, you know, in Nashville, because I moved there in a working band. So we could go make a living, and we got signed. And I got a publishing deal and I got a record deal. So like I bought a Toyota pickup truck and I made a down payment on a house in 1989. And then that all kind of went wonky at some point. But, you know, so I got my first like sort of like attempt at being a grown-up. And that was rough. I was like, oh, this is not what I thought it would be. I gotta pay my mortgage. Our first daughter was born after Todd Snyder kind of got dropped from his label and the band went home. We went home from the road, and I didn't have a gig. And so I was trying to start my solo career with a baby at home and a young wife at home. So I was like, I need a job. So I've got a job delivering bread for this bakery because I didn't have any ski job skills. I was like, I worked at a pizza place when I was 16 and I've been in a band ever since. What do you got for me? They're like, nothing. And so I delivered bread for like six weeks. I could go to work at 5 a.m. and get off at like 1.30 p.m. And then I could, if someone was gonna hire me for a recording session, I could say, I'll be there in the afternoon. And so it actually worked. Like I got recording session work and sort of started my career, which has been, I mean, that's been part of my life, has been going to play on people's records. And that's been very valuable. I have a good ear for it and all that. And you listen to the song once, write down the chords, and just start recording it. Nashville's full of people like that. They can just hear a song once and go, okay, I'm ready. And then sometimes the first take is like bubbles up. The record is really like the first take of the band playing the song, the record that's out there of Jimmy Buffett's. So I worked at the bakery for like seven, six, seven weeks, and then my music career took off again. Like I got hired for this tour going out and opening for this band called Golden Smog, which was like a side project of the Jayhawks and Wilco and Soul Asylum. So this was like night the late 90s, so those guys were, you know, so I I went out with this friend of mine and we opened for them, and I got to be around those guys, and it just felt like I was back because being out of music for like six weeks, even though I wasn't. I had been on tour my whole life, and then I was delivering bread and doing recording sessions. I felt like I'd left my career behind, but it was only six weeks. But you know how time is such a weird thing.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

Well, and that whole point that keeps coming up of when you're doing what you love, time flies. That was probably a really long six week though. Because it was in fact the opposite.

SPEAKER_07 49:16

Yeah, well, I was waiting to see what was gonna happen, and then I found out. Like all of a sudden it was like, oh, now you're on the road again. And then I made my first solo record, which wasn't some kind of big seller, it was just a milestone. And it was a record that this artist Shelby Lynn, who had a record out, that won a Grammy that year. She won Best New Artist, even though she had been making records for 10 years. She won a Grammy. I am Shelby Lynn. It's a great record. And she got asked by Rolling Stone to list her top five records of the year 2000.

SPEAKER_08 49:42

The year 2000.

SPEAKER_07 49:44

And she listed my record. Nice. Like it was like, you know, this, this, this, this, this, and Will Kimbrough. And the record is actually called This. Wow. But so stuff like that would happen and just carry you along, and they'd be little things, and they wouldn't get paid for it or anything, but it would be you'd get paid for it in many, many ways. Right. But just kind of moved you along. And so that everything's just keep moving along.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

It's like that fine wine.

SPEAKER_08 50:07

Old timer, old timer, too late to die young now. Old timer, five and dimer, trying to find a way to age like wine somehow.

SPEAKER_07 50:24

Love that. That's a brilliant. Yeah, that is too late to die young now.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Nice. Song that feels like home.

SPEAKER_07 50:37

Bubbles up.

SPEAKER_03 50:38

Artist you're still in awe of.

SPEAKER_07 50:40

Jimi Hendrix.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

First concert.

SPEAKER_07 50:43

Aerosmith. 1976.

SPEAKER_03 50:45

I thought you were gonna say Bruce Springsteen.

SPEAKER_07 50:47

Wasn't my first. That was the first best concert.

SPEAKER_03 50:50

Oh, okay. Got it. Nice. Go-to midnight snack.

SPEAKER_07 50:54

Anything, and I shouldn't be eating it. Probably like some trail mix that's in my backpack that's been in there for three months.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

Disgusting. All right. If you go down in a hotel room what late one night, we'll know why. How many Hawaiian shirts do you think you own?

SPEAKER_07 51:11

17. A moment that changed you. Jimmy Buffett asked me for some songs.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Studio or stage?

SPEAKER_07 51:18

Stage.

SPEAKER_03 51:19

Riding alone or with someone else? I'd say with someone else.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

The most you song you've ever written.

SPEAKER_06 51:29

Piece of work.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

Go-to cocktail.

SPEAKER_06 51:32

Coffee. Too much coffee.

SPEAKER_01 51:37

One word that the people that love you and are around you the most, one word that they might use to describe you.

SPEAKER_03 51:44

Busy.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:45

Best series you've watched lately.

SPEAKER_07 51:48

Ooh, okay. It's called Woman of the Dead, and it's an Austrian series set in the Alps, and she's a mortician who inherited her family's funeral parlor in the Alps, but she gets involved in all this crime stuff. And then all the chase scenes are like on these switchback roads in the Alps. She also rides a motorcycle, like a crotch rocket. Is she hot? She's just a badass.

SPEAKER_01 52:11

Okay, I'm all nice. I know.

SPEAKER_07 52:13

She's a mom and an undertaker. But then she gets on her motorcycle and like chases down the bad guy and gets in all kind of trouble. I think it's on Netflix.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

I'm gonna find out. Last one. If your life had a soundtrack, what's the closing track?

SPEAKER_09 52:30

Bubbles up.

SPEAKER_03 52:31

Aww. When you were playing at the beacon last night, I already heard you guys just rocked it out and had a wonderful show. But you also played with Gary Green, who's a harmonica player right here in Charlottesville.

SPEAKER_07 52:44

And you know what? Gary runs sound every year at this thing called Shed Song, which is run by these folks, Van Holton and Polly King, who are a married couple, who are from Charlottesville, but they've moved to Lynchburg. And so they have this big old house in old, you know, 1800s house in Lynchburg, and they do it in Lynchburg now. So I'm gonna go play there in early June. And Gary comes and runs sound. And when I first met him, they're like, Oh, by the way, Gary plays harmonica too. So if you want him to sit in, and you know, you're thinking, like, who's the sound guy that plays harmonica? And then so of course I was like, come play, and he's like, Oh, I don't want to, I don't want to impose. And I went, please sit in. And uh, and then I was like, Whoa! You know, so yeah, he's amazing, he's amazing. He's this most like humble, quiet, like self-effacing guy, if that's the right way to say it. And then he's he's a rock star, you know, he's great.

SPEAKER_03 53:29

That's cool.

SPEAKER_07 53:31

He was my hero. So I want to do a song called I Like It Down Here. So this would be the other song that would most describe me. So there's bubbles up that's like the guy who who's learned that music can heal and be comforting and and be this solace. But then there's the other side that's like songs can just be playing with words and words you love and you just want to put in there and just the joy of language and playing like a kind of music that's just super fun to play. So for me, like one is like a minor blues, but that that's not sad at all. And I made this record called I Like It Down Here, which is all about the South, because I'm from Mobile, Alabama, which is other than Florida. You if you walk south from Mobile, you're in the water. It's the deep south, and it's messed up and crazy and awesome. Like it's the most wonderful, horrible, perfect, imperfect place. Okay, like every other place, right? So anyway, I like it down here. I do. And you're always south of somewhere, unless you're at the North Pole, exactly. As soon as you take one step away from the North Pole, then you're south of it. So and people are obsessed with south, north, east, west, all over the world. Um I've got a friend from Edinburgh, Scotland, and he talks about it all the time. There's like this thing about being from the south of Scotland, even though you're at the far north of England, but don't tell somebody from Scotland that they're from England, or they'll punch you. The rivalries are all over the world. It's part of what makes the world interesting. It's also part of the world why we still have wars and stuff, you know. So, okay.

SPEAKER_06 55:00

I like it down here.

SPEAKER_08 55:05

She asked me, When does the bad luck stop? When do we rise to the top? It's awful hard work pulling up the rear.

SPEAKER_10 55:19

She said, Now, honey, don't you wanna be a big success? You can buy me a diamond and a wedding dress. I leaned in close and I whispered in her ear.

SPEAKER_08 55:33

I like it down here with the hobos and the drunks. I like the hard-bitten rabble in the leaving trunks.

SPEAKER_10 55:42

Blood in my mud and sawdust in my beer. I like a wake-up call at half past one. And if I had a job, I would get her done. I can catch real fine trash fish off the pier. I like it down here.

SPEAKER_08 56:08

She rolled her eyes and she bit her lip. She let a skinny backbone slip. Little Chesterfield, church keyed another beer.

SPEAKER_10 56:22

Well, she smiled and she said, I must admit that I always did like a man with grit. And then she slapped my face and she called out with a sneer. She said, I like it down here, boss.

SPEAKER_08 56:40

Just as much as you I like the bilge water, the bus tubs stew. I got a three-legged dog and a one-eyed buccaneer.

SPEAKER_10 56:53

I like my homemade wine from a scupping all. I like smoking guns and I love drinking sauce. Big steam train with the drunken engineer. Yes, I like it down here. I love a woman with a face like a question mark. You know she cleans up good when it's nice and dark in a railroad flat with a monkey called Belvidere.

SPEAKER_08 58:10

Come over here, Belvidere.

SPEAKER_02 58:13

I like it down here. I like it down here. Like it down here.

SPEAKER_03 58:32

Beautiful. Amazing. So that's fun.

SPEAKER_07 58:35

You guys allowed me to do all this talking and playing and singing, and what's next?

SPEAKER_01 58:40

Right? I mean We need more.

SPEAKER_07 58:43

We don't want you to go anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 58:45

Yeah, don't go.

SPEAKER_07 58:47

What's the Peggy Lee song? Is that all there is? You know that one?

SPEAKER_01 58:49

Yeah. Or one of the husbands, number one, actually, was a bartender. So I would go up there in my twenties and obviously hang out, free drinks. I'm, you know, with the bartender. The it was the Hawk and Dove in Washington, D.C. on Capitol Hill. And the last song, they always played the same last song. You don't have to go home, but you can't sing. But I can't remember how it goes. Closing time. Yay!

SPEAKER_07 59:22

Closing time. That's a great one.

SPEAKER_00 59:24

That is a perfect way to go. It is. I know who I want to take.

SPEAKER_08 59:29

No. I know who I want to take in.

SPEAKER_09 59:35

Husband number one, tended bar. Husband number two drove race cars. Oh my goodness. Husband number three finally set me free.

SPEAKER_01 59:52

You can write a song for her husband.

SPEAKER_09 59:54

Husband number four was Henry the eighth.

SPEAKER_01 59:57

One was the bartender, two was the cop, three was the felon, and four was the drummer. So feel free to run with that.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:05

It's a blue song.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:06

I know, right?

SPEAKER_09 1:00:10

Husband number one. We had a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:15

Listen, you are welcome. We're on the run. You are welcome to take this one and run with it in the future.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:21

Long riding with podcasters. The new program. No podcasters with their trauma.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

This is part two of From Buffett to Back Roads, a life and song with Will Kimbrough. If you're creative and listening to this, we want your story.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:37

The messy one.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:38

The real one.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:39

The one you don't usually have the opportunity to share. I'm Johnny.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

I'm Jess.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:44

You're on the hook.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:45

Make sure to follow us on social media at Johnny and Jess on TikTok, and you can find the hook with Johnny and Jess on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.