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Should there be any soul alive somehow unfamiliar with Jimmy Buffett, how would one explain the man, the act, the South Florida development mascot? Like John Denver or Kenny Rogers, Buffett seems to exist as a genre unto himself—wielding a celebrity whose remarkable endurance threatens to outstrip that of even his best-known song ("Margaritaville," for the record). More even than followers of the Dead, Buffett's loyal Parrot Head navy have built a community of concertgoers for whom the sets themselves are ritualistic signifiers of sun and sand and the permanent vacation. PDX writer Ryan White's new bio, Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way (Touchstone, 368 pages, $26.99), approximates the effect of its subject's chosen tipple—over-sugared, surprisingly strong, and bound to curdle the stomach in large doses.
A former music editor at The Oregonian, White's résumé reveals itself in the reams of meticulously attributed background sources and overflowing guest list of names dropped—Buffett appeared to party through the '70s with a Kid Rock-like ability to attract disparate comrades-in-debauch. Though such lives are always better lived than examined, the cavalcade of dimly familiar personages (Dan Fogelberg! P.J. O'Rourke) dipping into Buffett's orbit at least distracts from the logy narrative and lessens the absence of the man himself.
For those seeking insights into Buffett, A Good Life All the Way cares most about proving its title, though the distance from biographer to biographed lends a daft poignancy to the book's central thesis. We love Buffett, White writes, because he so nearly could have been one of us—an oddly reductive way to explain the devotional fervor sparked by pop-rock superstars that is not in any way true.
This book takes every opportunity to burnish its subject's bona fides by means of geographical coincidence (Hemingway was another poet of the Keys), drinking buddies (Hunter S. Thompson was a friend?), and left-field tributes (Bob Dylan was a fan?!), but the guiding tone tacitly places its subject within the guilty pleasure zone. For the most part, A Good Life All the Way would like readers to consider Buffett as far more (and, at times, a little less) than just a musician, which makes for an oddly tone-deaf music bio. "Margaritaville" may well be the furthest flowering of Buffett's singular muse, and casual listeners might believe a shambling barroom crooner had backed into a hit single, tapping the low-key aggressive triumphalism of sun-baked dissipation for retirees of all ages.
In other words, the art matters—and rigorously chronicling the extent to which Buffett's purposeful careerism belies all beach-bum pretense, White tries like hell to have his sponge cake and eat it too. If Buffett is a visionary prophet counseling appreciation of the simplest delights, his inauthenticity galls. If he's just a likable hack with a peculiar gift for the hummable essence of a self-satisfied people's happy-hour dreams, why would anyone read (much less write) such a detailed accounting?
White is a Buffett fan, and therefore keenly aware of the untapped market his topic represents: Parrot Heads are hardly the most critical of consumers. This may explain an oddly telling passage within the acknowledgements. As apparent justification for Buffett's capitalistic excesses, if not the author's own mercenary ambitions, White writes, "I can buy a Nirvana T-shirt at Target. That's what happens around here. Our outlaws become kings." That betrays a shocking disregard for Cobain's fate—the same as Hemingway's and HST's—as opposed to Buffett's. There's a world of difference between burning out and wasting away.
Ryan White reads at Powell's City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 503-228-4651, powells.com, on Tuesday, May 16. 7:30 pm. Free.