“You Had To Be There” is the name of Jimmy Buffett’s 1978 live album, and it’s also a sentiment from the party-crazed ’70s, when cameras and video recorders weren’t as common.
Some of Buffett’s early stories may seem lost from the pages of history, but a documentary making its East Coast debut at the Florida Film Festival hopes to share the memories of living band members who witnessed Buffett’s meteoric rise to fame. “Occupational Hazards: The First Coral Reefers,” narrated by Jeff Bridges, tells the “untold” story of Buffett’s original band, which first joined Buffett in the dark bars and coffeehouses of Key West during his early touring days.
“Everyone knows a lot about Jimmy Buffett. It would be hard to go to a remote place on Earth and understand who Jimmy Buffett is on some level,” said Ted E. Haynes, co-producer of the film. “People don’t know the story[of the Coral Reefer Band]they don’t know who the people are, so it’s important to be able to be the custodians of their story, how they were involved in the early days.”
The importance of these stories is underscored by the enthusiasm for the project shown by former band members (and their siblings and children), producers, tour managers, and Jimmy Buffett-inspired musicians, all of whom contributed to the 90-minute film’s story arc.
After meeting at the Key West Film Festival a few years ago, Haynes and John H. Cunningham (the film’s director and co-producer) went out to dinner in Tampa and invited Roger Bartlett, the original guitarist of Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band, to join them. This fateful meeting led to the pair embarking on their first collaboration and largest film project to date.
The following week, a benefit concert, Sing for Fing, was held in Nashville to honor Mr. Buffett’s longtime harmonica player, the late Greg “Fingers” Taylor. As quickly as the idea came, the filmmakers had the opportunity to interview seven people at a time for the film.
“I don’t recommend doing all the pre-production on a feature film in one week,” Haynes says. “We arrived in Nashville and got great content.”
The first part of the film focuses on Buffett’s early dreams. Buffett was shattered when he went to Nashville with the goal of becoming an “overnight success,” but that goal didn’t work out. After a failed marriage and a chance encounter with folk singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker, Buffett was whisked away to Key West, which became the fertile ground that inspired many of his songs.
“Places like the end of the road attract different types of people to live there full time,” Bartlett says in the film.
“The island was full of eccentrics, outlaws, and nomads, who collectively became the muse for Jimmy’s songs,” Bridges says.
The now well-known song is about Phil Clark, a New York City advertising executive turned smuggler and the subject of “The Pirate Looks Forty.” His personal experiences and encounters served as inspiration for many subsequent hit songs. These include “Margaritaville,” which was inspired when he lost his flip-flops on his way home from a bar and cut his foot on a beer can tab.
The documentary also includes the story of how Buffett and his friend, songwriter Keith Sykes, wrote “Volcano” in about 15 minutes while exploring Montserrat, where Buffett recorded his album of the same name.
Award-winning country music star Kenny Chesney said in the documentary, “People who didn’t get to live that life felt like they did. Jimmy was so honest and real about his life through his music.” The late Buffett, who passed away in 2023, was Chesney’s longtime friend and mentor.
Audiences at the Florida Film Festival will be able to relive the experiences of Buffett’s band through footage from their 70s and 80s touring days and stories shared in interviews. The film includes a total of 600 archival materials, songs, videos, and photos.
“We had to narrow down[25 hours of interview footage]to a 90-minute film, and 50% of that is archive. It’s hard to know what to keep and what to leave out,” Cunningham said. “It reveals how the band contributed to their iconic album, life on tour, and helped lay the foundation for the Parrothead phenomenon and subsequent Buffett legacy.”
Buffett was like the “pirate captain” who kept the band together, and it was probably their support and influence that propelled his career to the highest heights.
“The Coral Reefer Band gave these songs and this music to the world in a way that no one else could,” Chesney said in the film. “Jimmy sat in a chair and walked out. He might have done it. Who knows? But he didn’t have to because of those guys.”
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If you go
“Occupational Hazards: The First Reef Keepers” will be screened twice at the Florida Film Festival. The April 12th 5pm screening at the Enzian Theater is sold out online. The standby list will be published on the evening of the event. Tickets are still $13 each (plus $2 handling fee) for the April 17th 6:30 p.m. screening at Regal Winter Park Village (510 N. Orlando Ave. in Winter Park). More information: floridafilmfestival.com
