The late Jimmy Buffett deeply loved New Orleans. After graduating from the University of Southern Mississippi, he moved to the Crescent City for a year and his time there informed the rest of his musical life.
He played New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival at least a dozen times, adored New Orleans legendary composer/artist Allen Toussaint (who wrote a song called “I’m Gonna Hang with Jimmy Buffett”), recorded and toured with local icons The Neville Brothers, and when asked by a journalist if he thought “there would be a Jimmy Buffett if there wasn’t a New Orleans,” Buffett replied, “I don’t think there ever would have been.”
On his final album, Equal Strain on All Parts, which was released Nov. 3 via Mailboat/Sun, two months after his Sept. 1 death, Buffett again professed his love for New Orleans and what the city meant to him on the rollicking “The College of Bourbon Street.”
In the video for the autobiographical anthem, which premieres above, Buffett, with a little help from the renowned Preservation Jazz Hall Band, chronicles his history with the city. Anchored by footage of a grinning Buffett recording the song in the studio last year, the video also includes decades of photographs and clips of Buffett performing in New Orleans and just enjoying the multitudes of delights the city has to offer.
He’s shown leading a second line, busking in the French Quarter with a sign in his guitar case that reads “will play for gumbo,” hanging out with fans at Margaritaville, playing at Jazz Fest and excitedly getting ready to sample some gumbo. The video does everything to reinforce the notion that Buffett lived and loved every moment to the fullest in his 76 years on earth.
Buffett wrote the song with Will Kimbrough, who told Buffettnews.com that he “started writing ‘The University of Bourbon Street’ on my couch Dec 19, 2022, after Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefers sent me one of his ‘are you ready for some homework? messages.” He then joined Buffett in the studio last January to record the song. “One of the most profound experiences of this time period was rewriting the lyrics from beginning to end right there in the studio with Jimmy” he told the website. “No pressure! But we did it. Despite his illness, he was 100% on and energetics, lighting up the room with that smile. Making everyone feel comfortable and laugh.”