Jimmy Buffet

Okay, I'll be honest, I am not a Parrot head, nor a fan of Jimmy Buffett. But when I heard "Trip Around The Sun" with Buffett and Martina on the radio, I had to get this CD if only for that song. Turns out that I liked a whole lot more of the sixteen tracks. There are a lot of great guest artists on this with some very good material.

The basic tracks were laid down at Buffett's studio and the Nashville artist and musician overdubs were done mostly at the Sound Emporium in Nashville. Just a great warm sounding CD mastered by Yes Master in Nashville(best job that I have heard by them).

The all star cast includes Clint Black, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, Toby Keith, George Strait and Nanci Griffith.

"Trip Around The Sun" with Martina McBride is just a beautiful song with a great message of life to convey. "Boats To Build" with Alan Jackson is a great acoustic country song. "Coast Of Carolina" with Jimmy by himself is another beauty, great country song, great hooks, great lyrics.

Buffett has a very good, well seasoned country voice and sounds better than ever here. Some great fiddle contributed by Stuart Duncan.

"Anything, Anytime, Anywhere" is a great acoustic country heartbreak song that Buffett sings by himself. Great pedal steel and fiddle.

A lot of the tracks still have a touch of Buffett's island sound in the background (timbales and steel drums), but they are greatly overplayed by the pedal steel and country instruments, actually a very nice balance.

The CD starts out cookin' with "Hey Good Lookin' " with a lot of other Nashville greats like Alan Jackson and George Strait. Awesome track with some great steel and lead guitar. "Someone I used To Love" with Nanci Griffith is just a great tear jerker. Honestly, one of the most fun CDs that I have reviewed in a couple of months.

Oh yeh, Buffett does a great cover of the Dead's "Scarlet Begonias", just some awesome lead guitar and vocals. This recording is plain easy on the ears, excellent production. Only thing that I missed was my copy did not have a list of songwriter credits in the liner notes, though I was able to guess a few of the songwriters, probably a typo. I'll give Buffett his License to Chill, he has earned it.

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