The prophet addresses his flock in Key West:

Jimmy Buffett ... surprised a gathering of avid fans with a rare impromptu street concert in the Florida island city that he nicknamed "Margaritaville."

The 55-year-old Buffett greeted about 3,000 members of the Parrot Heads in Paradise Inc. fan club, celebrating their 11th annual Meeting of the Minds convention, with favorite hits during a street festival on Friday.

"The last time I sang on Duval Street I got arrested," Buffett quipped, referring to Key West's main drag, known for its lively strip of nightclubs and bars.

"But the mayor's back there so I'm OK. Hi there, Jimmy," said Buffett, greeting Key West Mayor Jimmy Weekley.

....He reportedly maintains a house in Key West, where he launched his career and co-founded Margaritaville Cafe. Buffett formed the Coral Reefer Band in 1975.


"I was just a lounge singer in a Key West bar," he told adoring fans. "I don't deserve this, but thank you. I just love being in Key West."

Many of Buffett's songs celebrate a laid-back lifestyle in the Florida Keys, a chain of islands about 160 miles south of Miami.

Parrot Heads have nearly 157 clubs with 18,000 members. The annual gathering, themed "Far Side of the Keys," ends on Sunday.

The group typically dons tropical regalia such as foam parrot hats, grass skirts and loudly flowered shirts and shorts. Many in Key West sported bald heads and are graying.

"This is ground zero for Parrot Heads and to see Jimmy play is just magic," said Ray Campbell, 45, a poet-carpenter and member of Parrot Heads chapters in Key West and Washington, D.C.

Buffett last played at a Parrot Heads convention in 1998.

I like Jimmy Buffett and all, but I am certain that deep down his fans are more enamored of the lifestyle Buffett represents than the music itself, which has had its moments, but not very many in the last 20 years or so.

In fact, all of Buffett's best moments came with the great Norbert Putnam as producer. Norbert Putnam was an ace session bassman in Muscle Shoals and Nashville in the '60s before he became one of the most important and successful producers of folk- and country-rock in the '70s and early '80s with Joan Baez, Jimmy Buffett, Dan Fogelberg, John Hiatt, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Pousette-Dart Band, Jesse Winchester, and many others, in addition to being a studio-owner and music publisher.

Putnam made his greatest impact when he reconnected with the pitch-challenged former-journalist Jimmy Buffett for a series of gold and platinum albums in the late '70s and early '80s. In '76 Buffett and Putnam went down to Miami to hang out on Buffett's sailboat, and in the process they created a new subgenre (and later a movement, the "Parrotheads") by blending elements of calypso, mariachi, country and rock 'n' roll into a beach-strolling hybrid Putnam calls "Caribbean rock."