Mac McAnally At The Vilar
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“Back where I come from
Where I’ll be when it’s said and done
I’m proud as anyone
That’s where I come from”
I come from the suburbs, in a world that glorifies the city. Those are my roots. There was enough paper for the mimeograph machine, you got your driver’s license when you were sixteen, you listened to late night FM radio…
We live in a world where people lie about their age, get plastic surgery to look different and rework stories so the loss is never their fault. But I’m a middle class Jewish suburbanite. We played Little League, swam at the JCC, went to battles of the bands… Maybe you can relate.
Then again, we all come from somewhere, and that’s what makes us interesting, our differences. Mac McAnally comes from nowhere Mississippi, not that far from Muscle Shoals, over the line in Alabama, but the roots of the small town are what made him who he is today. And he’s a humble guy, but we were talking backstage and he quoted Voltaire on humility…
So that’s why I had to go to this show. Which was billed as “Margaritas and Memories”…a tribute to Jimmy Buffett and Parrothood. I saw the ad in the “Vail Daily,” and I knew I could get a ticket, but it would cost me even more than that for an Uber back and forth. So I decided to check the set list. And when I saw “Back Where I Come From,” I knew I had to go, cost and convenience were irrelevant, I needed to hear this specific song, and it played in my head for days before the show. That’s the power of a great song.
Now most people know “Back Where I Come From” from its hit version by Kenny Chesney. And as good as that is, the take from his live album is positively stupendous, because it’s not studied, Kenny’s not trying to get it exactly right, make it perfect, it’s all about the emotion. And he allows the audience to sing lines, because his fans know this song by heart. But in Kenny’s version he’s “an old Tennessean,” whereas in Mac’s original, he’s “an old Mississippian”…yes, he makes that word work, he fits it in.
This is a hit, not what is on the radio, the track with the most Spotify streams, but the song embedded in your heart, that you can call up in an instant, sing in your head, something that rides shotgun in your life. We have favorites, and then we have songs that are on a tier above, and that’s where “That’s Where I Come From” resides for me.
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My college buddy John ended up coming up from Denver, so an Uber was unnecessary, and we got to the venue about ninety minutes before the gig and talked to Mac, who had amazing road stories, involving everybody from Wayne Newton to Leon Redbone. This is the difference between the hitmakers in outfits singing to tape and the lifers…because it is a life, and as much as it runs on songs, what holds the whole enterprise together is the stories.
But eventually the show began.
Now you’ve got to know, the Vilar is supported by donors, usually fat cat retired people with white hair who believe in laying down their cash for the arts. But that does not mean they like everything presented. This crowd looked more like the one John Lennon implored to rattle their jewelry, but what became evident very soon was they were PARROTHEADS!
They talk about the Dead, but Jimmy Buffett had a parallel career in many verticals that generated dollars…there is even a Margaritaville retirement community. Because people want what Jimmy was selling. The beach life, good times, but it wasn’t all sunniness, there was some darkness, some basic truth, his image was three dimensional and in a world of phoniness people could relate. And years after Jimmy’s death there’s still a hunger for this music. On his deathbed Jimmy told Mac to keep the Coral Reefers alive, and that is what Mac’s doing.
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So last night it was three members of the Coral Reefer Band: Mac and Scotty Emerick, who is also known for his work with, his writing of songs for Toby Keith, who like Jimmy is no longer with us, and percussionist Eric Darken.
And they started with “Son of a Son of a Sailor.” The opening song from the album of that name and also the opener on Jimmy’s first double live album, 1978’s “You Had to Be There,” wherein Jimmy changes the lyric to equate dragging his casted broken leg to pulling a trailer. “Son of a Son of a Sailor” is the LP that includes “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” which stunningly only made it to #32 on the Hot 100 but has longer legs than the songs that were above it on the chart.
Jimmy never really had another hit. Not one that the masses cottoned to. But amongst the faithful there was “Fins” and “Volcano” and…the audience knows them all, and Mac, et al, played a lot of them last night.
There was “Come Monday,” but also “Boat Drinks,” “Volcano” and from Jimmy’s last album, “Bubbles Up.”
But it wasn’t only Jimmy’s material, but Mac originals, and Toby Keith numbers Scotty was involved with and…
Stories.
Wayne Newton told Mac he was a comedian, he wanted him to open for him in Vegas. Mac turned him down, if for no other reason than he didn’t see himself as a comedian, but like a true southerner, Mac can tell a story. In a natural way. Like you’re sitting next to him at the bar, a few drinks in, everyone loose and telling tales of life.
My favorite was the one about Buffett stealing a cab from the front of the line in Boston, driving it to Logan, leaving it running, getting on the plane and ending up with no consequences.
But it was a family event. Not family entertainment, but a gathering of the tribe, the Parrotheads.
And I’m sitting there thinking how far this is from the Spotify Top 50. Which doesn’t contain anything even close to what Buffett was doing. A lot of the acts don’t even write their own material, or the songs are written by committee, and the tracks are polished by the usual suspects and all the art, all the humanity is squeezed out of them. The acts are a product. And the brand building begins on day one. Whereas with Jimmy, it came much later, on a whim, there was no rulebook, he just did what felt right and built an empire.
So what we had last night was a party, let’s call it a family reunion. And the patriarch was gone, but Mac had stood right by him on stage for decades, he knew how to deliver the magic.
And Mac didn’t come from the factory, he’s far from cookie cutter, he neither drinks nor smokes but that does not mean he is not loose, can’t let it fly, never mind play notes on not only his acoustic guitar, but his electric and the piano too.
And I’m sitting there pondering if this is akin to my parents’ generation, going to see the acts of their heyday when the youngsters didn’t care. But then I realized this was different. Jimmy wasn’t a crooner or a jazzer, but a product of his era, a child of the post-war era that was all about personal fulfillment, at the same time you were loving your brother. You didn’t jump through hoops to work at the company, you might have a college degree yet be working a minimum wage job, because life was more important than a career, and you were figuring out what felt right.
There’s a whole generation of us who experienced this, but somehow history has been rewritten, or completely forgotten.
When I grew up in the suburbs it was all about possibilities. You could choose your own direction, let your freak flag fly, and you always knew eventually you would find your people. Maybe you had to drive to the Rockies or the Gulf Coast to find them, but they were available…and you could afford to pick up and go see them.
And when you were driving, when you were traveling, you took your tunes along. Sure, by the seventies there were 8-tracks and cassettes, but there was no iPod, no iPhone, never mind Spotify. But we didn’t need a recording to enjoy our music. It was in our heads. It was laden with melody, you could sing it! And there was meaning too.
A lost era.
A lost art?
Not last night, it was right there… I’d say on stage, but really the audience was part of the show, for two hours we remembered what once was…and in this case still is. How many acts can you say that about? And conventional tribute acts are set in amber, they don the clothing, play the hits and there’s no culture evident.
But culture was right up front and personal last night.
And I know up in heaven Jimmy Buffett is laughing.
Who’da thunk?
Last night’s set list: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/mac-mcanally/2026/vilar-performing-arts-center-beaver-creek-co-7b4fe23c.html
