The Mobile Days (narration) Lyrics - Jimmy Buffett

Buried Treasure, The Mobile Days 

Hi this is Jimmy and welcome to Buried Treasure 

there's a reason why we're calling this 

collection of songs and stories Buried Treasure 

Because they were literally buried in a closet 

in a recording studio in Nashville for decades 

They were discovered by an old friend Travis Turk 

who actually recorded these tracks in Moblle, Alabama in 1969 

and more in Nashville in the years following 

When we both wound up moving there 

Travis eventually recorded the first two albums I recorded 

in Nashville as well 

Related 

26 Best Breakup Songs Of All Time 

From MetroLyrics to You: Our Classic Christmas Playlist 

5 Totally Underrated Christmas Songs 

The actual buried treasure was discovered in Buzz Cason's 

Creative Workshop studio about ten years ago 

Buzz is a legendary producer in Nashville and was 

the first person to sign me to a recording contract 

Well the universe must have been working 

because as fate would have it, Travis had been hired 

by Buzz as the sound engineer and in-house producer 

When Buzz sold Creative Workshop to John and Martina 

McBride 

There was some cleaning up to do and Buzz asked Travis to 

go through the storage room and see if anything was 

worth saving before he ordered the dumpster bin 

That's when I got a call from Travis that he had found 

a sizeable collection of quarter inch tapes that were 

the demos of songs that I had written and recorded 

for Buzz when I was writing for his publishing company 

Photos 

It turned out that there were over 125 songs in that pile 

of tape boxes 

Also discovered were the original first recordings Travis 

had engineered in Mobile 

And that is where the whole story of Buried Treasure starts 

It was in 1969 when I returned to Mobile from my 

coming-of-age years, living in the French Quarter 

in New Orleans 

As a 20-year-old and playing in a band in Bourbon Street 

Driving East on Highway 90, the first song, light of my life 

in my 1963 Ford Falcon, WTIX the mighty 690 

was playing the soundtrack of my exodus from New Orleans 

Elvis was caught in a trap, the Beatles were coming together 

Sly was having a hot time in the summertime and 

Paul Simon was in a clear ring with a boxer 

I sang along, I knew all these songs by heart 

Hell we'd play them every night at our gig on Bourbon Street 

that long hot summer when the showbiz bug bit me 

for the first time 

And I never recovered 

I knew that the stage was where I belonged 

But staying beneath the brightly coloured lights 

proved harder than I thought 

More about this later but the simple fact was that 

jobs in my newly chosen profession had become scare that fall 

In one of the most musical places on earth 

The only work i could find was playing drums, 

Something I hadn't done since I was in the St, Catherine's school 

marching band, when I was 12 

It did not take that club manager long to figure out that he had 

not hired the next Ringo Starr 

It was the first and only job ever was fired from and he 

was right 

Trying to sort out my future, I looked to the past 

I headed back to Eastern shore to try to sort things out 

Yep, the prodigal son was going home 

Before I knew it was back at the shipyard working days as an 

electrician helper 

And looking for gigs in the waterfront bars around Royal Street 

at night 

Then one morning I spot an ad in the Press Register announcing 

Bob Cooke at the Admiral Corner bar at the Admiral Sims hotel 

Bob had been the leader of a great group in New Orleans 

He was a one-of-a-kind frontman 

I studied him from far early that summer and then we became friends 

when we wound up on the same bill at the Bayou Room 

I was the sorcerer's apprentice observing him from a barstool 

doing his magic 

He more than anyone, taught me how to work a crowd 

I popped in on his show one night, 

at the Admiral's Corner and we caught up on his break 

He had left the group and was doing solo gigs now 

and happy to be a one-man show again 

He invited me up that night to sit-in 

The hometown boy was finally performing in his hometown 

I became a regular guest performer and when the cocktail hour 

piano player moved on, the manager at the hotel 

offered me that spot 

When Bob's month was up, I got an offer to headline 

It could not have come at a better time 

The backdrop to all this was the grim shadow 

to the Vietnam War, If you're interested you can 

read about those days in a story entitled Vietnam, Mississippi 

in my first book 

As it turned out I graduated from college along with solo'ing 

an airplane for the first time 

If I was going to Vietnam, 

I sure as hell was gonna see it from a plane 

As it worked out, the war passed me by but 

the student loans coming due, did not 

I was happy to have a steady job and steady income 

Even if I was still in Mobile, 

It took a while but I became a bit of a local attraction 

Packing the animals corner to fire marshall capacity at weekends 

75 people max 

Of course with that kind of a following, 

I started dreaming of the big time 

again and hearing myself on the radio 

Only thing was, 

you have to have a record in order to get played on the radio 

Well there were no major talent scouts 

hanging around the Animal's Corner in those days so 

If I wanted to make a record to sell 

at the gig and try to get on local radio, 

I had to find a studio and of course pay 

for the recording session myself 

So way back then before Social Media 

had sent us to space and back for instant information, 

I let my fingers do the walking through the yellow pages 

Until I came across an ad for Production Sound Studio's 

Sounded pretty professional to me. I called the studio asked 

about the rates and times and booked myself a session 

To make a two-sided, 45 rpm record, I've always thought that 

being born on Christmas entitled me to a few lucky breaks and 

Travis Turk that day in the studio sure seemed to be one of those 

Travis was a DJ on the local country station and an engineer 

It was there that Travis introduced me to Milton Brown 

who owned a studio and supposedly had Nashville connections 

It turned out that indeed he did and it was MIlton 

who gave me my first real break 

Looking back it's funny the way things turned out 

Going back home was one of the best 

and luckiest moves I ever made 

My luck didn't stop there though, 

Travis moved to Nashville, where he recorded song demos 

and produced my first album 

But i'm getting a little ahead of myself 

Speeding down the road to success here, 

which certainly was not how it all came about 

so we'll just stick to the Mobile recording's for now 

A lot of the tape boxes Travis found, contained a good 

number of songs I remember recording 

But also quite a few that had slipped my memory 

But these first two songs I could never forget 

Don't bring me candy and Abandoned on Tuesday 

were the first two songs I wrote and recorded, 

My first time in a real studio 

Damn I sound young 

That's because I was, needless to say 

Hearing these songs for the first time in 40 years 

was a trip 

It's amazing how they immediately conjured up memories 

of that first experience, of where and how the songs were written 

Who played on the sessions, who was just hanging around the studio 

What was going on in the music world beyond 

Mobile and how in the hell can we get there 

I think that's why it's so easy to 

compare this collection with a hidden treasure 

But the value of this discovery would be determined more by listeners 

than by treasure hunters 

The example that comes to mind for me 

is Ry Cooder's classic Buena Vista Social Club album 

It was never supposed to happen 

The original idea of having great musicians from Mali 

travel to Cuba and validate the Afro Cuban roots of Carribean music 

Turned into a tropical trainwreck, it is all wonderfully documented 

in the film by the same name 

When It was finished and had reached amazing critical and financial 

success 

Ry says in the opening segment of the film, 

quote, you never know what the public is gonna buy 

I certainly din't even know if the public would ever hear anything 

that came out of Project Sound 

Well thanks to a lot of luck, we have dug it up, dusted it off and are 

about to find out 

So as the story goes, I made and paid for my record 

It came out on the AudioMobile label 

That first record did not get me through any doors 

of any radio stations in my old hometown 

But, it definitely was a career move 

Though I didn't know it at the time. Milton provided 

the launchpad from which my rocket blasted off 

To where no Mobilean had ever gone before 

So as they say in nautical terms 

Product Sound Studio was the port from which I embarked 

on this musical journey 

Which has been a wonderful, amazing and lucky voyage that 

continues to this day 

So to the crew, 

that great first crew that helped me cast off the lines, 

from the Port of Mobile back in 1969, 

To Travis, to Milton, Nick, 

Johnny and Ricky and I'm sure people I've forgotten, Thank You 

For sending me on this lovely cruise 

And this is the song that started the 

whole thing, it's called Don't Bring me Flowers