Posthumous Jimmy Buffett album planned, will include never-released material

Parrot Heads may have something more to enjoy with their boat drinks. Two members of the Coral Reefer Band said they have put the final touches on an album of Jimmy Buffett songs “that have never been out.”

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Mac McAnally and Michael Utley -- who co-produced “Equal Strain on All Parts‚" released two months after the “Margaritaville” singer’s death on Sept. 1, 2023 -- told Billboard that few of the tracks have ever been released on a Buffett album.

If the songs were ever recorded, they were “cut for a one-off purpose, a TV episode or a movie,” McAnally told Billboard. “The oldest of these tracks is, like, 2003, and the newest is maybe four years ago or so.

“None of those things have ever been on a Jimmy Buffett album. We’re pretty excited.”

No title or release date has been announced, according to the music news website. McAnally said the producers were finished with music, adding that it was “really good.”

[ Jimmy Buffett, ‘Margaritaville’ singer, dies at 76 ]

“It’s a good hodgepodge,” McAnally said. “When you hear Jimmy sing you can tell that he’s smiling; you can hear that smile, and I’ve been listening to that smile for three months finishing this record, so I’m almost sore from smiling — but I ain’t gonna quit.”

The Coral Reefers have been playing one of the tracks this summer, Billboard reported. “Workin’ n’ Playin’” was written as the title song for Buffett’s 2015-16 tours.

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“(Buffett) and I used to talk about the fact that our work is playing, and our play is work…and we wrote that song the year we had a tour called Workin’ n’ Playin’,” McAnally told the music news outlet. “It’s really good, so it’s on this album and we do it now as sort of a duet between the band and Jimmy.”

The set also includes an outtake song from the 2017 “Escape to Margaritaville” stage musical, and another song that was heard for a few seconds when Buffett had a cameo role as a bartender in 2015’s “Jurassic World,” according to Billboard.

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