UPDATE: On a day dedicated by the state to Jimmy Buffett, A1A was officially dedicated as the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway on Friday, Aug. 30, 2024.
City officials from Key West, Sen. Lauren Book, Rep. Chuck Clemons and Rep. Jim Mooney were joined by Buffett’s family and Margaritaville executives for the official A1A Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway Dedication on Florida A1A and Bertha Street. The event also featured the unveiling of the A1A Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway sign and an early rendering of the monument — a big flip flop, of course.
For 50 years, bar band singers on every stage in Florida have been singing the line, “Strollin’ down the avenue that’s known as A1A,” from Jimmy Buffett’s Key West-inspired classic, “Trying to Reason With Hurricane Season.”
The late singer-songwriter named his fifth album “A1A” in 1974 after the coastal highway that stretches along Florida’s east coast from Key West’s Mile Marker 0 to Fernandina Beach near the Georgia border. Now, Buffett, who died in September, may have the roadway named after him.
READ MORE: How Jimmy Buffett found his vibe in the Keys, and why Florida will miss his presence
State Highway A1A would become the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs House Bill 91. The Senate sent the bill his way Tuesday for his signature. The bill, filed 28 days after Buffett died on Sept. 1, 2023, by Rep. Chuck Clemons of Newberry and Rep. Jim Mooney of Islamorada, both Republicans, sailed through the House with a unanimous vote.
“Renaming State Road A1A to honor Jimmy Buffett celebrates not only his iconic music but also his profound impact on our environment and culture,” said Sen. Book at the Aug. 30 dedication ceremony that was held on Bertha Street. Book sponsored the bill.
“As the road that runs alongside the coast he so loved, this tribute reflects his legacy of joy, adventure, and dedication to preserving Florida’s natural beauty. Jimmy named his fifth studio album after A1A — now, 50 years later, we’re helping return the favor,” Book said.
‘Margaritaville’ license plateThis week DeSantis was also sent House Bill 403 for his signature. The bill, which also passed unanimously, would allow for a Florida specialty license plate in homage to Buffett, with proceeds supporting one of Buffett’s charities, Singing for Change.
The license plate bill mandates that the word “Florida” would appear at the top of the plate. The word “Margaritaville,” from a song that became Buffett’s first, and only, Billboard Top 10 single in early 1977, would appear at the bottom of the plate.
Buffett’s Florida honors come, in part, because he often wrote his best tunes in celebration of what the state had to offer.
It was in Key West that the Mississippi-born musician first broke nationally in the early-1970s. His run of albums from “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean” in 1973 through “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” released in 1977, are considered his “Key West albums.” He finished recording his final studio album, “Equal Strain on All Parts,” at his Key West studio in the spring of 2023, several months before he died.
Buffett was stuck in traffic on the Seven Mile Bridge when he finished writing “Margaritaville,” he told the Herald when his song was enshrined in the Library of Congress.
“I started writing it on napkin in a Mexican restaurant in Austin, Texas, with a friend who was driving me to the airport, to fly home to Key West. On the drive down the Keys, there was a fender-bender on the Seven Mile Bridge, west of Marathon, and I found myself sitting on the sidewalk, starring out overlooking Pigeon Key, one of my favorite landmarks in Florida,” Buffett recalled.
“What better place to sit and try and finish ‘Margaritaville.’ Road cleared in an hour and I had a new song! And learned it on the drive to Key West,” Buffett said. “That night, I played it for the first time in Crazy Ophelia’s on Duval Street. The small crowd in the bar asked me to play it again. And I did. So, I guess it is a pretty good three-minute song, that has stood the test of time.”
KNOW MORE: Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville” is in the Library of Congress? He reveals where he wrote the song
How AIA would be designated
The Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway would encompass all of A1A and the 13 counties that nestle along the state road. The counties named on the bill are Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, Brevard, Volusia, Flagler, St. Johns, Duval and Nassau.
Bipartisan supportThe passage of the bill prompted scribes to tease a line from another Buffett hit, “Fins,” to note its bipartisan support.
“You got fins to the left, fins to the right,” Buffett first sang in the cheeky song that he cowrote with Florida author and photographer friend Tom Corcoran in 1979.
In September, after Buffett’s death at 76 from a rare form of skin cancer, DeSantis ordered flags be flown at half-staff in Key West and Tallahassee. Buffett frequently used his concert stage and widespread popularity to campaign for Democrats including Florida governors Lawton Chiles and Bob Graham and presidents from Jimmy Carter through Joe Biden.
Said Democratic Sen. Lauren Book, a sponsor of the Buffett bill: “As Jimmy once said, ‘It’s a sweet life living by the salty sea’ and we could not think of a better way to honor him than by memorializing him along Florida’s coastal highway,” Florida Politics reported on Tuesday.
The bill directs that Florida’s Department of Transportation would place “suitable markers” by Aug. 30, 2024, designating A1A as Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway.
Family reactsOn that day, the “Margaritaville” singer’s sister Lucy Buffett said at the dedication ceremony, “When Jimmy was 25, his life forever changed as he drove down the A1A for the first time and found a home in Key West. He would be humbled, yet sheepishly thrilled, in his ‘school-boy heart’ way that the Florida Legislature unanimously honored his legacy designating A1A the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway. Our family is very touched and deeply grateful by this incredible tribute.”
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