Joel's Girlfriends: A Jimmy Buffett Story

Music has a way of becoming attached to our memories. For Gail and me, Jimmy Buffett became inseparable from summer itself. For my son Joel, however, a Buffett concert became memorable for an entirely different reason. This is the story of Riverbend, childhood innocence, mistaken assumptions, and the year I thought I had raised a Parrothead.

October 30, 2025

After twenty-eight years behind microphones, turntables, mixing consoles, and DJ booths, I

have become convinced that music does something few other forms of art can accomplish. A great novel may transport us. A great film may move us. A great painting may linger in our thoughts for years. Music does something different. Music attaches itself to our lives. It becomes woven into our experiences so completely that, after a while, separating the song from the memory becomes impossible. Hear a particular melody, and suddenly you are no longer standing in your kitchen or sitting in your car. You are back at your wedding reception. Back on a road trip with friends. Back at a high school dance. Back in a college dorm room. Back beside a hospital bed. Back at a funeral. Back in love. Back heartbroken. Back somewhere you have not visited in years. The song becomes a key, and the memory is the door it unlocks.

As a wedding DJ, I witness this phenomenon constantly. A bride hears the opening notes of the song her father used to sing in the car and immediately begins to cry. A groom hears the first dance song from his parents' wedding and suddenly finds himself remembering details he has not thought about in decades. A dance floor erupts because a particular record reminds an entire generation who they were when they first heard it. None of these reactions are really about the song itself. They are about everything the song carried with it. Music becomes the container into which we pour our lives. The longer we live, the fuller that container becomes.

Over time, certain artists accumulate more than memories. They become landmarks. Their music follows us through different chapters of life, appearing and reappearing as the years unfold. The songs mean one thing when we are young, another when we fall in love, another when we become parents, another when we begin losing people, and still another when we discover that we are no longer the young people we once were. The recordings never change. We do. Yet somehow the music continues to meet us wherever we happen to be. After enough years pass, the artist's story and our own story become intertwined. The songs cease to be something we merely listen to. They become part of the way we remember.

That, I think, is what happened to me with Jimmy Buffett. Somewhere between adolescence and middle age, between friendship and marriage, between fatherhood and retirement, his music stopped being something I played and became something I lived alongside. The songs became attached to people, places, traditions, milestones, and memories that now feel inseparable from the music itself. When I think about Jimmy Buffett, I am not merely thinking about an artist. I am thinking about a soundtrack that accompanied more than three decades of my life and, in doing so, became part of the story. For Gail and me, that process unfolded one summer at a time.

When most people think about favorite artists, they tend to think in terms of albums, songs, or concerts. I understand that perspective, but it has never fully captured my relationship with Jimmy Buffett. The concerts certainly mattered. Twenty-seven of them tend to leave an impression. Yet when I look back now, the individual performances have begun to blur together. Setlists fade. Specific years become difficult to distinguish from one another. What remains is something larger. For nearly two decades, Jimmy Buffett became the organizing principle of our summers. Every year, sometime around late winter or early spring, the announcement would arrive. Buffett was returning to Riverbend. The date immediately went onto the calendar. Summer suddenly had a destination. There would be another drive south. Another evening on the lawn. Another opportunity to spend a few hours inside a world that somehow felt completely separate from ordinary life. We never talked about whether we were going. We simply assumed we were. Attending Buffett had become as much a part of our annual rhythm as Memorial Day, Fourth of July fireworks, or the return of warm weather itself.

Over time, the anticipation became inseparable from the season. The first truly beautiful day of the year would arrive, and one of us would inevitably say, "Buffett can't be far away now." A particular song would come on the radio and immediately trigger a conversation about Riverbend. The arrival of June carried with it the comforting knowledge that our annual pilgrimage was approaching. Summer was no longer merely a season on the calendar. It had become associated with a place, a tradition, and a shared experience that Gail and I returned to year after year.

Looking back, I realize that Jimmy Buffett did not simply provide the soundtrack to those summers. He became part of how we experienced them. The music, the concerts, the anticipation, the traditions, and the memories gradually fused together until separating them became impossible. When I think about those years now, I do not remember a summer and then remember Jimmy Buffett. I remember them as the same thing. The arrival of one signaled the arrival of the other. For a remarkable stretch of our lives, Jimmy Buffett was not merely an artist we enjoyed listening to. For Gail and me, he became summer itself. When something occupies such a significant place in our lives, we eventually feel compelled to share it with the people we love. Parents do this all the time. We hand our children dog-eared copies of books that mattered to us when we were young. We show them movies we can practically recite from memory. We introduce them to favorite restaurants, vacation destinations, hobbies, traditions, and experiences that helped shape who we became. Sometimes the effort succeeds. Sometimes it fails spectacularly. Every parent has experienced the disappointment of enthusiastically introducing a beloved piece of their own childhood only to receive a shrug and a polite, "It's okay, I guess."

Music is no different. In fact, I would argue that music may be the most common inheritance parents attempt to pass along. We want our children to understand why a particular song matters. We want them to hear what we hear when the opening notes begin to play. More than anything, I think we want them to understand a small piece of who we were before they arrived. Every generation eventually attempts this impossible act. Parents introduce their children to the music that shaped them, while their children politely tolerate the effort before returning to whatever music belongs to their own generation. Occasionally, however, something unexpected happens. A song breaks through. An artist captures their imagination. A connection forms. When it does, the experience feels less like sharing music and more like sharing a piece of yourself.

For obvious reasons, I wanted my sons to experience Jimmy Buffett. By the time Joel and Ben arrived, Buffett had already become deeply woven into the fabric of my life. His music had soundtracked friendships, road trips, vacations, and summers spent with Gail. The annual pilgrimage to Riverbend was already a tradition. The songs were already part of our household. Whether my sons ultimately embraced Buffett was entirely up to them, but there was never much doubt that they would be exposed to the music. Like countless parents before me, I wanted to share something that had brought me joy and hope that perhaps a little of that joy might find its way to them as well.

For one summer, I was convinced it had.

Joel was seven. Ben was four. For years, they had heard Buffett's music around the house, in the car, and during family vacations. They knew the songs, they knew the annual ritual, and they certainly knew how much Buffett meant to Gail and me. When we finally brought them to Riverbend, both boys seemed completely absorbed by the experience. How could they not be? To a child, a Buffett concert hardly resembles a concert at all. It looks more like a tropical-themed circus that has somehow materialized in the middle of Ohio. Everywhere you look, there are Hawaiian shirts, giant inflatable parrots, beach balls, grass skirts, pirate hats, leis, and people behaving in ways that would seem utterly ridiculous anywhere else.

Joel, in particular, appeared fascinated by everything he saw. Throughout the evening, he bounced from one discovery to the next, taking in the sights with the sort of wide-eyed wonder that only a seven-year-old can muster. As I watched him, I found myself feeling quietly optimistic. After all the years of hearing Buffett songs at home, perhaps the music was finally taking hold. Perhaps I was witnessing the birth of a brand-new Parrothead.

By the end of the night, I was fairly certain I had succeeded.

At some point during the evening, a group of Parrothead women settled onto the lawn directly behind us. They appeared to be in their twenties and looked as though they had stepped directly out of a Jimmy Buffett song. Their bodies had been kissed by the sun. They wore grass skirts, leis, and coconut bikini tops and seemed to be having exactly the sort of evening Buffett spent an entire career encouraging people to have. To say they attracted attention would be an understatement. Every adult male in the immediate area had undoubtedly noticed them within moments of their arrival. Joel, of course, was seven years old. The things capturing the attention of the men around him were not necessarily the things capturing his attention.

Shortly after Buffett took the stage, Gail and I looked around and noticed Joel was gone. Not gone gone. Seven-year-old-boy gone. Far enough away to make you wonder what he was doing. Close enough that you could still see him. A quick glance over my shoulder revealed exactly where he had wandered. There sat my son in the middle of this group of young women, carrying on a conversation as though he had known them for years. One had an arm around him. Another was talking to him. A third was laughing at something he had just said. Joel looked completely at home. Not nervous. Not shy. Not intimidated in the slightest. He appeared to be conducting himself as though he had spent years perfecting the art of charming women three times his age. Every now and then one of them would hug him, ruffle his hair, or pull him into another conversation. Joel accepted this attention as his due.

Meanwhile, Ben was four. Ben had absolutely no interest in any of this. While his older brother was apparently busy building relationships, Ben remained fascinated by beach balls, music, inflatable parrots, and whatever random distraction happened to cross his field of vision. Looking back, the contrast between the two boys is one of the things that still makes me laugh the hardest. One son had somehow become the youngest Parrothead lothario in Ohio. The other was simply enjoying the concert.

Joel was always charismatic. Twenty years later, not much has changed. Even at seven years old, however, he possessed a confidence that completely baffled me. While most children would have hidden behind their parents or awkwardly waved from a safe distance, Joel simply walked over and introduced himself. The women absolutely adored him. They cuddled with him, held him, hugged him, laughed at his stories, and seemed genuinely delighted by his company. The entire scene was absurd. Here was a group of beautiful young women who could have commanded the attention of every man on the lawn, yet they seemed far more interested in spending the evening with a seven-year-old boy who had wandered into their orbit and decided to stay.

Looking back now, I have no memory what songs Buffett played that night. I could probably find the setlist online if I cared enough to search for it, but I don't. What I remember is Joel spending most of the concert surrounded by women who seemed delighted by his presence and a little boy who seemed equally delighted by theirs. By the middle of the evening, he no longer looked like a child visiting their group. He looked like a member of it. They posed for photographs with him. They danced with him. They included him in their conversations and treated him like a tiny celebrity who had somehow become the unexpected star of their evening. Looking at those pictures today, I can still see the confidence. The ease. The complete lack of self-consciousness that only children seem capable of possessing. He wasn't trying to impress anyone. He simply assumed people would like him. More often than not, they did.

The women remained part of Joel's evening from that point forward. They danced with him, talked with him, hugged him, and included him in their photographs. By the end of the night, he had completely won them over. Or perhaps they had won him over. I'm honestly not sure which. What I do know is that he talked about them constantly for the rest of the evening. He talked about them while we packed up our things. He talked about them while we made our way out of Riverbend. He talked about them during the drive home. Long after the music had ended, Joel was still enthusiastically recounting the events of the night. Gail and I found the whole thing adorable.

What happened over the next year made me believe that I had succeeded in turning Joel into a Parrothead. Every conversation for the next twelve months strengthened my conviction that I had won.

The concert ended. Summer ended. School resumed. Life moved on. Yet Jimmy Buffett never seemed to drift very far from Joel's thoughts. Every few weeks he would bring up the concert completely out of nowhere. Sometimes it happened during dinner. Sometimes during a car ride. Sometimes while we were watching television. The subject hardly mattered. Somehow, the conversation would eventually find its way back to Buffett.

"Dad, are we going again next year?"

"Of course."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

A few weeks later the conversation would happen again.

"Dad, Jimmy Buffett comes every year, right?"

"Usually."

"So we're going?"

"Yes, Joel. We're going."

As summer slowly gave way to fall, and fall eventually surrendered to winter, the questions continued. Joel wanted updates. Had tickets gone on sale yet? Did we already have ours? Were we definitely taking him? How much longer did he have to wait? Every answer seemed to generate three new questions. Occasionally, he would simply offer reminders, as though he feared the responsibility for planning the event rested entirely upon his eight year-old shoulders.

"Dad, don't forget we have to go see Jimmy Buffett."

"I haven't forgotten."

"Good."

The remarkable thing was that this never seemed to fade. Most childhood enthusiasms burn brightly for a week and disappear just as quickly. This one lingered. Month after month, Joel continued talking about Buffett and the concert at Riverbend. Whenever summer was mentioned, he found a way to connect it back to the show. Whenever Buffett appeared on the radio, he would remind us that we were going. Whenever somebody mentioned vacations or upcoming plans, Joel would somehow work Jimmy Buffett into the conversation. Naturally, I interpreted all of this exactly the way any father would have.

After years of filling our home, our cars, our vacations, and our summers with Jimmy Buffett, I believed one of my sons had finally caught the bug. The evidence seemed overwhelming. What other conclusion was I supposed to reach? Here was a seven-year-old boy who spent an entire year talking about Buffett, asking about Buffett, counting down the days until Buffett, and making absolutely certain that his parents had not forgotten Buffett. By the time the following summer arrived, I was no longer merely hopeful. I was convinced. I had successfully converted my son into a Parrothead.

The annual pilgrimage to Riverbend had gained a new believer.

The following summer we loaded the car and headed back to Riverbend. By then, attending Buffett had already become part of the rhythm of our lives. The drive itself felt familiar. The traffic near the venue. The endless parade of Hawaiian shirts and tropical colors. The vendors selling leis and Buffett merchandise. The smell of charcoal drifting from tailgates. The first glimpse of the lawn beyond the gates. Even before the music started, Buffett concerts always felt different from other concerts. People arrived happy.

As we settled into our spot on the lawn, Joel immediately began scanning the crowd. At first, I didn't think much of it. As the crowd continued pouring onto the lawn, however, he became increasingly distracted. Every few minutes he would stand up, look across the hillside, then sit back down again. A few minutes later, he would do it again. At first, I assumed he was watching the beach balls bounce through the crowd or looking for somebody in a ridiculous costume. There was never a shortage of distractions at a Buffett concert. Eventually Gail asked him what he was looking for.

"The girls."

"What girls?"

"My girlfriends from last year."

It took both of us a moment.

Then we understood.

We didn't realize that Joel had interpreted the attention of those Parrothead beauties the summer before as the beginning of a long-term relationship. The women had promised they would be back the following summer. Joel had promised he would be back the following summer. As far as he was concerned, plans had been made. Meanwhile, Gail and I had long since filed the entire episode away as one of those funny parenting moments that would eventually become family folklore. We thought about it from time to time and laughed. Joel, however, appeared to have been maintaining the relationship. He had spent the previous year fully expecting a reunion.

The women from the summer before had danced with him, talked with him, hugged him, and included him in their little circle for most of the evening. To Gail and me, it had been a sweet memory. To Joel, it had apparently been the beginning of a relationship. As the concert drew closer and his girlfriends stubbornly refused to appear, he became increasingly concerned. I remember him standing on the lawn and scanning the crowd again, as though perhaps they were simply running late. By the time Buffett took the stage, concern had given way to disappointment. By intermission-level disappointment—which is a thing children do far better than adults—he had become genuinely irritated.

I remember Gail and I looking at one another and trying not to laugh.

We failed.

Spectacularly.

My wife and I found the entire situation hysterical. Joel did not. In his defense, he had been promised a reunion. In the women's defense, they almost certainly had no recollection of the agreement.

By the end of the evening, disappointment had become something much closer to betrayal. The women, of course, had no idea any of this was happening. For all I know, they never attended another Buffett concert. Joel was unmoved by such possibilities. As far as he was concerned, they said they would be there. They were not there. And that, in his eight-year-old worldview, was unacceptable.

During the drive home, he informed us that his girlfriends had forgotten him.

"Well, buddy, maybe at next year's concert you will meet new girlfriends," I told him as we edged bumper to bumper in parking lot traffic.

To this, Joel replied, "I'm not coming back next year."

Gail raised her eyebrows in that familiar expression she gives me when it is apparent I am misreading a situation.

"Why not? You love Jimmy Buffett."

"No, Jimmy Buffett is dumb. I don't ever want to come back."

I immediately felt a pang as my heavy heart learned the truth. His enthusiasm was never for the music. He had spent the last twelve months pestering me because he believed love was in the air. Love as an eight-year-old boy understands it, anyway.

Now, I cannot stress enough that these women had absolutely no idea they were his girlfriends. To this day, I don't know what became of them. They probably have children of their own now. Some may even have grandchildren. What I do know is that somewhere in Cincinnati there exists a group of former Parrotheads who have absolutely no idea they have become permanent characters in another family's story. They probably don't remember the concert. They almost certainly don't remember the seven-year-old boy they spent an evening doting on on the lawn at Riverbend. If they remember him at all, it is likely they remember only that they were entertained by him. They never guessed that he had been smitten, mistaking their kindness for affection. And they absolutely have no idea that they accidentally broke the heart of an eight-year-old boy the following year.

In much the same way, Joel had no idea that he had just broken my heart. Shattering it into a million shards at learning the truth. He was not a Parrothead. He would never be a Parrothead. And it didn't help when Ben chimed in, "Joel's right. Jimmy Buffett is dumb."

Twenty years later, Gail likes to remind me that for a DJ I was not in true form that night. As she says, "I thought you could read the room." My family still likes to tell that story to remind me that my kid lacks his father's great taste in music.

Looking back now, I realize that Joel's girlfriends may be one of the best examples of the point I have been trying to make.

When I think about that particular Buffett concert today, I do not remember the setlist. I do not remember what songs were played that evening. I do not remember where the concert ranks among the twenty-seven Buffett shows I attended over the years. What I remember is a seven-year-old boy wandering into a group of beautiful Parrothead women and somehow becoming the center of their universe for an evening. I remember an eight-year-old boy spending the next year convinced he would see them again. I remember Gail and me trying—and failing—to suppress our laughter as we watched him scan the lawn at Riverbend in search of his missing girlfriends. Those are the memories that survived.

And that, I think, is the point.

Music has a strange way of attaching itself to our lives. We think we are collecting songs when, in reality, we are collecting moments. The songs become the thread that ties those moments together. Years later, when we hear the music again, it is not the recording that returns to us. It is the life that unfolded around it. The friendships. The road trips. The summers. The traditions. The people. The stories.

For Gail and me, Jimmy Buffett became woven into all of those things. His music accompanied our marriage, our travels, our summers, and eventually our children. It became part of the backdrop against which countless memories were created. Some of those memories involve Buffett directly. Many do not. Yet separating one from the other is now impossible. The songs and the memories have become intertwined.

That is why I still think about Riverbend when summer arrives. It is why hearing a Buffett song can instantly transport me backward in time. It is why I can laugh at a story about Joel's girlfriends more than twenty years later and still find myself standing on that lawn again. The music remains, of course, but it is no longer just music. It has become a container for a life that was lived around it.

And perhaps that is the greatest gift any artist can leave behind. Not merely songs, but memories. Not merely performances, but traditions. Not merely music, but a place where pieces of our lives can gather and remain long after the final encore has ended.

Jimmy Buffett gave me twenty-seven concerts.

The memories were mine.

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