Mobile mourned Jimmy Buffett in September 2023. It also strutted, sashayed and danced down Dauphin Street in a celebration that grew from an impromptu notion into something unexpectedly momentous.
Now it’s time to add another verse to that song: On Saturday, Sept. 21, Mobile will follow up with the inaugural Son of a Sailor Fest, a free, family-friendly street festival that will feature a second-line parade and an afternoon of music in Cathedral Square.
The program is straightforward. Want to be in the parade? People are welcome to gather in the courtyard of the Riverview Plaza hotel as early as 10 a.m.; the Blow House Band will lead the procession to Cathedral Square at 11:15.
Music on the main stage in the square starts with Street Folks at noon followed by Vibe Irie at 1:30 p.m. Buffett collaborator and native Mobilian Will Kimbrough will take the stage at 3:30 to share “Songs and Stories from the Studio.” At 5:30 p.m. A1A, billed as the official Jimmy Buffett tribute band, begins its headlining performance.
There’ll be more music at a SouthSounds Showcase Stage set up in Dauphin Street at the Joachim Street intersection. Disco Lemonade plays at 2 p.m. followed by Laurie Anne Nix at 3:30 and Eric Salter & The Sunday Sinners at 5 p.m. (Details on all the performers, and a wealth of other information including details on lodging, dining and VIP options, can be found at the event website)
It promises to be a festive occasion. And it well should be, given that backers include the city, the county, Visit Mobile, the Downtown Mobile Alliance, and an array of business partners – not to mention that Lucy Buffett, one of Jimmy’s sisters, also is among the sponsors. And with any luck, it’ll still have some of the spontaneous vibe that made 2023’s parade feel so special.
That spontaneity was the element that raised the biggest questions for Joseph Brennan, the Buffett fan whose grassroots efforts (with help from many eager supporters) snowballed into the 2023 event. He said the discussion about carrying on with a potential annual event began almost immediately afterward.
“Visit Mobile has been a huge partner in this and David Clark and his team met with me probably last October and November,” Brennan said. “And they said, ‘How can we make this happen?’ And to be honest with you at that time, I was looking back at them saying, ‘You tell me, I don’t know. I’m a freelance videographer, what do I know?’”
He did have some thoughts, however. “There had to be a second-line parade and it had to be free,” he said. “It needed to still be a community-energized event. Because what was magical about last year was that sort of grassroots, egalitarian approach. As much as we can try to maintain that magic, we should.”
Joseph Brennan, a Mobile filmmaker whose idea for an open foot parade honoring Jimmy Buffett, smiles as he takes in the huge turnout on Sept. 10, 2023.Lawrence Specker | [email protected]
The 2023 event was “lightning in a bottle,” Brennan said. That couldn’t be planned.
“But what we can do is, we can take what was special about that day and use that as our sort of north star — our principles of magic, fun, spontaneity and color, joy, and say, OK, well, these’ll be the pillars of what this event is about. Even if you’re not a huge parrothead, it’s a day of like concentrated Gulf Coast fun and laissez faire joy of life.
“And that sort of became, like I said, our north star,” Brennan said. “You know, as much as I am a huge fan of Jimmy Buffett, I knew that it couldn’t singularly be a memorial. It had to be larger. And where we kind of landed was, what did he represent? He was a Gulf Coast kid who embodied that Gulf Coast lifestyle and that’s what we’re doing. And I see him as sort of our patron saint of the festival.”
Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band recently conducted a brief tour to pay tribute to Buffett and to explore its future without its longtime bandleader. One of the striking things about those shows was the sense of community: Fans weren’t there just for the music or for the nostalgia, they were there for the shared communal experience. Brennan said he hopes to see the same kind of vibe at Son of a Sailor Fest. And life in Mobile offers a conspicuous precedent, he said.
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“It’s kind of like Mardi Gras,” he said. “Everybody makes Mardi Gras. It’s not just the floats going by, it’s the people around you on barricades. And that’s what a Coral Reefer show’s like. And that’s what Son of a Sailor Fest is, and what last year was. You make the festival. The costumes, the camaraderie, it’s like a big family union for a lot of these fans. And even if you’re not a fan, who doesn’t love throwing on a costume and jumping in the street? You have permission.”
To that point, there may be some synergy in play on the day of the parade and fest. South Alabama Comic Con will be going on at the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center, so there could be a lot of costumed visitors from, shall we say, other worlds roaming downtown.
“There is something so perfectly serendipitous about this,” said Brennan. “I mean, let’s be real. It’s like, it’s two different types of cosplay. You know, it’s adults that like to dress up like pirates and parrots and cheeseburgers and whatever. And, you know, other adults that like to dress up like Sailor Moon or ‘Dragonball Z.’
“There is an intersection and the potential … imagine if there was like a Gundam in the second line,” he said. “Even though that in no way relates to parrothead imagery, it’s just magic. It’s just creating magic and there would just be something so fun about that.”
Brennan said that the section of Dauphin Street between Cathedral Square and the SouthSounds stage will be blocked off. Organizers’ hope is that patrons will enjoy a street festival vibe, patronizing local restaurants as well as the food trucks that will be on hand.
Perhaps in the future, Son of a Sailor Fest will grow to become an annual, ticketed event, a magnet for fans of Buffett’s legacy. VIP patrons will get a taste of that this year: A VIP welcome reception held in The Admiral Hotel – where Buffett played some of his earliest gigs in the Admiral’s Corner bar – will feature a Q&A with Milton Brown and John Edd Thompson, who were involved in Buffett’s earliest studio recordings.
For now it’s about enjoying the moment. A moment that, as Brennan puts it, should be “a little bit of Mardi Gras, a little bit of beach, a little bit of escapism, and a whole lot of joy for life.”
Festival FAQs can be found at https://www.sos-fest.com/about. Among the guidelines: Beach chairs, bag chairs, small personal coolers, “leashed and well-behaved pets” are welcome, while large coolers, beach umbrellas and unleashed pets are not. Updates can be found on social media channels including the event’s Facebook page.
