Jimmy Buffett’s Final Tribute to a City He Loved, New Orleans: “The University of Bourbon Street”

Jimmy Buffett had a lifelong love affair with New Orleans. After graduating from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1969, Buffett moved to New Orleans and worked briefly as a reporter at Billboard magazine, before releasing his debut album Down To Earth in 1970 and relocating to Nashville. 

“My musical background went from playing around bars in Mobile [Alabama] and Biloxi but always hearing about how great the music was—and if you really made it—you were playing on Bourbon Street,” recalled Buffett in a 2021 interview.

For a year, Buffett busked the streets of the French Quarter and played at any Bourbon Street bar he could, which left him with a lifelong love for the Big Easy. In 1989, Buffett first played at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and became a mainstay at the annual festival for decades more.

In between the Caribbean dreams, the Florida Keys, and other hotspots that were the base of many of Buffett’s songs, his catalog also had plenty of tributes to Big Easy. On his fourth album Living and Dying in ¾ Time, Buffett sings about everything from the ups and downs and life lessons learned in the Big Easy—In a Bourbon Street bar, I received my first scar—to the strong coffee and hot beignets at Cafe Du Monde.

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By 2006, Buffett’s 26th album Take the Weather with You was released a year after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans with the song “Bama Breeze,” an homage to the beach-front bars along the coast that were destroyed by the hurricane, along with another song he wrote for victims of the hurricane on the heartfelt acoustic ballad “Breath In, Breathe Out, Move On.”

Buffett’s 28th album Songs from St. Somewhere from 2013, went to No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and on it, he revisits New Orleans in “Serpentine.” Mardi Gras where I learned to have fun sings Buffet on this homage to the annual festival and being enticed by the beads and confetti, flambeaux, and the Ava Gardner stare of the Carnival Queen.

In 2023, Buffett shared another homage to one of his favorite cities, and his final tribute and thank you for everything he learned from it on his final album Equal Strain on All Parts.

[RELATED: Jimmy Buffett’s 5 Odes to His Beloved City of New Orleans]

Buffett’s Family History in New Orleans

“What does New Orleans mean to me?” said Buffett. “Where do I start? It means a whole hell of a lot.”

As a child, Buffett remembers family visits to New Orleans to see his grandfather, Captain James Delaney Buffett’s ship come in at the Governor Nicholls Street Wharf along the waterfront of the French Quarter. His grandfather would take everyone out to dinner at his favorite restaurant Tujague’s.

“It was about the family reunions when Captain Buffett came back to New Orleans,” said Buffett.

His grandfather also inspired his songs “The Captain and the Kid” in 1970, and “Son of a Son of a Sailor” from ’78. “I saw a picture of my grandfather after he had come back from a trip to Nova Scotia,” said Buffett, discussing the latter track. “He was born there but left when he was a young man and didn’t return until he was 84. He was standing on the dock staring at an old sailing schooner, and the look on his face told the story of where he had come from and where he had been.”

Buffett added, “I have always been very proud of my heritage as a sailor and wrote this for the men who taught me the skills.”

‘Lucky Dog Ph.D.’

Buffett’s final album, Equal Strain on All Parts, was released two months after his death on Sept. 1, 2023, at age 76, following a battle with a rare form of skin cancer The album featured 14 final tracks, including one last ode to New Orleans, “The University of Bourbon Street.” In the song, Buffett sings about the life and musical lessons and education he received from the city—I got my Lucky Dog Ph.D. at the University of Bourbon Street.

From the music and the people
To the cookin’ and the joy
It really ain’t a mystery
I just followed my dancin’ feet
To the University of Bourbon Street

I got my Lucky Dog Ph.D.
At the University of Bourbon Street
Yeah, I just followed my dancin’ feet
To the University of Bourbon Street
And a Po’ Boy Master’s Degree
At the University of Bourbon Street

The music video is a patchwork of scenes from Buffett’s many times in the city throughout the decades, along with footage of him recording in the studio, despite being ill.

Photo: Erika Goldring/Getty Images