On September 1, musician Jimmy Buffett died at the age of 76. One week later, we have a better sense of what Buffett was working on before his death — and, as it turns out, the answer comes in the form of a posthumous album. The album Equal Strain on All Parts is set for a November 3 release, and will be available in the popular LP and compact disc formats, as well as (one assumes) digitally and streaming.
And if you enjoyed Paul McCartney’s guest appearance on Dolly Parton’s new album, you may well enjoy this one as well; yes, McCartney is among the musicians joining Buffett for Equal Strain on All Parts. In a recent post on Twitter, McCartney reflected on his work on the album — he can be heard on the song “My Gummy Just Kicked In” — and singled out Buffett’s vocals on “Bubbles Up” as a high point on the record.
“I told him that not only was the song great but the vocal was probably the best I’ve heard him sing ever,” McCartney recalled. “He turned a diving phrase that is used to train people underwater into a metaphor for life when you’re confused and don’t know where you are just follow the bubbles — they’ll take you up to the surface and straighten you out right away.”
This Montana Valley Was “Paradise” for Jimmy Buffett
Where the cheeseburgers come with a scenic backdropAs Ultimate Classic Rock reports, the album will also feature Buffet covering Bob Dylan’s “Mozambique,” where he’ll be joined by Emmylou Harris, who also contributed to Dylan’s original version of the song on the album Desire. As Andrew Kirell wrote at The Daily Beast to mark the 40th anniversary of Desire, the song in question “allegedly emerged from a competition between Dylan and [Jacques] Levy to see who could find the most words rhyming with the southeastern African country’s name.” An interesting choice, to be sure.
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