Before Jimmy Buffett passed away September 1 from skin cancer, he had a simple message for his friends and family: “keep the party going.”
In accordance with his wishes, Buffett’s band, the Coral Reefer Band, will keep the party going and continue touring without their frontman leading the way.
Longtime Coral Reefer Band singer/guitarist Mac McNally told Billboard, “The Coral Reefer Band is second family to all of us. We are a family. And Jimmy wants us to continue and we want to continue.”
How that will look remains to be determined, but McAnally says, “there’s ongoing discussions about the best way to do that, the most practical way to do that and how to do it in a way that is worthy of the legacy that we’re part of.”
The Coral Reefer Band played its last full concert with Buffett on May 6 at San Diego’s Snapdragon Stadium.
Though Buffett was undergoing treatment at the time, McNally said he still craved being on stage.
“He had been calling through the summertime when the treatments were going,” he says. “I didn’t know how far up or down he was. I hadn’t seen him [in person], though he never called without Facetiming me and I could tell he was losing weight. He couldn’t do a full show, but he kept calling saying, ‘Where are you playing? I’m gonna come sit in.’”
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