#97 – University Of Bourbon Street

by Stacy Loves Buffett · Published May 13, 2024 · Updated May 13, 2024

#97 – University Of Bourbon Street

-by Stacy Garwood-

University Of Bourbon Street is a song that seems to encapsulate just about everything that Jimmy Buffett loved and admired about New Orleans, combined into one rollicking, Jazz anthem that could lift the heart and soul of every person that hears it. There are mentions of voodoo and gris gris, pirates and streetcars, hurricanes and riverboats, Po’Boy’s and Muffaletta’s, and if that doesn’t capture your attention, then the brass band, dancing feet, second line imagery certainly will. A song that is so personal to Jimmy’s life that his parents’ names are even in the lyrics. Then, there is the actual music, which will absolutely have your feet tapping and your hands clapping and your soul lifting up, all wrapped into a nice little “how to” package of fun!

“I guess the point of goin’ to college
Was to acquire myself a little knowledge
And help me figure out
What life was really all about…

It made Peets and J.D. happy
And set me wild and free
Then I danced out of Mississippi
To the University of Bourbon Street…

I sang, “Hey (hey), Pocky A-way”
On the streetcar headed uptown
I went to class (sure did) every day
And never wore a frown…“

University Of Bourbon Street was released on JB’s 2023 album, Equal Strain On All Parts, which turned out to be Jimmy’s posthumous gift to the world. The song kicks off the album with a flair and sound that could lift the heart of even the coldest hearted, causing them to smile and tap their feet. Unfortunately, after Jimmy’s death last September, his huge fan base was left saddened and lost, and this song kicking off the album felt like a way to let everyone know, it was going to be okay. It was never going to be the same again, but it is eventually going to be okay.

University Of Bourbon Street was cowritten by Jimmy and his friend and writing partner Will Kimbrough. Listening to the album launch from RadioMargaritaville, with wonderful insight from album producers and longtime friends and bandmates of Jimmy’s, Mac McAnally and Michael Utley, it was revealed that Jimmy had been brewing ideas for songs for an album for a while, and he had a list of people he wanted to cowrite with. It was described as “assignments” from Jimmy, but ideas, thoughts, lyrics and melodies went out to people, for them to work on, then bring back to Jimmy in the final writing process.

University Of Bourbon Street and all the ideas Jimmy had for the song were delivered to Will Kimbrough, with the instructions to do it with a JJ Cale style. JJ Cale is known for his combination of blues, rockabilly, country and jazz. But when they got into the studio, Jimmy had a few changes in mind. One of them was to do the song in the style of Allen Toussaint, a New Orleans native and jazz and rhythm and blues artist who is known for his piano skills and style, along with his song writing and record producing. Jimmy was a huge fan of Allen Toussaint, who passed away in 2015, and even took the stage with his hero at Jazz Fest in New Orleans, as well as considering Toussaint to be a friend. The honor was returned, because Allen Toussaint has a lovely little song he wrote and often performed called Jimmy Buffett.

Allen Toussaint was born and bred in New Orleans, and he loved his city. He was raised in a time when New Orleans was racially segregated but he has said his “childhood was wonderful”. He took some casual piano lessons from a neighbor, but after about eight lessons, as he recalled in an interview, his mother “gave up on him” because “she knew the boogie woogie already had him”. It certainly did. Known for his rhythm and blues and jazz staccato styles, Allen Toussaint was a well-recognized artist, not just in his native New Orleans, but around the globe. One of his first breaks was sitting in for Fats Domino in the studio. He played the piano parts and Fats Domino later came in and recorded the vocals. Toussaint, which basically translates to “all saints” later said one of the biggest honors of his life was when Fats told him, “I couldn’t tell whether that was me or you playing that piano”. That is a ginormous compliment.

His career was long and diverse and took him all around the world on tour, but he always called New Orleans his home. When Hurricane Katrina destroyed both his home and studio, he relocated to New York for two years, but he never forgot his city and he returned as soon as he could. He was noted for playing Jazz Fest multiple years. Jimmy Buffett even took the stage with him on more than one occasion. Allen Toussaint was always dressed to the nines, usually with a flashy jacket, a tie and tuxedo pants while on stage, and he always smiled like he was having the best time of his life. Allan Toussaint lived a life full of music and died on tour in 2015, at the age of 77, while he was in Madrid, Spain.

A few notable songs written by Allen Toussaint were Southern Nights, which was recorded by Glen Campbell, who took it clear to number one on three separate music charts, including the Billboard Hot Country Singles, Billboard Hot 100, and the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts. Glen Campbell reported a friend told him if he didn’t record Toussaint’s song Southern Nights then he “was a fool”, and apparently Glen Campbell was no fool when it came to his song. Toussaint wrote the song about the Louisiana backwoods, but Campbell connected with it because it reminded him of his youth in Arkansas.

Toussaint did spend time in the US Army, serving from 1963 to 1965, and when he was done serving, he went right back to playing, performing, and writing music. One of the first songs he wrote when he was released was Working In The Coal Mine, which Lee Dorsey recorded in 1966, with Allen Toussaint serving as producer on the record. It reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #5 on the Billboard R&B chart. Toussaint has said in interviews that neither he nor Dorsey had ever been down in a coal mine, nor did they know anything about coal mining. The men did a damn fine job with the song, whether they knew coal mining or not.

Allen Toussaint is also noted for being a fabulous studio producer, and worked on many songs, including ones that he did not write. He worked with Patti LaBelle on her 1975 hit Lady Marmalade, which put her band LaBelle on the map of girl groups of the seventies. Patti LaBelle has stated in interviews that she didn’t speak any French, nor did she have any idea that the lyrics were about prostitution. Either way, she made a fabulous hit out it, with the studio arrangement in the hands of the talented Allen Toussaint, the LaBelle version of Lady Marmalade being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003, and in 2021 was selected as a song for preserving in the National Recording Industry for it’s cultural, historical, and artistic significance.

Allen Toussaint performed as a headliner with Jimmy Buffett in 2010 when Jimmy organized a free concert to raise money to help with damage and victims from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig spill, and that support from his friend was something the Jimmy was always deeply appreciative of. It makes perfect sense that Jimmy wanted to honor his friend’s memory in the arrangement of a song about a city they both loved so dearly.

According to Mac McAnally and Michael Utley, it might have been a bit of a monkey wrench in the plans, which they just seem to laugh about, but the song arrangement turned out wonderful and the lyrics are a catalogue list about some of the great things about New Orleans, things that Jimmy loved, things that are iconic about the city, all wrapped up in a jazz package with the Preservation Hall Jazz band playing a rollicking brass arrangement that completes the song perfectly.

“I was taught by the Neville Brothers
Benny Spellman, and a whole lotta others
That brass band blew my mind
When I joined in the second line…

I felt the power of the gris-gris
Got my soul saved by the backbeat
I was branded by Jean Lafitte
At the University of Bourbon Street…

I sang on a paddlewheel boat
Floated down the Mississippi
Helped build a Mardi Gras float
And smoked a joint with a beautiful hippie…“

Preservation Hall earned its name because in the late fifties and early sixties in New Orleans, it was hard to find jazz music being played, as hard as that is to believe, since the thriving city on the Mississippi delta is credited with being the birthplace of jazz music. Still jazz music in New Orleans was being supplanted by rock and roll and bebop music, and the idea was to allow jazz artists to gather and showcase their live music. It started very organically in a small gallery at 726 St Peter Street in the French Quarter, with owner Larry Borenstein inviting local jazz musicians for rehearsals, something very like a “jam session”, with legends of New Orleans Jazz, such as Sweet Emma Barrette, George Lewis, Punch Miller, the Humphrey Brothers and many more musicians coming into to play. Hence, the idea of “preserving” jazz music in this place was tied to the name of the building.

Before long, these rehearsal sessions were noted by jazz enthusiasts, who gathered at the gallery to be a part of this scene of revival of live jazz in its birthplace. In 1960, among the people who were drawn by the music was a newlywed couple from Pennsylvania named Allan and Sandra Jaffe, who found Borenstein’s gallery on the word-of-mouth advice of people gathered in Jackson Square. It didn’t take them long to realize that there was something special happening on St Peter Street, and drawn by the music and the atmosphere, they decided to relocate to New Orleans and took up the nightly operations of the gallery from Borenstein.

Preservation Hall, as it quickly became known, supported a very unique group of musicians that played traditional jazz in New Orleans influenced by African, Caribbean, American and European musicians. This was also at a racially charged time in the United States, where segregation was the norm, but Preservation Hall defied these rules and both the musicians and crowds were racially integrated, putting the gallery and the people who ran it smack into the middle of the Civil Rights movement.

The nightly jazz music at Preservation Hall gathered not only crowds that loved the sound of the jazz they were hearing, but it also garnered press interest from national sources, which continued to help spread the message of this special place that was keeping jazz alive, not just for the musicians and the local crowds, but for the country, and eventually the world. Eventually, the Jaffe’s put together a tour with these jazz bands performing around the country, starting in the Midwest then reaching farther afield, and eventually to places outside of the United States as well. That band was called the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which included founder Allan Jaffe on tuba.

All of these years later, Preservation Hall still operates nightly in the French Quarter, with lines of people down the street waiting for a change to get into the iconic music hall, and with reserved seating tickets sold out months in advance. It’s located near Pat O’Brien’s, which also get’s a mention in Jimmy’s University of Bourbon Steet, so a great way to start any night in the French Quarter is with a Hurricane, which has the potential to knock you right off your feet if you’re not careful, before moving down the street the listen to the Preservation Hall jazz offerings for the night.

When Jimmy and crew put this song together in the studio, they managed to get the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to be a part of the studio magic, and not only does the band cameo on the song, it also cameo’s on the music video, which shows Jimmy in all sorts of pictures and video’s from his many years in New Orleans, and if the music doesn’t get you right in the heart, the nostalgia will.

“I heard a church choir sing
“Change my guitar strings”
Thought things just couldn’t get better
‘Til I walked to the Central Grocery
And had myself a muffaletta…

I took my lunchbox to the streetcar
That Tennessee named, “Desire”
Then I followed my dancin’ feet
To the University of Bourbon Street…

Yeah, we got high-class, low-rent Voodoo information
Pat O’Brien’s hurricane accreditation
Old-school sex education
And I learned how to eat…“

Jimmy really cut his teeth as a performer in New Orleans. He had left Mobile, Alabama after high school and attended college at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, and he had played small gigs in his hometown and around the college community as well, but he decided he was going to see what being a musician in New Orleans was really all about. He started out busking on the streets, playing for passers-by for cash, but eventually got himself a gig on Bourbon Street, which to him was the height of performing as a live musician at that time. The place was called the Bayou Room, and he had reported in interviews that his first week on the job, he spent more money on drinks than he was paid.

In 2016, Jimmy posted pictures of himself in front of the location of The Bayou Room, which at the time of the picture was called Stiletto’s, and he joked that he didn’t know if that name referred to shoes or to a knife. Doubtless, the Stilleto’s cliental was slightly different than the crowd that Jimmy played for during his tenure in the late sixties.

In that album show produced by RadioMargaritaville, it was revealed that Jimmy learned to be a performer in that place and that he refused to be ignored. Mac said that Jimmy would walk out amongst the crowd, through the tables, and perhaps even on a few of them, pouring beer into people’s glasses, not allowing them to not focus on him as the artist on the stage. That brash confidence and refusal to be dismissed, even as such an early point in Jimmy’s music career, was one of the reasons he kept succeeding and working and became the showman and businessman and musician that created his massive empire.

Jimmy loved New Orleans, and has even said in an interview, when asked if “Jimmy Buffett”, as a professional artist and performer, would be possible if there was no New Orleans in his life and he said, “I don’t think there would have been”. He loved the food, loved the music, loved spending time in the Quarter, spending time alongside the rolling Mississippi. He was saddened when his beloved New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina and her flooding in 2005, and he actively supported recovery efforts.

He even put one of his Margaritaville Café’s right in the heart of the French Quarter, at 1104 Decatur Street, which was the very first Margaritaville that I visited, and enjoyed the live music along with a Margarita strong enough to potentially knock you right off your feet, much like a Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane or a Tropical Isle Hand Grenade. While that store is no longer open, it has brought fond memories of great music, fun times and delicious food to multiple people over the years.

Another thing that Jimmy loved about New Orleans was Jazz Fest, or in it’s more official name, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Initially, Jazz Fest was held in 1970 in Congo Square, probably about the time Jimmy was busking on streets and raising hell at the Bayou Room on Bourbon, and it has since devolved into an annual occurrence that grew so big, it needed to be moved to the Fair Grounds to hold the mass amounts of fans and bands and food and vendors. Not only is jazz music alive and well at Jazz Fest, but so is rhythm and blues, rock, country, and gospel, and just about anything else you can imagine listening to as well.

Last week, I was lucky enough to travel to New Orleans to attend another Jazz Fest. The Coral Reefer band was playing to honor Jimmy’s music, and there was no way I was missing that. I had attended Jazz Fest for the first time two years before, when I went to see Jimmy Buffett perform on the Festival Stage on the last day of the music festival in 2022. I had never before been apart of a music experience so loud and large and fun, but I could easily see why Jimmy was a fan and would attend as a fan on years he wasn’t on the stage playing music and entertaining the crowds. That hot and humid May day was the last time I was able to see Jimmy perform live, and I am honestly so thankful that I got to see him and his band performing at a venue that he loved so much.

On stage this year, Mac McAnally led the band and was a wonderful emcee as well as performer, and he said that Jimmy played at Jazz Fest every time they asked him, and when he wasn’t performing, he would come as a fan, and would jump in food lines and stand in the crowds, enjoying the music. He said when the Jazz Fest committee reached out to see of the Coral Reefer’s would like to perform in honor of Jimmy’s life and music, they knew they absolutely would be playing for him. The show was wonderful. I was happy to be in that massive crowd of people, singing every word of every song, mostly smiling but shedding tears as well. Both experiences are equally special to me, seeing Jimmy perform at his last Jazz Fest in 2022, and honoring his music and the band he created at Jazz Fest in 2024.

Jimmy performed at Jazz Fest multiple times in his career, on of those notable performances in 2006, the spring after Hurricane Katrina had destroyed so much of the great city of New Orleans. Jimmy was there to support the city he loved and help her begin to rebuild. In 2011, he was honored with being the focus of the official Jazz Fest poster, which shows a young Jimmy, with long hair and suave mustache, busking in the French Quarter. While Jimmy wasn’t physically on the Festival Stage last week, in spirit I have no doubt he was there, as well as probably in line to get some gumbo as well. Jimmy loved his gumbo so much that he wrote a song called I Will Play For Gumbo and was known to jump into the food lines when he was attending Jazz Fest, either as a performer or a fan.

“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…

It’s all sweet, darling
University of Bourbon Street
Hand me that umbrella
Follow me to school
University of Bourbon Street…
University of Bourbon Street…“

Jimmy Buffett and Allen Toussaint are both gone from this life now, and while they can no longer physically stroll down the streets of New Orleans, or take the stage at Jazz Fest, the show still rolls on. However, I certainly believe that their spirits were certainly there and connected to the city, to the music, to the atmosphere, and that the music and the memories that they have gifted to us over the years. That music will always help keep their memories alive and helps to lift our hearts and souls to great people, great music, great food, and a great city!

Stacy

Please enjoy University Of Bourbon Street. I have included the links for the studio version and the music video in the comments below. Enjoy!

2023 Studio Version:

Official Music Video:

The links are from Jimmy’s official YouTube channel, which I have no personal affiliation with.

Mardi Gras for All Y’all 2021: Jimmy Buffett: (NOLA.com)