Some ideas — that Mobilians might just show up and march in an open, grassroots parade honoring the legacy of Jimmy Buffett – are kind of like volcanos. Which is to say, most of them don’t do much.

But guess what? Sunday afternoon in downtown Mobile, this volcano blew up in a big way. Hundreds if not thousands of people turned out to take part in, or just to watch, a foot procession that rivaled the city’s legendary Joe Cain Procession in some ways.

With the Blow House Brass Band leading the way, a colorfully-clad crowd that first gathered at the Renaissance Riverview Plaza then took a 12-block stroll along Dauphin Street past Bienville Square and the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, landmarks Buffett likely would have known from his childhood.

There weren’t too many people this would have happened for, but Buffett certainly was one of them. And there aren’t too many places where this idea could catch on so fast and become such a happening with so little in the way of planning, marketing or explanation.

Buffett died on Sept. 1 after a four-year battle with an aggressive skin cancer. Though he was born in coastal Mississippi, Buffett grew up in Mobile and made some of his earliest recordings while still living here. The connection became a point of pride for many after a combination of songwriting skill, business acumen and musical individuality brought him enduring fame.

There was a widespread sense in the days after his death that Mobile should and would honor him in some way. Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said the city “definitely needs to do something” and that conversations had begun.

Read more: Jimmy Buffett’s final studio album is coming soon.

The future likely does hold some form of civic recognition. But in the meantime, local filmmaker Joseph Brennan reached out to friends at the Blow House Brass Band, wondering if a second line parade was feasible. The idea caught on like wildfire, quickly won city support and made the leap to social media – at which point there was no stopping it. Something was going to happen on the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 10, whether it was big or small.

Minutes before the parade’s start, surveying the crowd of hundreds that had gathered in the courtyard of the Renaissance Riverview Plaza, Brennan was clearly tickled.

“I woke up [that] Saturday morning to some bad news, and wanted to make the best of a bad situation, and I felt like that’s something Buffett would do,” Brennan said. “Basically one thing led to another. People just came out and said, ‘I want to help.’ What started out as just a few Gulf Coast friends who love Buffett turned into what you’re looking at right now … It’s a great day.”

One sign of the extent to which the event had taken on a life of its own: Before the start, as the Blow House Brass Band waited to lead the parade, the crowd was entertained by a series of Buffett tunes played by other musicians. Brennan said when they showed up and started, he’d had no idea who they were.

Turns out they were, at least in part, musicians and actors who’d taken part in an August 2022 presentation of Buffett’s musical, “Escape to Margaritaville,” when it was staged by Joe Jefferson Players, a local community theatre company.

Harvie Jordan, who played the role of old salt JD in the production, said that when the parade was announced, the cast’s old text chat lit up with discussion that maybe some of the players could take part. The upshot was that some of them showed up Sunday ready to play and sing, including Jordan, Bobby Gregory and Ben Hill, with additional musicians from Gregory’s band.

Like Brennan, Jordan said he’d had no idea about how the parade would play out in practice.

“It’s going to be colorful, anyway,” he said. “Hopefully they’ve got enough cheeseburgers down at Moe’s to satisfy this group.”

“I was lobbying to put Jimmy’s statue where Admiral Semmes used to be,” he said, referencing a nearby space where the statue of a Civil War figure with Mobile ties long stood. “That’s what I think should happen.”

“Jimmy Buffett for so many years touched so many people’s lives with his beautiful simple poetry about living the beach life, letting your troubles wash away,” said Jordan. “It resonates with so many people, they love him.”

The parade stretched out as it turned the corner onto Dauphin and headed westward. For an onlooker standing still and watching, it seemed to go on and on and on. In it were senior citizens and children, a scattering of music-makers, dressed-up dogs, some people who settled for wearing tropical shirts and others who dove into the whole grass-skirt-coconut-bra catalog.

Some carried mementos of very specific moments: One woman carried a placard recalling a one of Buffett’s rare large-scale performances in Mobile, a 1982 show at the Mobile Municipal Auditorium. Another man wore a shark hat that he said Buffett had worn at a 1989 Jazz Fest appearance – and he carried a photo of Buffett wearing the hat, bearing Buffett’s autograph and the comment, “Nice hat.”

One joker carried a sign playing on a certain lawyer’s ubiquitous ads: “Been cut by a pop-top? Call me Margaritaville.” Underneath that was a cartoon sketch of a check, written out for $1,000 in damages for a cut foot. Well, it was bound to happen.

Even the police officer handling traffic control seemed to enjoy the spirit of the thing: Buffett tunes could be heard coming from police-motorcycle sound systems.

The procession ended at Washington Avenue, where a five-point intersection creates a large open space at Moe’s Original BBQ, the venue Brennan had designated as the site of the main after-party. The crowd flooded in like a storm surge and then ebbed away as people gradually returned to wherever they’d parked.

In a Saturday Facebook post about the logistics of the event, Brennan thanked “everyone who helped out and especially those that have generously donated time and services including Moe’s Original BBQ, Blow House Brass Band, Teddy Williams, Downtown Mobile Alliance, Greg M. Callahan Sr. and the Mobile Police Department.”