It’s 3 p.m. on a blistering hot August Thursday in Orange Beach, Alabama. In the outlying parking lots of the entertainment-shopping-dining-lodging complex called The Wharf, small clusters of diehards are forming. At one of them, a middle-aged man has already got on his coconut bra and is tying on his grass skirt.

This is a good omen.

Inside the Wharf Amphitheater, half an hour later, Mac McAnally picks up an acoustic guitar and begins playing a fingerstyle melody that fills the empty 10,000-seat venue. He begins singing “Changing Channels,” a song he co-wrote with Jimmy Buffett in the late ‘80s.

That’s the call to order. By the time he’s finished, a dozen other musicians have taken their places, picked up instruments. “What would you like, Richard?” McAnally asks Rich Davis, the guy manning the soundboard. Over the next 45 minutes or so, it’ll become clear just what a job Davis has: There are 13 musicians on stage and an unusual mix of instruments including pedal steel, steel drums, keyboard and trumpet. Several of the players switch instruments during the show. There are acoustic 12-strings and electric six-strings, electric and acoustic bass. Lead vocals rotate among five singers, some of whom change places during the show.

The band runs through “Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude,” with Scotty Emerick taking the lead. “Anything anybody else wants to do?” asks McAnally. Somebody says, “I could do a little ‘Volcano.’” “’Hurricane Season’ too,” says bassist Jim Mayer.

After “Volcano,” Mayer asks Emerick, “Does that feel good to you, Scotty?” “Feels great!” says Emerick.

It goes on like this for a while. Despite the complexity, despite the pressure, there’s no drama, no impatience, no griping about the sweltering heat. Whether it’s trying out the opening of “Scarlet Begonias” or Nadirah Shakoor stepping up for “One Particular Harbour” or the band trying out a new tempo for “Southern Cross,” the band seems to hit everything with the precision of a needle dropping into the groove.

That it all goes so smoothly is another good omen.

On the one hand, this is all exactly as it should be. The members of the Coral Reefer Band were handpicked by Jimmy Buffett to play his songs, and they’ve been doing it for years. They can reasonably expect that the guy who showed up to tie on his grass skit five hours before showtime, and the more than 5,000 others who’ll soon join him, are here for a good time. They know the songs, they know the band. They all want this to work.

On the other hand, nothing can be taken for granted. Jimmy Buffett died nearly a year ago, and this show is one of a handful that will help determine what kind of a future the Coral Reefer Band will have.

There was a star-studded tribute at the Hollywood Bowl in April, featuring everyone from Kenny Chesney, Zac Brown and Brandi Carlile to Dave Grohl, Jon Bon Jovi and Pitbull. There was a performance in May at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, an event where Buffett certainly was beloved and where the band was joined by Irma Thomas, Trombone Shorty and other luminaries. But this show, and two more to follow in Atlanta and Cincinnati, would test the waters for something new. The question being, absent the spectacle of a celebrity-laden special event, or the massive drawing power of Jazz Fest, will fans turn out to see just the Coral Reefers? And will the Coral Reefers be able to offer something that felt vital, rather than a wistful echo of something lost?

The band needs all the good omens it can get.

‘A great worst-case scenario’

After rehearsals are done everyone retreats to air-conditioned backstage facilities, where some of them take time to speak to a reporter.

“After he died I was kind of lost for two weeks,” says guitarist Peter Mayer, brother to bassist Jim. What snapped things into focus for him, he says, is when a couple of fans implored him, “please don’t stop this music.”

As seems to be the case for everyone who’s been a friend of Buffett over the years, it’s personal for Mayer. He recalls their first meeting, when he, his brother and Guth were booked for recording sessions for the 1989 Buffett album “Off to See the Lizard.”

“The first words that were spoken between us were said by Jimmy,” said Mayer. “He said, ‘So this is my new band.’ We kinda looked at him like, ‘Shoot, we’re here for a session.’”

Mayer says he came to believe that was Buffett’s attitude toward life, as if he woke up every day and said to himself, “So this is my new world.” Another facet of Buffett’s personality that made a deep impression on Mayer was the attentiveness and generosity he showed when Mayer got “a touch of cancer” a decade ago.

That element of human connection, as much as the songs, is something he hopes to keep going via the shows, Mayer says.

“A lot of people assumed it would just be this natural superhighway, we’d just go out and play,” says Mayer. “But of course our lighthouse in the center of the stage has left, physically. And so we had to dig deep into this music to keep us tethered. It was natural for people to vie for space. The band had to find its light center. And we found it in the songs.”

“It’s really an honor to be here doing it. It doesn’t happen without some stretching and groaning and growing. No one sang like Jimmy, no one introduced songs like Jimmy,” says Mayer, praising the talents of McAnally, singer-songwriter Will Kimbrough and other bandmates. “He will be missed. What we’re trying to do is not make the mistake of trying to be Jimmy, but just trying to celebrate him.”

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Kimbrough is a Mobile native who, somewhere in the process of carving out a multifaceted independent career in Nashville, crossed paths with Buffett. As with Mayer, Buffett saw someone he liked and made him a longtime running partner. Kimbrough played guitar on Buffett’s 2004 country crossover album “License to Chill,” and Buffett included one of Kimbrough’s songs, “Piece of Work.” He and Buffett continued to write and record together right up until Buffett’s last studio album, “Equal Strain on All Parts,” which was posthumously released in late 2023. Kimbrough co-wrote several of the songs on it, including one that took on a special significance after Buffett’s death, the uplifting “Bubbles Up.”

“The relationship is beautiful. It’s just friendship all around,” Kimbrough says of appearing with the band, whom he has joined over the years as an “honorary Coral Reefer.”

“This is a particularly special thing,” he says. “I’m a visitor, I’m a guest. I’m really glad to be with these folks, because we’ve made seven or eight records together and played shows … It feels like a home.”

“I also have no expectations,” he says. “When they ask me to do something I’m delighted, and I’m delighted when I can actually do it. Because we’re all running in a million different directions, now more than ever. It’s a great reunion. … The only expectation is to have a good time, and to be with people you love, and play these songs people love. And see what happens after that. It’s kind of open-ended, into the great wide open.”

“Really the only way to see how it works is to take it out on the road and start with a set list,” Kimbrough says. “And do another set list, and do another show. There are three shows and no more on the books right now. So we’ll take a lot from these three shows. It’s a learning curve all the way down the line, especially with a big group like this.”

When it comes to climbing that learning curve, McAnally seems to be the chief mountaineer. But considering that he has won the Country Music Association’s “Musician of the Year” award so many times that they probably should have just named it for him by now, he appears to approach his bandleader role with a conspicuous lack of ego. From his low-key direction during the soundcheck to his willingness – or maybe eagerness – to step out of the spotlight on stage, it’s very clear that he does not want this to become the Mac McAnally Show.

As with Peter Mayer, that seems to come directly from the desire to preserve elements of Buffett’s spirit: His willingness to step back and let others take the mic, his generosity in relationships.

“I’ve always bragged on Jimmy,” says McAnally. “He took me under his wing before I had any faith in myself.”

Told the soundcheck appeared to be a smooth process, he frets. “It’s a new ritual,” he says. “Honestly it’s not yet a well-oiled machine. We’ll bat for average.”

But he knows what he wants out of it.

“In the worst-case scenario, if we only get to do these three shows, it’s a family reunion,” he says. “That’s a great worst-case scenario.”

It’s not just about the band coming together, or about people coming to see the band, he says. It’s about people coming to see each other. It’s about people remembering the joy they felt at Buffett’s shows, and getting a chance to feel it again.

In a previous interview, he said the band got a taste of that at Jazz Fest.

“There was so much joy,” he said. “And it meant so much to folks that, that, you know, that may have thought that wasn’t ever going to get to happen again. It made us all think that it’s possible to keep celebrating and, for so many of his fans that come every year and tailgate, it’s a chance for them to come and have a reunion with the folks that they meet up with out in the parking lot and come in and, you know, sing and be joyous together. There’s no better joyful noise than Jimmy Buffett.”

Now, here in Orange Beach, one of McAnally’s tasks is to grapple with the simple physics of the set list. So many favorite songs, so little time. “He always said there’s 13 there’ll be a riot of we don’t play,” he says.

It brings back memories. Buffett simply loved what he did, McAnally says. At every show, he was the happiest person in the building. Despite his laid-back persona, he sweated the small stuff when it came to the shows. “I’ve probably got 4 or 5 setlists for every show we did, the last few years,” McAnally says.

He also had a rare ability, as a bandleader, to shift from Plan A to Plan D. “One thing Jimmy loved about this band,” McAnally says. “He could change gears really hard.”

Nothing ahead is guaranteed. But then, McAnally knows that none of what’s behind them was guaranteed either. “He told me ‘Probably two more years’ in 1983,” says McAnally. “I think he just thought people would get tired of it.”

1983. Think about that. Two years before the release of his first greatest hits album, “Songs You Know By Heart.” Fifteen years before the launch of Radio Margaritaville. Twenty years before the Alan Jackson duet “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.” Twenty-seven years before he played a free concert in Gulf Shores in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Forty years before his last show.

It’s a lesson that says, carry on, good things might happen. “We hope we do right by his legacy and enhance it,” says McAnally.

“I’ve got a feeling he’s around and I’ve got a feeling he’s tickled,” he says.

‘We missed you something bad’

It’s eight o’clock. McAnally and Coral Reefer percussionist Eric Darken back up Emerick as he plays a short opening set. McAnally introduces him as “the newest member of the Coral Reefer Band.”

“I’d be surprised if anybody’s happier than we are to be here,” McAnally tells the crowd. “I’d be really surprised.”

The tight set trades heavily on Emerick’s collaborations with Toby Keith (“I Love This Bar,” “Beer for My Horses,” “Weed with Willie”). It includes “Like My Dog,” which Buffett recorded for “Equal Strain,” and a genuine Buffett deep cut, “Brahma Fear.”

“How we doin?” McAnally asks as the full Coral Reefer Band takes the stage. He talks about the significance of playing in a region that was Jimmy Buffett’s youthful stomping grounds. He introduces a song about ‘a fictional bar that’s not at all fictional,” and the band opens the night with “Bama Breeze.”

Next up is a quick video sampler of Buffett’s stage patter, the man himself saying things like, “As a child of the Mardi Gras, I know how to have a party.” It’s a sweet tribute in that it serves as a reminder of the jovial indefinable presence that Buffett brought to the stage. The band follows with “Five O’Clock Somewhere,” McAnally taking the first verse and passing the baton to Emerick.

“This band had the privilege of running for decades with a genuine, one-off, one-of-a-kind character,” McAnally says when the tune is done. “Mr. Buffett was the real thing. Is the real thing. And he actually is a son of a son of a sailor. There aren’t many of those.”

The pattern is set. The gaps between songs are brief. There’s no fumbling around, no technical mishaps, no pauses while players set up for their next cue. There also are no surprises, in the sense that every song gets an introduction. You know when the next song is going to be about a burger, or a volcano, or an aging pirate mulling his life choices.

The songs come quickly, and if they’re not all on Buffett’s list of 13 riot-averters, they’re close. “Son of a Son of a Sailor,” “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitude,” “Grapefruit-Juicy Fruit.” Kimbrough takes center stage on “I Will Play for Gumbo.” Then “Come Monday,” “Pencil Thin Mustache,” “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” “Volcano.”

The rotation of lead-vocal duties keeps things lively. So do the flourishes of the musicians. “Come Monday,” may be a ballad, but it also gives Robert Greenidge a spotlight moment on steel drums, immediately followed by a ripping Doyle Grisham pedal steel solo. You’re still thinking about the mad genius of putting steel drums and pedal steel in the same band when John Lovell takes a lovely trumpet solo in “Pencil Thin Mustache.” In this flying circus of a band, everybody’s an ace.

Some of the songs, like “Come Monday,” you expect to be sing-alongs. You know people are going to get silly and dance around during “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” But some of the peaks are less expected. For example, when McAnally mentions early in the set that the proceedings are being streamed on Radio Margaritaville, it gets a huge cheer. That’s the audience celebrating that they are in the spot that is, tonight, the center of the Margaritaville community’s attention. They are the lucky ones, the envied ones.

Speaking of that audience: Were this a Jimmy Buffett concert, it would have sold out almost instantly. This show didn’t: The lower portion of the amphitheater is more or less full, the upper portion maybe half-full. At a rough estimate, 7,000 to 8,000 people. But there are easy explanations for that: The heat, the fact that it’s a weeknight. A couple of days later, Kimbrough will post about playing to 12,000 in Cincinnati.

What’s more important than the numbers, though, is the emotion. The vibe. This is not a crowd that’s sitting there listening to a repertory performance of songs they love. This is a crowd that’s into it, feeling the joy they’ve always felt in those songs.

Nadirah Shakoor takes center stage for “One Particular Harbour” and it’s a tentpole moment that closes the first half of the show. In general these are efficient pop songs that the band is punching out every three to four minutes. This feels like an epic, or a suite, with its Tahitian refrain, with its shifts from nostalgia to exuberance.

McAnally introduces a video clip of Buffett singing “School Boy Heart.” You could call it an intermission, but it’s scarcely a break in the action. “You’ve got four minutes, ladies and gentlemen,” says McAnally.

The second half gets a gentle start with “Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season;” to the line, “Strolling down the avenue that’s known as A1A,” McAnally adds, “Now it’s Jimmy Buffett Memorial Boulevard.”

He takes his time with the introduction to “Bubbles Up.” The story has become familiar, about how it’s inspired by a lesson to divers. McAnally goes deeper.

“The first half of last year, we worked really hard, but nobody worked harder than Jimmy on what was going to be the last record,” he says. “We probably didn’t know it was going to be, he probably did know, and I know for a fact he worked as hard as I’ve ever seen him work, and he wrote some unbelievably good songs.”

“I know not everybody is a songwriter,” he says. “But I want you to think about this from the vantage point of a songwriter for a second. That is extremely specific advice about an even more extremely specific situation that pretty much none of us are ever going to be in. And Jimmy Buffett the songwriter, along with Mr. Will Kimbrough here, took that idea and they turned it into a song that I believe applies to everybody walking this planet. That’s not an easy thing to do. It’s as good a song as Jimmy ever wrote, it’s as good a song as anybody ever wrote. He hasn’t had to prove anything to anybody as a songwriter since about 1971, but he proved it again to me last year, in 2023.”

It seems fair to say this show isn’t about emulating Jimmy Buffett, it’s about appreciating him.

A bit later, before taking lead on “Scarlet Begonias,” Peter Mayer offers this: “We missed you something bad,” he tells the audience. “And we miss that big ‘ol lighthouse called Jimmy in the middle of the stage as well, with all the lightness and brightness he brought to the world.”

As the show nears its inevitable end, Buffett’s daughter Savannah Buffett comes out to introduce “Fins.” “Thank you for coming out and giving us a reason to spread joy and my father’s legacy,” she says. Leading by example, she encourages fans to get up and do the “Fins” dance.

That fun, silly song sets the stage for “Southern Cross” and the inevitable “Margaritaville.”

McAnally’s comment about “batting for average,” has been exposed as serious understatement. The baseball idiom means to focus on getting base hits, to win through consistency. But the Coral Reefer Band has been slamming out a fair share of home runs all night long.

“Brown-Eyed Girl” serves as an encore, followed by a deep cut: the all-too-appropriate “Lovely Cruise,” a track from Buffett’s 1977 album “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.”

Oh, these moments we’re left with/ May you always remember/ These moments are shared by few/ And those harbor lights,/ lord, they’re coming into view/ We’ll bid our farewells much too soon So drink it up, this one’s for you/ Honey, it’s been a lovely cruise …

It’s a perfectly fitting sentiment, except for one thing: The night has convincingly made the case that the cruise can go on, for the Coral Reefer Band and for the parrothead faithful.