It’s 5 o’Clock in Key West, Jimmy Buffett
It was 1:30am in the morning when Key West Legal Rum owner & distiller Paul Menta got a call he will never forget. Answering, the friend on the other end said simply, “Jimmy died.”
Just like that life changed. As every now knows “Jimmy” was none other than Jimmy Buffett, Key West’s favorite son who became inseparably connected with the Key West lifestyle and single-handedly responsible for introducing the tiny Caribbean island’s laidback, live-and-live, rum-in-hand lifestyle to the rest of the world.
Getting off the phone and thinking on it, Paul knew that something had to be done to honor Jimmy Buffett and the moment. Indeed, the world would be looking to Key West. So it was going to have to be something good. After crafting a Facebook post, Jordan Upchurch reached out to Paul.
Two hours later, Paul and Jordan had a plan.
Rather than a ceremony, the two of them realized that nothing would say “we love you, Jimmy” like a parade. And the parade had to happen now.
It was outrageous, it was grandiose, it was practically impossible, and beyond all else, it was what had to be done.
The next 36 hours in Key West is the stuff they make movies about. Movies with props, funny hats, beads, colorful flower leis, outrageous homemade costumes, and a cast of characters the likes the world has never seen.
And of course, plenty of margaritas and rum drinks with a trop rock soundtrack.
Key West was about to put on a massive party disguised as a parade.
Paul Menta telling story of It’s 5pm in Key West parade on Backyards of Key West Podcast
With a fundraising element embedded into it–when folks pass people always want to pay tribute to their memory–in support of Key West’s Bahama Village Music Program–and a plan supported by Key West’s Mayor Teri Johnston and approved by City Manager Albert Childress (with the parade’s police escort paid for by monies ponied up personally by Paul and Key West Legal Rum), barely 9 hours from that first phone call Paul and Jordan announced the Sunday afternoon Key West parade on Facebook. Kick-off naturally set for 5 o’clock.
The rest, as they say, is history.
It’s 5 O’Clock in Key West Parade drew Key Westers, Parrotheads, musicians, artists, dancing girls, dancing boys, locals, residents, and tourists to become one of the largest pop-up parades in the history of Key West and of pop-up parades worldwide.
This is what it looked like:
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Jimmy Buffett is to Key West what Bob Marley is to Jamaica, Sinead O’Connor is to Ireland, and Celia Cruz is to Cuba: Jimmy Buffett is Key West’s musical ambassador to the world. He is Key West’s favorite son.
Jimmy Buffett has left the building. But instead of going sad, Key West went full gonzo to celebrate the life well-lived of its favorite son Jimmy Buffett.
“I heard I was in town”, Jimmy Buffett famously wrote and sang about hearing about himself in Key West. And even now while setting off on whatever Pirate Adventure in the Sky awaits Key West’s best-known neighbor and ambassador, that Sunday at 5pm in Key West, indeed he was.
