"Jimmy Buffet & Friends: Live from the Gulf Coast" is a go for tonight, having been postponed last week because of Hurricane Alex.

Buffett will be joined by his Coral Reefer Band and also by Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Chesney, Allen Toussaint, Sonny Landreth, Zac Brown, and Jesse Winchester.

Buffett says he's doing the show to raise spirits and draw visitors to the coast, which has been devastated by the BP oil spill.  "A few hours of fun, void of the constant reminders of the situation, is a good thing, and that is basically what I do," Buffett said.

Given his pedigree, you might think that James McMurtry came to music via writing. In truth, it was the other way around.

"I started playing solo gigs before I was a writer," McMurtry said in a recent interview. "Just beer-garden stuff, where you'd have to play a certain number of Jimmy Buffett covers or they wouldn't hire you. But I wanted to do songs nobody else had, so writing became a tool to get through the night. And as I got into it, it became a way to separate myself from the rest of the mob."

"The first song I ever finished was eventually retitled 'Talking at the Texaco,' and it wound up on my first record. The very first version of it was not so good. But I added a bridge later, and that seemed to work. I got started pretty late and didn't finish any songs until I was 25. Up to that point, it was mostly just fragments."

For more, see the interview in Friday's paper. McMurtry plays Wednesday night at Cat's Cradle.

ADDENDUM (12/1/09): Lefsetz weighs in.

Miami moved out of the venerable Orange Bowl last season to Dolphin Stadium. Thanks to Jimmy Buffett, the Hurricanes' stadium has a new name.

The Canes and the ACC will play at LandShark Stadium this season, named for Buffett's venture in the beer business.

Poor Dean Smith. He once protested beer commercials during college games. Now an ACC stadium is named after a lager.

If you tried to buy Jimmy Buffett tickets online when they went on sale Saturday morning, chances are good that you found it to be a frustrating experience. This was the first big local test of livenation.com's new ticketing system, and... well, it didn't exactly pass with flying colors. There were widespread reports of delays and glitches, with numerous fans shut out -- you had better luck going old-school, lining up at the venue box office.

"We had a tough weekend," sighs Nathan Hubbard, CEO of Live Nation ticketing. "We had 63 great shows go on sale, and the combination of Jimmy Buffett and Phish traffic just overwhelmed us. Friday and Saturday, we had more than 10 million requests, and it just overwhelmed us. We sold out a lot of shows, but during that huge blast of traffic, a lot of fans had trouble getting access to tickets. In Raleigh, a lot simply could not get into the system. We never want our customers to have that experience. By way of apology, the best news for Jimmy Buffett fans is that tickets are still available."

Another complaint ticket-buyers had was the service charges. When Live Nation announced it was leaving Ticketmaster to handle its own its ticketing, there was much talk about "creating more transparency so the fan can make the decision whether the total amount is worth it." But for Buffett, online buyers reportedly couldn't see either the face price or the extra fees until after the tickets went on sale. And the parking, service and handling fees added $19 to the cost, bumping a $29 lawn ticket up to $48.

Here again, Hubbard pledges improvement and transparency.

"For us, it's a first step in a longer process of bringing more transparency to the process," he says. "The Eagles with their single all-in fee, data tells us that's what the fan wants. So we're moving in that direction, listening to fan feedback. This weekend, it came through loud and clear that we did not do as good a job as we should have."

ADDENDUM (2/3/09): Live Nation and Ticketmaster may merge!

Word to the wise: If you're planning on buying tickets for Jimmy Buffett's April 23 Raleigh date, which go on sale Saturday, don't try to do it online at LiveNation.com. A number of Phish reunion tour dates went on sale today and the debut of Live Nation's online ticket-vending system did not go well, with widespread reports of malfunctions and delays. Since Live Nation's outlets in Blockbuster stores won't start up until next month, your best bet will be to go directly to the Walnut Creek box office.

After a six-year hiatus, Jimmy Buffett seems to be back to playing Raleigh on an annual basis again. His 2009 visitation will happen early in the outdoor-concert season -- April 23 at Das Shed. Tickets go on sale Jan. 31.