Jimmy Buffett and the Zac Brown Band collaborate on the single “Knee Deep” on the group’s upcoming album You Get What You Give, and Billboard details how they hooked up:

“We met him on a camping trip last year,” bassist John Driskell Hopkins reports, “and just sat around the fire with him for awhile. That was a quick friendship. He’s a real cat, really down to earth and doesn’t have a whole lot of ego and just a super nice guy…We did a lot of vocals down at his place in Key West and he happened to come through, so we got him to sit in and it sounded great. It sounds like a Buffett song when he sings it. Whatever he sings sounds like a Buffett song, y’know?”

Pre-order the album now at Amazon.com for $12.99.

The Zac Brown Band is preparing to release their much-anticipated second album in September and Jimmy Buffett appears on the album, singing on a track entitled “Knee Deep.”

You Get What You Give, set for a September 21st release, also features Alan Jackson on “As She’s Walking Away,” which will be the first single released.

Here’s the full track list:

1. Let It Go
2. Knee Deep (feat. Jimmy Buffett)
3. No Hurry
4. I Play The Road
5. Cold Hearted
6. Whiskey’s Gone
7. Quiet Your Mind
8. Colder Weather
9. Settle Me Down
10. As She’s Walking Away (feat. Alan Jackson)
11. Keep Me In Mind
12. Who Knows
13. Martin
14. Make This Day

Pre-order the album now at Amazon.com for $12.99.

The Zac Brown Band is also offering special pre-order bundles at their official site.

The Boston Globe has an interview with Buffett where they discuss the oil spill, his Buffet Hotel and Encores albums, and a new project that will be coming out:

Q. You have the public image of a free-for-all party guy and surfer, but weren’t you just down in Haiti helping out earthquake victims? And you’re going down to the Gulf Coast to lend a hand; what are your thoughts on the oil spill?

A. You have to figure out what to do instead of just bitching about it. One thing is that we have partnered with a little boat company and we’re building these small skimmer boats that can go into shallow water and actually help with the cleanup. Having grown up on the Gulf Coast, I don’t do this for headlines, but just because I want to give back. . . . We’re about to open our [Margaritaville Hotel] in Pensacola Beach, which is right at ground zero. We had a job fair there for 40 jobs — and 1,000 people showed up.

Q. You also just put out the double-CD “Encores,’’ taken from the acoustic encores you’ve done the last two years. It gave you a way to revisit some of your more obscure tunes and to show your roots by covering songs by Jesse Winchester, John Prine, and Bob Dylan.

A. On tour we have a 17-piece band that works people into a frenzy, but as big as this thing has gotten, I never want to forget being a folk singer, because that’s what I grew out of. I want to keep the roots alive of just me and a guitar since I spent so many years doing that. By ending the shows that way feels like a nightcap. It feels good.

Q. Any other recording projects?

A. Twenty years ago I ran away to Tahiti and wrote the song “One Particular Harbour.’’ I went back to Tahiti not long ago and did an acoustic version of the whole “One Particular Harbour’’ album in a bar called Bloody Mary’s where I first played — it fits about 80 people. So we’ll put that out.

Buffett is playing two shows next weekend just outside of Boston at Mansfield’s Comcast Center.

Jimmy Buffett’s double-CD live, acoustic encores album is now available for download at iTunes for $11.99.

“Encores” features 22 of Jimmy’s intimate final encore songs recorded during the 2008/2009 tour. This unique collection showcases Jimmy solo acoustic (12 songs), features a few special guests and is unlike anything he’s released before.

Track List:

Disc 1

1. Come Monday
2. Tin Cup Chalice
3. Growing Older But Not Up
4. Coast Of Carolina
5. Paradise
6. Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans
7. Nautical Wheelers
8. Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season
9. Banana Republics
10. He Went To Paris
11. Last Mango In Paris

Disc 2

1. L’air De La Louisiane
2. Reggabilly Hill
3. Coast Of Marseilles
4. Lovely Cruise
5. Oysters And Pearls
6. Wildflowers
7. Defying Gravity
8. Big Old Goofy World
9. Death Of An Unpopular Poet
10. Blowin’ In The Wind
11. A Pirate Looks At Forty

Get “Encores” at iTunes now!

You can also get the MP3 album at Walmart.com for $9.00.

Jimmy Buffett’s latest offering, the live acoustic double CD Encores, will sell between 30,000-35,000 copies in its first week, according to forecasts from Hits Daily Double.

Buffet Hotel, Jimmy’s last studio album, sold 68,000 copies in its first week back in December.

Glee: The Power of Madonna will top next week’s chart with a total of 100,000-120,000 sold. AC/DC’s Iron Man 2 soundtrack is on pace for between 80-100k.

Encores is available exclusively at Walmart stores and Walmart.com for $12.00. The MP3 album is also available from Walmart.com for $9.00.

Update – It’s also available for purchase at Margaritaville.com

Jimmy Buffett’s new live acoustic double album entitled “Encores” hits stores today! Swing by your local Walmart or Margaritaville to pick it up, or order online for $12.00 at Walmart.com. The MP3 download will be available at Walmart.com only.

“Encores” features 22 of Jimmy’s intimate final encore songs recorded during the 2008/2009 tour. This unique collection showcases Jimmy solo acoustic (12 songs), features a few special guests and is unlike anything he’s released before.

Track List:

Disc 1

1. Come Monday
2. Tin Cup Chalice
3. Growing Older But Not Up
4. Coast Of Carolina
5. Paradise
6. Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans
7. Nautical Wheelers
8. Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season
9. Banana Republics
10. He Went To Paris
11. Last Mango In Paris

Disc 2

1. L’air De La Louisiane
2. Reggabilly Hill
3. Coast Of Marseilles
4. Lovely Cruise
5. Oysters And Pearls
6. Wildflowers
7. Defying Gravity
8. Big Old Goofy World
9. Death Of An Unpopular Poet
10. Blowin’ In The Wind
11. A Pirate Looks At Forty

In today’s Miami New Times, music industry veteran Lee Zimmerman writes about his part in helping Jimmy Buffett’s young career:

While Jimmy Buffett was a relative unknown around the rest of the country, he was already a fairly big name in Florida, so it became incumbent upon me to build some local airplay for “Margaritaville” — the first single off his Changes In Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes album. Fortunately, it was one of those rare occasions where some normally conservative stations agreed to give an untested record airplay practically out of the box. Being that he was now considered a native son, and that his lyrics about blown out flip-flops and soothing concoctions aptly reflected the state’s sunnier side, access to their charts seemed appropriate.

Soon, stations from Miami to Jacksonville, and practically everywhere in-between, were blasting the song in heavy rotation, giving impetus to other radio stations across the country to also give it a spin. On May 7, 1977, “Margaritaville” cracked Billboard’s top ten, and Buffett was a big star, one who could finally claim hit-making credentials. And I became a hero in my own right, having launched a chart-topper and helped create a new cash cow. A few weeks later, UPS delivered a plaque to my house — a “gold record” signifying sales of more than a million copies of the album, boasting my name as the object of the label’s gratitude.

Read the entire article here.