Jimmy Buffett tribute show in Brillion this Thursday

This article first appeared in the June 5, 2025, print edition of The Brillion News.

By David Nordby

The Brillion News

BRILLION – In Jimmy Buffett's final messages to the public prior to his passing in 2023, he said, “Keep the party going” and “always have a good time.”

“That's how much he enjoyed life, and how much he wants people to enjoy life,” Corey Spector says.

That's the spirit Spector, the man bringing Margaritas In Paradise – A Tribute to Jimmy Buffett to Brillion next week, tries to bring to the stage.

The show in Brillion is Thursday, June 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the Endries Performing Arts Center.

“Jimmy Buffett has always been known as the king of the music of escapism. The music of getting away and just escaping the world and having a wonderful time,” Spector said.

That's what the audience in Brillion can expect.

“It imitates what a Jimmy Buffett concert is like, and what we call the Parrotheads, the dedicated Jimmy Buffett fans, do in a concert to make it so much fun,” Spector said.

Spector said the Buffett concert is a whole experience with audience engagement.

“They don't have to but we hope that they want to try and come in with ... the floral shirts. The true Parrottheads know what to do ... We want people to come and experience and have a wonderful time who are experiencing Jimmy Buffett for the first time to be a part of that,” Spector said. “We draw the audience into the experience itself.”

Spector, 66, has experienced a full musical life. He's been a solo artist for years performing guitar and piano with musical hits from the 1950s to the 1980s.

He is originally from Hicksville, Long Island, the same place as Billy Joel. The two attended the same high school; Joel is nine years older.

“My musical influence was The Beatles, it was Billy Joel, it was Rolling Stones, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, and Jimmy Buffett was a part of that,” Spector said.

Three years ago, he was approached by an entertainment company about being the performer for this tribute show.

“I always knew his eight, nine most famous songs, but then as I started to learn how wonderful and a great guy and a great experience he brings to his audience, that's when I jumped in,” Spector said.

The tribute show comes with a band and the group has traveled the country with the act.

“It's the same mindset whether you're playing for 300 or 800 or 1,000. You just want the people in the audience to have a wonderful time,” Spector said. “Brillion is just as important as playing in a place like Seattle, Washington or something like that. It's the people. It's the experience and it's wanting to meet people.”

Spector did not have the chance to meet Buffett but he did see him perform at a benefit event for a rehab center in Tucson, Arizona somewhere around 1987 or 1988. That night Buffett performed, as did other legends like Ringo Starr, James Taylor and Nils Lofgren.

“I was lucky to see it. I was lucky to experience it,” Spector said. “That was my experience with Jimmy ... When I was a junior in college, that was right in the big time of Jimmy Buffett with “Margaritaville,” all his big songs. It caught all of us college kids because it's the partying time and it's the partying songs.”

Spector notes that Bob Dylan said in a 2010 interview that Buffett is his favorite singer- songwriter. Buffett was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Spector said that seeing new fans attend shows and parents who bring their children is “wonderful."

“Everybody has a happy dream to the music, whether it's drinking songs or songs of sailing, wishing to be a pirate, things like that. That's the escapism of Jimmy,” Spector said.

Additional information and tickets are available by visiting endriespac.com.