Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes is the seventh studio album by American popular music singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett. This is his breakthrough album, which remains the best-selling studio album of Buffett's career, and contains his biggest single, "Margaritaville". It was initially released in January 1977 as ABC AB-990 and rereleased on its successor label, MCA.
Changes was very popular and critically well-received and was a transitional album on several levels for Buffett. In a commercial sense, it ushered in Buffett's greatest period of chart and airplay popularity – changing him from an FM cult favorite and minor hitmaker to a top-draw touring artist whose albums sold in the millions, receiving regular AM airplay at the time. Changes would be followed by equally popular and more grandiose expressions of Buffett's "Caribbean Soul" on Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978) and Volcano (1979). All of these albums would combine pop, bar-band rock, country, folk, and reggae influences with the professional production of Norbert Putnam.
Changes also represented the beginning of the end of the "Key West Albums": the Don Gant-produced A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean (1973), Living & Dying in 3/4 Time (1974), A1A (1974), and Havaña Daydreamin' (1976). These four albums capture the feel of the early 1970s Key West, Florida and Buffett's experiences as a struggling musician and storyteller. Although the albums are not exclusively about Key West, they detail the laid back island ethos of the small island city and its pre-"condo commando" status as an American Casablanca ... a place where no one knows your name and would not care if they did. At the time, Key West was a derelict navy town looking for a direction and was filled with small bars and restaurants craving troubadours like Buffett, Steve Goodman, Jerry Jeff Walker, and others who would play for bar money. The albums document life in the Gulf of Mexico Region ("Biloxi", "Banana Republics", "Woman Goin' Crazy on Caroline Street", "Wonder Why We Ever Go Home") with displays of touring craziness ("Miss You So Badly"). After Changes, Buffett's scope grew to include the entire Caribbean and, later, the vast expanse of what would become "world music." Buffett's Key West experiences would pepper his later work (even recording his albums in Key West's Shrimpboat Sound), but not like it did in the 1973–1977 period. It is this period, along with his 1978 and 1979 albums, that created the mythos Jimmy Buffett parlayed into icon status as a performer, restaurateur, entrepreneur, author, and celebrity.
Two singles from the album charted including "Margaritaville" (#8 on the Billboard Hot 100; No. 13 on the BillboardHot Country Singles chart; No. 1 on the BillboardEasy Listening chart) and "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" (#37 Hot 100; No. 24 Country; No. 11 Easy Listening).
Songs
The songs on the album were written or co-written by Buffett except for three covers: Steve Goodman's "Banana Republics", Jonathan Baham’s “Lovely Cruise” and Jesse Winchester's "Biloxi."
Two of the songs on the album had also previously been recorded by Buffett. The original version of "Wonder Why We Ever Go Home" appeared on the Rancho Deluxe soundtrack under the title "Wonder Why You Ever Go Home" and a different version of "In The Shelter" was originally released in 1971 on High Cumberland Jubilee. "In the Shelter" was re-recorded for the album Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes in 1977. But then re-recorded yet again for the compilation album in 2002's Meet Me in Margaritaville: The Ultimate Collection making it (with "The Captain and the Kid") one of only two Buffett songs with three different studio versions.
Aside from "Biloxi", all songs appear at least once on a live album, making Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes the LP with the most live appearances.
The title track begins with an instrumental introduction which initially resembles "Yellow Bird" (originally a 19th-century Haitian song, which gained popularity in the U.S. through a Hawaiian-flavored instrumental by the Arthur Lyman group in 1961), and then it gradually evolves into the distinctive chorus of the song itself. In the song, the line "good times and riches and son-of-a-bitches, I've seen more than I can recall" was replaced with "good time and riches, some bruises and stitches, I've seen more than I can recall" for the radio edit single release of the title-track, with rather crude (and obvious) editing, although American Top 40 did play the original unedited version only once when it debuted at No. 38 on 10/22/77.[1]
The Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote that "Buffett combines the voice and instrumentation of a West Coast country rocker with the attitude of an undergraduate who prematurely retired to Barbados."[5]
1977 saw Jimmy catch a big wave as he opened for The Eagles for several dates in March and a few in July. "Margaritaville" flew up the charts in the summer, helping the summer tour grow to the amphitheaters that Jimmy played until his passing in 2023. Amazing Rhythm Aces opened for a few shows in California in May, while the Little River Band was picked up in June to open. Jennifer Warnes also opened some shows. In late June, Jimmy added new drummer Kenneth Buttrey to the band and they rehearsed for three nights in Sarasota, FL before embarking on a tour of the south that included a couple of shows opening for The Eagles again in Florida and Texas. The August 2 show in New York was broadcast along the east coast on the Radio, Jimmy's first broadcast since 1975. A special show was played in September as Jimmy opened for Fleetwood Mac at County Stadium in Milwaukee, WI. For the fall, Jimmy drafted Jesse Winchester to open shows throughout the south and along the east coast.[7]
Setlists changed nightly, mainly during an acoustic set that took place between "Makin' Music for Money" and "Margaritaville", but the structure was pretty consistent. The shows typically opened with the title track and ended with "Tampico Trauma". "This Hotel Room" (Steve Goodman cover) and "Dixie Diner" (Larry Raspberry and the Highsteppers cover) were played during the encore, with the band occasionally coming back out on stage after "Dixie Diner" to perform "Lovely Cruise" as a second encore.
^Bustard, C.A. (February 23, 1977). "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, Jimmy Buffett". Richmond Times-Dispatch. p. B18.
^Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes (Media notes). Jimmy Buffett. Los Angeles, CA/New York, NY. 1977.((cite AV media notes)): CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
