The Music of James ‘Sunny Jim’ White

May 28

The Beach Maniac Island Music Podcast (audio):

The Beach Maniac Island Music Podcast (video):

James “Sunny Jim” White isn’t just a musician — he’s a living legend in the world of Trop Rock. A true pioneer of the genre, Sunny Jim has racked up an impressive collection of accolades, including nearly every major Trop Rock Music Association Award: Male Vocalist of the Year, Musician of the Year, Songwriter of the Year, Performer of the Year, the community-driven “I Can” Award, and most recently, the coveted Entertainer of the Year. In this lively and heartfelt interview, Sunny Jim opens up about the stories behind his songs, the winding road of his musical journey, and the unforgettable moment when he and his family struck up an instant friendship with none other than Jimmy Buffett himself.

Reels:

The day Sunny Jim and his family met Jimmy Buffett and became instant friends.

Sunny Jim tells the Beach Maniac Island Music Podcast the personal meaning behind his song 'Friendships'.

Highlights:

Sunny Jim was born in Texas, moved to California with his family at age 12, went to Nashville as a young musician and then landed in the Cayman Islands for 12 years, where he met his wife Adela and began raising his two twin daughters before moving to s.
His musical influences come from each of those locations, but Sunny Jim says his life as he knows it really started when he moved to the Cayman Islands. “You know, it's like being born or reborn and all of a sudden you have this whole other world to absorb and to be inspired by.”
In 1996, Sunny Jim, with his wife and two young daughters, went to see Jimmy Buffett arrive at the Cayman airport for his 50th birthday celebration, and just through chance ended up giving Jimmy and his 2-year-old son Cameron a ride to the Hyatt Hotel, and they all became instant friends.
Sunny Jim was close friends with Trop Rock legend Jim Morris, and played with him often in Florida and beyond. In fact, it was Jim Morris and his wife Sharon who came up with the idea of remaking the classic Roger Miller tune King of the Road and recasting it as King of the Beach, a song on Sunny Jim’s 2023 album Changing Tides.
For the last 20 years, Sunny Jim has been host of the Songwriter Series at the Historic Venice Florida Train Depot, which brings in top Trop Rock singers from throughout the country. He says the venue, which seats about 50 people, is “just magical.” Sunny Jim now lives in nearby Osprey Florida.
One of Sunny Jim’s best friends was the late Captain Phil Jones, who operated water sports at the Treasure Island Resort in the Cayman Islands when Sunny Jim was living on the island. Captain Phil took James sailing throughout the Caribbean and had a big influence on his views of the world, all of which is reflected in his music, including the song Splended Adventurer, which was the name of Captain Phil’s sailboat.
James and his wife Adela love to travel and sponsor group trips to many locations throughout the world, including the Caribbean, Europe, Hawaii and even Tahiti. “I think if everybody traveled or could travel more, the world would be a better place,” he says.
The lyrics to his song Friendships means a lot to him because, he says, “one of the finest things in life is having someone you can call a real friend.” The lyrics include: “There are tall ships and small ships, ships of every shape and size. The best ships are friendships that stand the test of time.”
He has written a few songs about his life in southwest Florida, including Home is Where the Palm Trees Grow, It’s Still Summer Somewhere, and Southwest Florida Pearl.
In 1993, while Sunny Jim was playing at the Hyatt Hotel in Grand Cayman, he recalls noticing a man hanging out for long periods of time at the pool bar “smoking cigars and drinking martinis and looking through a three ring binder.” It turned out to be director Sydney Pollack who was scouting scenes for his movie The Firm. About six weeks later, Sunny Jim got a call asking if he would sing a song in the film. They ended up selecting the song Blame It On the Rum.
One of his personal favorite songs is Isla Adela, a love song for his wife Adela. “Well, we just celebrated January 27th, we celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary. And after I asked her to marry me - and there's another song about that called Under This Palm Tree - I asked her to marry me and she said yes. And I got to thinking about it, you know, what marriage means and the commitment. And I ended up writing this song, ... “You are my island in the sea of time, no longer must this sailor roam, you are my island, my love and my life, my comfort, my joy, my home,” for her. So when we actually had our wedding reception - we got married in Grand Cayman at the Catholic church there - and had a wedding reception at a place called the Crow's Nest. And we had dated there a lot. So when I went to play that song, we knew everybody, the waitresses, the chefs, the owners, and the whole restaurant shut down for about three minutes and 27 seconds as I sang that song. Not a dry eye in the house. And that song for me to this day is like saying my wedding vows all over again. And that one means a lot to me, the most to me.”
Sunny Jim plays a lot with his friends and collaborators including John Patti, Mark Mulligan, Kelly McGuire and Lucky Lucy, made up of Nick and Lucy DiBlasio, Jerry Diaz, Jimi Pappas, and producer and drummer Alan Jax Bowers.
He has great appreciation for his life. “I would say I've been very fortunate, and both my wife and I agree that we've followed our hearts more than our heads because, you know, we don't have any money to speak of, but we have had great experiences, we have great friends, and yeah, life's been very good. We're very excited about and very thankful for all the good things that have come our way. It's really true.”

The Podcast Transcript:

Thank you so much, Sunny Jim, for being a guest on the Beach Maniac Island Music Podcast. I know that after decades of being one of the most awarded trop rock musicians, you're still an incredibly busy performer and traveler, and it's really a reflection of your kind nature to take the time to be here today. So thank you for that.

I'm really pleased to be here with you. This is fun.

You've been making music for decades and you have a very rich history as one of the pioneers of Trop Rock music with scores of awards to show for it. When I listen to your music, it's unmistakably Trop Rock, but I also hear some folk, country, blues, even Texas swing mixed in. How would you describe your music?

Well, I think probably for everyone, the music you make is a reflection of who you are. And I was born in Texas, born in San Antonio, Texas, and we lived there till I was 10. We spent two years in Corpus Christi, Texas. My dad worked for Gulf Oil. And then we were shipped out to Bakersfield, California, ... And I would have been about 12 years old. I was 12 when we moved out there.

And I was exposed to the whole West Coast music scene of, of course, the Eagles, Jackson Brown, Joni Mitchell, all the West Coast sound that was happening in the late 60s and 70s, all through the 70s, the Jefferson Airplane. And I think all of those things are reflective of me. My first musical live music experience was of being at a place in San Antonio with my parents, they were square dancing and it was a Texas swing band. So you're right on the money there. It comes through.

So your career also goes back to the early Jimmy Buffett days. And I believe your paths crossed. How did you meet Jimmy and how well did you know him?

Well, I would say that I knew him well enough that he would call me by name when I would see him backstage. We, you know, we never really hung out. Actually, we did a little bit in Grand Cayman. So the story for me starts ... I heard my first Buffett album probably about, I don't know, 1977 or so 79 in there, and I had been a fan.

I ended up moving to Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, with a band out of Nashville in 1988. And this band did impersonations. It was a nine-piece show band called the Mar-Vells. They were around for about over 20 years. And listeners from the mid-part of the country and the eastern part would maybe have seen this band. But we were the house band at a place called Treasure Island Resort.

And the owners of that place were record store owners. And so if we asked for any music, we got whatever music we wanted for free. And I was going to do a Jimmy Buffett tribute. So I got - back then was cassette tapes - I got every cassette tape Jimmy had done up until probably 1989. And we actually never did do that because the band left the island and I decided to stay. I was home.

And on Jimmy's 50th birthday, we met him at the airport. I was working at the Hyatt by that point. And he was staying at the Hyatt and they told us, told me that, hey, guess who's coming in tomorrow? Jimmy Buffett. I'm like, my God. So I thought I would let him have his space and not bug him on his birthday. I knew it was his birthday, Christmas day.

But my wife and my twin daughters and I have a history of going, walking the beach on the evening of Christmas Day, watching the sunset. And when we were getting back in our car, we heard he was landing at the airport. So we were on our way past the airport to go look at Christmas lights one last time with our daughters. And we just stopped in at the private airport there in Grand Cayman and we waited around for probably a half hour, heard that beautiful Grumman Albatross land and Jimmy and Cameron (Jimmy’s 2-year-old adopted son) and four other guys came out. The rent-a-car people, God bless them, they were island style. They were late getting there to drop off the rent-a-car to them. And Cameron was hungry, so we ended up giving them a ride, Cameron and Jimmy, back to the Hyatt and got him all checked in.

He said, well, now the other guys are going to be fighting over who has to babysit while we go have dinner for my birthday. And my wife, Adela, said, well, we'll babysit, Cameron. We did and that turned into, you know, we got to go see him many times and backstage many times.

And he sent Radio Margaritaville down to Grand Cayman. did a live broadcast of my show. It was the first Radio Margaritaville broadcast from outside the country and I was the first non-Coral Reefer to perform live on Radio Margaritaville. And it just, it turned out to be a really nice thing. He was, he was great.

So you made reference to your show. What was your show?

Well, even then, after being at the Hyatt at that point for about nine years, I was doing mainly original music. Of course, when you're playing for, and by that time I had picked up the steel drums, so I was doing Caribbean style, my own songs and working for tourists, you have to play kind of a wide variety of stuff. But I had, at that point, I probably had five CDs of my own music. So we did it, I think it was a two hour show from Seven Mile Beach. I have it recorded somewhere, but I did a live show of only my own music on Radio Margaritaville and it was so exciting. It was just great. So that was, that's what I mean by my show, doing my own show, and the Hyatt was behind me all the way. Department of Tourism from Grand Cayman was excited about it and helped us set up what was then called a T1 line. That was a high speed internet in those days. I believe it was 1998. All of a sudden I'm in touch with the whole Parrot Head world. It was great. It was really cool.

All right, so to backtrack a little bit, you gave Jimmy Buffett a ride from the airport to the hotel. And at the time, you didn't even know him. Or he didn't know you, I should say.

Well, I didn't know him personally, put it that way. But yeah, the whole time I'm driving, of course you're driving on the left there in the Cayman Islands. Cameron's sitting on his lap and I'm thinking, please God, don't let me be the guy that gets Jimmy Buffett killed on Christmas Day on his birthday in some tragic, horrible Christmas mishap auto accident. But it was great. He was really fun. He was nice. ...

We dropped him off at the Hyatt and we went home to get some videos because all of our kids were small then. I'll send you a photograph of us with Jimmy and Cameron, my girls. But I got some games for them to play in a ball. I rolled the ball with Cameron for probably 45 minutes and it was just great.

When we got back to the Hyatt, he (Jimmuy Buffett) was changing Cameron's diaper. And Adela goes, I like a dad who's a hands-on. He'll change the kid's diaper. So it great. It's just a regular guy.

All right. Yeah. And many times after that, would you say you had a chance to meet him in various places?

Yes, in fact, the place where really everything happened was Atlanta. They were playing there and we had gone up to Atlanta to do some shopping and also to go to the concert and he said, hey, you need to go backstage and talk to Steve Huntington. We have this new thing called Radio Margaritaville. Mike Ramos took me back to the tour bus where Steve Huntington was sitting with the little recording desk. And they were broadcasting live on the internet doing Radio Margaritaville. was just a blast. Also, that same time, the Today Show was there doing a piece on the the kickoff of summer with Jimmy Buffett and that became a thing for many years he would play the beginning of summer. And so somewhere there's pictures of me on the tour bus with Jimmy and Steve Huntington who is now a very close and very dear friend he lives very close to me in Bradenton Florida.

And he's now at Radio Trop Rock.

Yes, that is correct. Anyhow, somewhere there's footage of that. And I would give anything to see that. Love to see it.

So to what extent did Jimmy Buffett influence not just your music, but your life?

Well, I think because I spent two years as a kid in Corpus Christi, Texas, and was on the beach all the time and, you know, body surfing and everything that has to do with the beach as a kid, I really enjoyed it. And then when I got to Grand Cayman as an adult, I felt like I had come home and I was a kid again. And I just loved it. I loved the island life. Jimmy, of course, is...at that time was pretty much the soundtrack to Island Life. his music, his songwriting really influenced me a lot. He's one of my favorite songwriters, especially his early stuff, I would say. You know, that's when you're forming your impressions.

But it's kind of interesting that for me, my favorite writers, Jimmy, Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark, they all kind of came from that Texas cosmic cowboy scene. And of course, Jimmy and Jerry Jeff met up in Coconut Grove and drove, he drove Jimmy down to Key West for the first time. And so all those guys that were connected together connected to me and I drew a lot of influence from them.

I want to also ask a little bit about your relationship with another late great Trop Rock artist, and that's Jim Morris, who we tragically lost in 2016. I know he lived in your area down there in Southwest Florida, and I know you knew him well and played with him, and since his passing, you do tribute performances for him. So, yeah, can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with Jim Morris and what Jim Morris meant to you?

So I met Jim at the first Meeting of the Minds in the Key West in 1998. And Alex Lyst, who was then running the Parrot Heads in Paradise, we were supposed to each do an hour and a half separately. And Alex said, you, you, you'd be good on stage together. You guys go. And so we did three hours and we had just met that day and we traded songs off. I was just, he just killed me with his songwriting because he was something that everybody hopes to be as a songwriter ,and that's unique. He had just a unique voice and I don't mean singing voice but his just outlook and the way he approached storytelling and songs like nobody else that I know. He was hysterical and so I was still living in Cayman at that time and he invited me to come up and perform for a music event he had called Magic on the Water in Punta Gorda, Florida, which is where he had lived. So I did that and again, we just hit it off great and we ended up doing a Gulf Coast Highway Tour. We ended up going up and down the East Coast. I was with him the first time I ever went to Seattle, Washington, even though I had lived in Northern California fairly close. So he and I covered a lot of ground together and did a lot of shows together and I never stopped admiring his talent.

How would you describe his influence on Trop Rock music?

Well, sadly, I think while he was alive, I know he had a huge and still has a huge and dedicated following, but I don't think he wasn't a great guitar player. He surrounded himself with really good musicians. But he was fun. He was authentic. He was original. And I think since then, people have started to discover that and they're really paying attention to it now. I know there's a lot of people, Jonas Lorence comes to mind that does his stuff. There's other people too that are doing Jim’s songs and they're just fun songs. And again, they're not like anybody else's stuff.

And even if they're not doing his songs, he undoubtedly had a big influence on a lot of today's Trop Rock artists.

Well, I would think so. Generally, it was the kind of story of I'm going to leave my job and move to the beach and I don't care. And I'm going to have a margarita or, you know, a rum drink while I'm there. And he was really good at describing the characters that he encountered in his life in Punta Gorda. I don't know if you know, but Jim had walked away from a six figure income as a personnel director for a major chemical company and he just did it on the chance that maybe he could have some success as a songwriter, and his company really was grooming him to be you know upper echelon and they said okay Jim you just think about it, take a year off we'll pay you take a year off and you'll want to come back, and he took a year off moved to Key West and he never looked back never

So I understand that he played a role in your remake of the classic Roger Miller tune, King of the Road, your version being King of the Beach, on your latest album, Changing Tides. Can you tell us that story?

Sure, Jim's wife Sharon, who is also deceased, she had approached Jim at some point and said, look, I think you should do King of the Beach, but just do it like Roger Miller's King of the Road. And I don't know how far they got on it, but she mentioned it to me after Jim passed and I thought about it and I...I don't think I finished it before she passed. And I think about both of them. And I think it's dedicated to the both of them on the record. If not, I sure think about them every time I sing that song.

And did he have any role in the lyrics or did you come up with the lyrics yourself?

No, no, that was that was all my stuff except it was Sharon's idea, her recommendation to do a song called King of the Beach. And I think she also pitched that idea to Brent Burns. And Brent kind of took it a different direction and and wrote kind of a memorial and tribute song to Jim. If you haven't checked that one out, you ought to check that one out. But I went with Sharon's original idea, you know, just blatantly rip off King of the road.

It's such a fun song and the lyrics are so much fun listening to that old time song with the new lyrics and the beach focus.

At the end of that song there's the whole rant about Kelly McGuire and that he's not the king of the beach he's the king of the island and then I say did I ever tell you about the time Kelly McGuire bought a snapper whole fried snapper for six of us and it was like two hundred and thirty dollars and he didn't buy it, he had left his wallet at home. But hat whole thing just tumbled out as I was recording the vocal at the end of it and it made me laugh so much because to this day Mark Mulligan Sam Densler and I, we all kid Kelly McGuire about that. We just we just haven't let him forget it

So I want to ask you about something that I experienced recently and that is truly an indicator of your dedication to the craft and to your fellow Trop Rock musicians, and that's the songwriter series that you host near your home at the historic Venice Florida Train Depot, where some of the top Trop Rock artists and rising stars perform in that very intimate setting, similar to a house concert setting. Tell us about the Train Depot series and why you do it.

Well, when I lived in Grand Cayman, I was there on a work permit and I could not work anywhere else except the Hyatt Regency. And that was that way for 11 years. I could go out and sit in with someone, but I couldn't really go work for money with anyone else. And so as soon as I got back to the States, in fact, that very first, actually, it wasn't the first, it was the second Meeting of the Minds in Key West, I started hosting people that I had met in my travels around the country, you know, come sing three songs with me up on the water tower at Blue Heaven in Key West. And then that kind of translated itself into if someone was passing through town, I would say, well, look, I can get you a place to stay and we'll do a show at this little - started out a different place, a community center in a little village called Nokomis, and then I found the Venice Train Depot, the cargo room, the freight room there. And it's just a beautiful setting. It seats about 50 people comfortably. And we started doing shows in there. And it's been 20 years I've been doing shows in this thing. And I do have a double CD of probably highlights from the first 12, 15 years of it. And I try and record most of the shows to later pick out a song or two from each performer and hopefully release them on a CD or download or whatever.

But the place is just magical and we rent it during the season here when most of my friends are passing through. It gets to be too hot in that room in the summertime. So we just had our last show about two weeks ago and it was my friend John Patti and I closing out the season with, it was the Cinco de Mayo party that happened on the eighth. So it was the

Cinco de Mayo on Island Time. And it was just a blast. Those shows are always fun. And I get people in there that I know, and that I know their music, and that I love their music. And we just swap songs and tell stories. It's like Austin City Limits on a very intimate scale. It's great. It's really good.

Exactly, yeah, yeah. And you just call them up and say, you come on down and perform?

Well, at this point, typically we used to only do one show a month there. But I have so many friends that we have pretty much doubled that at least. And then sometimes if someone's coming through and says, hey, can you squeeze me in on a Wednesday or Thursday? We typically do midweek because we have such a retired community here that people can make it on their schedules. And it helps the performers who everybody wants you to work on the weekend. So if I can give them a Wednesday or a Thursday, it works out great for all of us. And we don't even really advertise the shows because we have sort of an established group that comes through and we have an email list for that. If you want to get on the email list, stop by sunnyjim.com.

I already am.

OK, good. You've been to one of the shows. Yeah.

I have, yeah.

Who was it? Who was there?

I was there last month, two months ago, I guess. It was Monallo and Christopher Dale.

Monallo. Yeah, God, that was fun. But they're all like that. They're all, all of them are fun and always great performers.

That was a great night. And for people who are interested, you can find out more information about the Train Depot Series on your website at sunnyjim.com.

Correct.

So going back to your history, your biography, a little bit. ... You mentioned some of it and the Grand Cayman Islands. You're originally from ... Texas and then you moved to California, your family moved to California. Your father was a musician?

Originally from Texas, San Antonio.Yeah, a little bit. He (my Dad) played guitar and a little bit of piano. So when I was a kid, we had a piano in the house and my mother traded babysitting for piano lessons. I had about maybe two months of piano lessons, then it kind of sat there. And I picked up the guitar, I think, when I was about 12. And I don't think my dad ever saw it again until the late 90s when my mom had Alzheimer's and they had moved from California back to Houston to be closer to their families at that time and I bought my dad a guitar so he could do that at home with her. And so he was a musical influence, you know, meaning that he played old cowboy songs and songs from the 40s and the 50s Campfire songs mostly that kind of thing

And how did you end up in Nashville?

Ah, I had a band after I got out of college in Northern California and one, but actually we had a lead guitar player with us named Bill Cooley for about six months. And Bill ended up going to Nashville, immediately got landed working with Reba McEntire and had a whole, I think he was with her for 14 years and then was with Kathy Mattea until he retired about three years ago.

Things went so well for him that my drummer friend Andy Arrow, who incidentally gave me the nickname of Sonny Jim, he wanted to go there and chase his fame and fortune. And I was really interested in seeing what the songwriting world was all about. That's what made me decide to move there, I was chasing songwriting. And that went well for about a year. And then I got my heart broken by a girl and I joined the first band going out of town.

That's when my life began, really did. I ended up with that band that eventually, after being on the road with them for a year and a half, we ended up in Grand Cayman for that one year, and that one year turned into 11 years, 12 years total. And I've been married 35 years now. I have twin girls who are going to be 33 at the end of this month. And yeah, it's been a great ride. It's been really good. Really fun.

So your twin daughters basically grew up on the Cayman Islands?

Well, they were eight when we left. And it's kind of funny that even though when we do go back with them, they go, yeah, I remember this, meaning places or a field or something. But they're not driven to live in the Caribbean. They're not really beach people.

What?!?!?!?

I know it's crazy, isn't it? What did I do wrong? Where did I go wrong? They, they are both visual artists, graphic artists and, they are doing their own things and traveling. They're headed to Charleston, I think, this coming weekend. They sell their art at anime conventions, comic-con conventions, furry conventions.

So they work together as twins?

No, not really. Not really. They're separate, but they do sometimes travel and do shows together. yeah, they have a blast doing what they do too. It's good.

So how did living in the Cayman Islands influence your music?

Well, I will tell you that once I moved down there, my ear was glued to Radio
Cayman, which was the government radio. And all I heard was Caribbean music. You know, I completely lost the 90s in popular music in the US. I missed the whole grunge thing ...

Well, that's all right. (laughing)

Yeah, I think I came out ahead, actually (laughing). But I was listening to Mighty Sparrow and Arrow and of course Bob Marley and anything Caribbean, anything with a Ssca beat and learning to play the steel drum. So I just completely absorbed that and it was great.

And all the other things that come with living in the Caribbean. The first year I got certified to scuba dive, met people with sailboats and I learned about sailing and I rebuilt a little sailboat myself, little 18 footer and sailed that for almost eight years I guess and you know I just I soaked up that whole lifestyle and I do miss it every day. I do miss it but we have it pretty good here in Florida.

And that lifestyle that you soaked up is reflected in your music.

It definitely is. There was a fellow that I met the first day I was there living on Grand Cayman named Phil Jones, a British fella who ran, who owned and ran the water sports at the Treasure Island Resort where I worked. And he and I became lifelong best friends. And sadly he passed away about almost four years ago now. Gosh. But he took me sailing with him all throughout the Caribbean. And he lived in the southern part of the Caribbean, and I would go visit down there. it was just life-changing. It was just great.

And again, the lyrics of your songs come from that rich experience?

Oh, right. And I probably have written more songs inspired by hanging out with him and the people around him. Mind your head, Fred, real guy. Moon over Mustique, Splendid Adventurer, which was the name of his big catamaran sailboat. Just so many things to write about. You know, it's like being born or reborn and all of a sudden you have this whole other world to absorb and to be inspired by.

And you and your wife Adela love to travel so much that you regularly sponsor group excursions to somewhat exotic locations around the world. Some are exotic and maybe some aren't, right?

We do. Somewhat exotic.

Our first trip like that, we went to Ocho Rios, Jamaica, and it was fabulous. And I think we had 80 people with us. And we've done Grand Cayman a number of times. In fact, we were just in Grand Cayman and Little Cayman about three weeks ago. Gosh, we've done a couple of cruise ship cruises. We've explored some in Europe. We did a Danube River cruise, then last end of the summer we went through Italy and Greece, and we're headed back. I mean, we just, love it. And we have found that there's a group of people that are really good travelers, meaning they're not too demanding, and they, they like the experience. And then I can provide music and entertainment when it's, you know, when it's the right time for that. So we have a Sunny Jim Travel Group now.

Well, I don't know if you know this, but my wife Diane and I are signed up for your trip to Tahiti next summer. And that's, that is a real dream vacation dream trip for us.

I believe Adele told me that. that's going to be cool. And for us too, and you know, Jim Morris had done that and we had planned on going back together, which would have been terrific. We know how that turned out, but I'm really excited about going back there, and Adela is so excited about it too that it's going to be great. It's going to be good.

So what is it about traveling that intrigues and inspires you? And again, how has that influenced your music?

Well, you know, I always say this. There are tourists and there are travelers. And a tourist will want to go and look at a few sites and then eat at a restaurant that the style may be familiar to them or stay in a hotel that is going to be just a certain way that they're used to. But a traveler goes and kind of embraces the road and embraces the differences between what we have here and what we do here and they just soak up the different country, the different customs and that's what I like about it is it just gives me a new outlook on life. I think if everybody traveled or could travel more, the world would be a better place.

Okay, I want to talk about a few specific songs that you've written and perform regularly. I think you've said you've written more than a hundred songs, is that true?

Yeah, probably recorded at least 120, and there's more that have been recorded that haven't been released yet. So yeah, a lot of songs. I'm no Eric Erdman.

And each one of those songs has a story behind it. But we only have time to talk about a few of them. And I want to start by asking about the song, Friendships, where you sing, the best ships are friendships. What does that song mean to you personally?

You know, first of all, Dan Sullivan approached me. Dan Sullivan, who used to be with the Detentions from Austin, Texas, he called me and he said, Sunny Jim, I'm working on this song and I'm kind of stuck. I think maybe you're the guy to help me. And it's based on an old, I believe it's an Irish toast. But he approached me about that at the time that my friend Captain Phil, I don't know if he had just passed, probably had just passed. But my best friend through thick and thin, he owns a house down the street from here. His wife does now, so the whole concept of friendship to me, just it's, you know, one of the finest things in life is having someone you can call a real friend. So thank you, Dan Sullivan, for letting me come in and help with that idea.

Friendships, that's what it's all about. And it's obviously the play on the word ship. Tall ships and small ships, ships of every shape and size. The best ships are friendships that stand the test of time. That's what it means to me. Yeah.

Beautiful. And you've written a few songs about your life in Southwest Florida. Like, I believe Home is Where the Palm Trees Grow. Is that about Southwest Florida?

Yes. Yes. So when COVID hit and of course we couldn't work anywhere because we couldn't perform in front of a crowd. I started doing a live stream from my backyard and the first couple of them were horrible. But I figured out I needed to upgrade the technical end of it. So we ended up coming in here. There used to be a sign right over my shoulder that said Cantina Jaime del Sol. And we ended up doing shows from in here every week, every Wednesday night. And it was terrific, but we needed a theme song. You know, you've gotta have a theme song. So I wrote that song thinking about how lucky I was to be here in Southwest Florida during that awful time. And, just walked around the neighborhood and shot video of palm trees. And we overlaid that with a song, that song I had written. And, I really like it, it's a happy little song.

It is, and it's a celebration of the things that you love the most, the beach and the palm tree.

As a beach maniac, know you can appreciate that (laughing).

Exactly! And then there's, It's Still Summer Somewhere, similar along those lines. How did that song come about?

Yeah, I think that that phrase, it's still summer somewhere, either somebody said it or it popped into my head one day and I sat down with the intent of fleshing that one out. So, and as I recall, that one came out really quickly. Sometimes the songs don't, and you have to wrestle with them for a while, a week or two or a month or whatever. And that one came out pretty quickly. It was good. Yeah.

Alright, and Southwest Florida Pearl? You know, when I first heard that song, I thought it was Southwest Florida Girl, but it's Pearl. Why is it Pearl?

Yes, now that's an interesting one because the woman that I was inspired to write that about, she was just, she was wonderful. Her husband is a grumpy old guy and she always kept him in line and she would come and sit in the front row and sing every word to every song. yeah, so that was for my friend Mary Ann and sadly she passed away. It's been a while ago, but yeah, Southwest Florida Pearl knows every word.

So she was a friend or a fan or what?

She was a fan and a friend. Most of my fans are my friends, you know what I mean? And she was definitely one of those. Definitely one of those.

But her name wasn't actually Pearl.

No it wasn't. was Mary Ann. Mary Ann Leonard.

And where'd you come up with the pearl?

Because I didn't want to say girl probably. Don't know. Because she was just a pearl. She was a pearl, you know, stood out from the crowd.

Okay. And Blame It on the Rum from 2012 (actually 1993 and republished in 2012). When I looked on Spotify at your playlist, I believe it listed that as your most streamed song on Spotify.

I would not at all be surprised. That is actually from 1993.

This fellow showed up at my pool bar one fall afternoon and was there for about four days and he was smoking cigars and drinking martinis and looking through a three ring binder. Turns out that that was the director, Sydney Pollack, and he was about to come down and shoot the movie, The Firm. And so he was doing scouting locations to shoot and I see him nodding and smoking a cigar and nodding and I visited with him some and he was a really nice guy.

And about six weeks before they came down to film I got a call from somebody in LA saying, I'm the music director and Sydney Pollack wants to know if you'd be interested in singing a song in the film. I'm like what? Of course. And so they had me prepare an instrumental and another song and they really liked Blame It On the Rum. So I wrote that song for that movie, and I think I put that on my 1994 CD the Sandbar Serenade and yeah so that one's been around a while. In fact just yesterday at my gig on Siesta Key that I've been doing for 20 years at a place called Captain Curt's someone asked for that song and they took a picture of me.

And then they did a side by side of a screenshot from me in that film to me now. And I look exactly the same (laughing). I haven't aged a bit. But yeah, that that song has been really fun because it's a fun story to be able to tell. It was great.

And I'll tell you, the very best thing about it was my parents happened to be there as they were filming. They were just down visiting because we had new daughters, new twins. They came out from California and I heard my dad from behind the shrubs where I was playing at the Hyatt pool bar, that's where that scene is shot. All the years of my dad saying, well, this is fun, but you're gonna have kids and you need to get a real job and get serious. I heard him say, that's my son, he's gonna be in the movies. It's changed everything, it was great, it was really good.

Beautiful, beautiful. Of all your over a hundred songs that you've written, is there one that stands out for you as your favorite?

That changes about every week or so. Yeah, some of them like Off the Changing Tides, one that I wrote with Coley McCabe Shepherd, Last Call at the Big Bamboo Lounge about a place over in Kissimmee that has been closed for almost 10 years now, but it was a real dive bar and it was just, it was magic over there. It was a really cool place. Gosh, so many songs ,two stand out, and one would be the Sail on Splendid Adventurer that I wrote for my friend Phil, and then the one that I probably played for hundreds of weddings - one that I wrote for my wife - called Isla Adela. Those two, but you know every once in a while I go I have to pinch myself say I wrote that song where did that come from? It's really fun.

Tell us about Isla Adela.

Well, we just celebrated January 27th, we celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary. And after I asked her to marry me - and there's another song about that called Under This Palm Tree - I asked her to marry me and she said yes. And I got to thinking about it, you know, what marriage means and the commitment. And I ended up writing this song, ... “You are my island in the sea of time, no longer must this sailor roam, you are my island, my love and my life, my comfort, my joy, my home,” for her. So when we actually had our wedding reception, we got married in Grand Cayman at the Catholic church there, and had a wedding reception at a place called the Crow's Nest. And we had dated there a lot. So when I went to play that song, we knew everybody, the waitresses, the chefs, the owners, and the whole restaurant shut down for about three minutes and 27 seconds as I sang that song. Not a dry eye in the house. And that song for me to this day is like saying my wedding vows all over again. And that one means a lot to me, the most to me. So that's how that one came about.

That's beautiful. What wife wouldn't want to have a husband who could write and perform a song like that for them?

Yeah, I always kid my friends about that. Has he written one for you like that?

I have a couple of quick questions about your life as a musician. I know you play acoustically a lot. You just mentioned like Captain Curt's. Do you have a band or a group of artists that you play with regularly also?

Well, the main group, there's two of them really, and that would be the three amigos. I just got back from Isla Mujeres, Mexico off of Cancun, doing a show down there that I've been doing 15 years now with Mark Mulligan, Mexico Mark Mulligan and Kelly McGuire. And Mark started this thing 16 years ago and I got invited to come join them on the second one he did.

Sam Densler of Songwriters Island Radio has taken it over for Mark because he just got too busy with family. He's got four kids. so those two guys I work with a lot. the next would probably be, most importantly, probably John Patti and I, because we've been friends since he was 15 years old. And I first met him in 98 at that Meeting of the Minds. And then he worked with Jim Morris for about eight or nine years. And then when Jim passed, I kind of picked up the slack with him and for him. And then COVID came along and we ended up doing the live streams here from the Cantina Jaime del Sol. And so I've worked with John a whole lot and we have a great interaction with the two of us but also with Jimi Pappas, who was also in Jim Morris's band for a long time. In fact, we're doing a Jim Morris tribute cruise coming up in June. I believe it's the 13th through the 17th. And that's out of Tampa to Cozumel and back. Those guys the most.

But there's another couple that just moved here literally a third of a mile from my house from Colorado and they're both originally from New Jersey they had a band have a band still called Lefty Lucy, and it's a husband and wife Nick and Lucy DiBlasio, and I met them on their honeymoon in Grand Cayman 25 years ago. Nick is a huge Buffett fan and had read about me and in Buffett's Pirate Looks at 50 book there's a little ... he tells the story of when he met us at the airport so Nick and Lucy came and I loaned them gear to do a fill-in gig that night and we've been friends ever since. So I'm starting to work with them more, especially now that they're in the area. And we're doing a Buffett tribute called...escaping me right now ... but we're doing some shows here locally and we'll be working together more.

I did have a band for about five years in the early 2000s, like 2005 till 2010, but it was really hard to keep a band going full-time doing mainly original music. So yeah, those guys are all scattered all over and I miss that. I love playing with a band though. So much fun to collaborate.

And if you need a drummer, you just get on the phone and pull one in.

Yes, there's a fellow down in Inglewood about 45 minutes south of here, Jax Bowers, Alan Jax Bowers, who has a recording studio down there. He's a terrific drummer. And if I need someone, I can do that. John Patti plays the drums.

So for my solo show, I typically use backup tracks that I do all my tracks here in what used to be my studio and is now now the Merchandise Queen's studio.

But when I was in Grand Cayman, because I couldn't play with other people and the technology became available using MIDI and synthesizers, that I could do backup tracks. And that would allow me to step away from the guitar and the microphone and play the steel drum. And it just, it worked. I really love creating that way. And I'm excited about having my studio redone once we get this other building going here to get back in the studio. So.

Do you have your own label? How and where are your albums produced and recorded?

Well, I record after the first two, which I did at recording studios in Grand Cayman. I started recording and producing them myself. And for me, it was I had had a small studio in Northern California with my drummer friend, Andy Arrow. And so I had a basic knowledge of it. And then I just self promote them when I'm done. And, you know, basically selling CDs out of the trunk of my car ... “Hey buddy, want to buy a CD,” you know like that.

Right, or on your website sunnyjim.com.

Yeah, definitely ,and we've been doing the website since 92 or something. So yes, sunnyjim.com is where everything is for me.

Do have any new ventures, events or songs coming up?

Well, I mentioned the Jim Morris cruise and I do have two songs written and a whole bunch that are under construction, but I've kind of been traveling a lot lately. in July, we're headed for Hawaii and doing a Hawaiian Island cruise. I'm taking Jerry Diaz with us. That should be a lot of fun. Jerry's one of my oldest friends and a great songwriter and a whole lot of fun to hang out with.

And, let’s see, then in the fall this is really exciting for me we're doing a UK tour we're calling it the Rock ‘n Roll Research Tour and we're taking a group first to Dublin Ireland but then mainly to London and on to Liverpool, and in Liverpool I get to play on stage at the Cavern Club where the Beatles did their debut, and then we go up to Scotland for a few days and then home so there's some travel coming up in my future.

So in summary, you're a guy who lived in the Cayman Islands for 12 years. Now you live in beautiful southwest Florida. You travel the Caribbean and the world. You perform for loving fans several times a week. You have close friends everywhere, great wife and family. I know a lot of people think maybe you live the ideal life. How would you describe your life?

I would say I've been very fortunate, and both my wife and I agree that we've followed our hearts more than our heads because, you know, we don't have any money to speak of, but we have had great experiences, we have great friends, and yeah, life's been very good. We're very excited about and very thankful for all the good things that have come our way. It's really true.

Well, thanks so much, Sunny Jim, for being a guest on the Beach Maniac Island Music Podcast. I think this has been a lot of fun. It's been a real honor for me, insightful and entertaining. And I look forward to hearing more of your music and for that trip to Tahiti next summer.

Yeah, man, that's gonna be great. All right, I'll see you on board, if not before.

All right, thanks, James.

Thank you.