The Hub Where Buffett Met "Fingers"
One evening in the early 1970s, a Southern Miss sophomore was, as he later recalled, "just wandering through The Hub,...and there was this guy with long blonde hair and a mustache playing...to about five little old ladies on break from their night class.” Captivated by the sounds he was hearing, the young man, who had recently been honing his own skills on the harmonica, asked if he could sit in on a number or two. "So we got up there,” he remembered, "and it was just sort of a chemistry, just one of those things."
The student was, as he came to be known, Greg "Fingers” Taylor, and the guitar-strumming singer was a recent Southern Miss grad named Jimmy Buffett. "The next day,” says Taylor, "I was driving him to his parents'' house in Mobile, the sun was coming up, and Jimmy was singing; there was a bonding that occurred there at that point; we knew that we were going to play music together somewhere down the line."
James William Buffett graduated with
a Bachelor''s degree in 1969 and was an undergraduate member of Kappa Sigma Fraternity. In his days as a student, Buffett performed as a solo artist in Nat''s Nook, a coffee house in the old Student Union, now McLemore Hall, and later with a band called The Upstairs Alliance He went on to a spectacular career that included more than 30 albums, eight gold and nine platinum; awards from the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music; a Grammy nomination; five books three of which reached number one on the New York Times bestseller list; an entrepreneurial empire; and a legion of fans known as Parrot Heads. Taylor, who was a member of Buffett''s Coral Reefer Band from its origin in the mid-1970s until 2001, recorded more than half a dozen albums of his own. The two musicians, each a legend in his own right, did indeed "play music together...down the line,” but it all started here with a chance encounter at The Hub of The University of Southern Mississippi. Jimmy Buffett and Greg "Fingers" Taylor are inductees into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame.Erected by The University of Southern Mississippi.
Topics. This historical marker is listed in these topic lists: Arts, Letters, Music • Education • Entertainment.
Location. 31° 19.687′ N, 89° 19.955′ W. Marker is in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in Forrest County. Marker is on College Drive. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 121 College Drive, Hattiesburg MS 39401, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within 3 miles of this marker, measured as the crow flies. Petrified Log State Rock of Mississippi (within shouting distance of this marker); A Remarkable Woman and a Legacy Beyond Compare (within shouting distance of this marker); Clyde Kennard (about 300 feet away, measured in a direct line); Roberts Schoolhouse (approx. 0.2 miles away); Demonstration School (approx. 0.2 miles away); Hub City Lodge No 627 (approx. half a mile away); Veterans of All Wars Monument (approx. 2.1 miles away); Pinehills Neighborhood (approx. 2.2 miles away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Hattiesburg.
More about this marker. Accessible only by foot, no motor vehicle traffic.
Credits. This page was last revised on September 20, 2023. It was originally submitted on June 8, 2018, by Cajun Scrambler of Assumption, Louisiana. This page has been viewed 913 times since then and 73 times this year. Photos: 1, 2. submitted on June 8, 2018.