When the American Legion’s Post 199 in Fairhope staged the Lost Shaker Salute to Jimmy Buffett — a musical celebration on October 28 benefiting Singing for a Change, Buffett’s charitable foundation — it did not come from a big promoter or a corporate sponsor. It came from three locals who kept insisting the event wasn’t about them, a sold-out crowd of 600, and a talent buyer who got her start following Phish around the country in high school.
Claire Powell, the talent purchaser for the American Legion’s concert series, planned the tribute with Harry Johnson and Mark Calametti of The Wrong Terns. The backstory of how she got there is a tour of the Gulf Coast music scene’s backstage economy — the bartenders, bookers and bar owners who decide which bands rise.
From Mobile to Manci’s
Powell grew up in Mobile in a tight-knit family — she remembers about 80 relatives at Thanksgiving — and spent summers on Mobile Bay in the three-room bay house her grandfather built, waking to shouts of “Jubilee! Jubilee!” Her love of music started with her family and sharpened during high school years spent following Phish from show to show. She served at local restaurants, started bartending at 21, and began noticing who could actually spot up-and-coming talent.
Her list of those people reads like a map of the coast’s beloved rooms. There is John Thompson — “JT,” or “Saint John” — at Callaghan’s Irish Social Club, who books new artists before anyone has heard their names. There is Ben Jernigan, who books Fairhope’s Live at Five, “one of my favorites,” whose advice she credits across a season. There are Brad Young and Maggie Smith at the Soul Kitchen in Mobile, where Powell tends bar; “just sitting back and listening to those two talking together is a wealth of information,” she said, with Smith her go-to for advice on difficult situations. And there is Cedar Street Social Club, where musicians of every level play and talent spotters listen.
In July 2021, Harry Johnson — then the owner of Manci’s Antique Club in Daphne — asked Powell three times to become the bar’s general manager. She resisted twice. What changed her mind was housekeeping: while cleaning up Manci’s she discovered how quietly Johnson had been supporting the community. “There are a small number of local people in the area that want to do good for no other reason than to do good,” she said. “Harry is one of those people.”
The Tiki Bar and the talent list
After Powell left Manci’s, Johnson steered her to a job at the Tiki Bar at the American Legion Post 199 in Fairhope — “It’s different, Claire, just give it a try” — and before long the post’s Executive Committee asked her to buy talent for its concert series.
The Legion’s formula is unusual: a beachy bayside vibe, spectacular sunsets — “like you are watching them from the end of the earth,” Powell said — and a stage where new bands can develop. The music budget runs on voluntary Sunday donations and a handful of local sponsors, with one ticketed event a month. Acts she has watched from the front row include the Brigham Cason Band — “I really believe they will do well” — and the Red Clay Strays, whom she first heard at Soul Kitchen playing to a small crowd, long before they sold out Red Rocks and returned to play the largest crowd in Soul Kitchen’s history.
Building the Lost Shaker Salute
The tribute idea started at Manci’s, where Johnson had received inquiries about a Buffett tribute, and at the Legion, which had considered a three-day event. The planners agreed it would not be about making money for themselves — it would be a charity event, with Jimmy’s family deciding where the money went. They reached out to Buffett’s niece, Mara Buffett, who told them that if proceeds went to Singing for a Change, “the family would never object.”
Booking fell to Powell’s ear. She had heard Street Folk at Cedar Street Social on a Tuesday night and was told to check out Dr. Bobby Gregory’s band, which covers plenty of Buffett and had led Mobile’s memorial parade for the singer. The bill was set for October 28, gates at 3 p.m., music from 4 to 7 p.m., with Street Folk donating their time, raffles on site, the Tiki Bar pouring, and food leaning toward cheeseburgers and margaritas.
The response outran everyone’s expectations. The initial run of 500 tickets sold out in nine days; the release was expanded to 600 and sold out immediately. Sponsorships at $250 and $500 helped underwrite the day.
“Every person has their connection to Jimmy Buffett,” Powell said. “He is part of the fabric of our lives along the Gulf Coast. We all have memories of either knowing him, or his music being part of our formative years. We are here to celebrate his life and music. Music is the food for our soul.”
For the Legion’s little bayside stage, the sold-out salute was also proof of what Powell has argued all along: the coast’s music runs on people who do the work for the love of it — and, occasionally, on a bartender who turned out to be a very good judge of talent.