By Jimmy Buffett | Sept/Oct 08 | Features

Who Do You Love

A true story of music, magic, and a long night in the desert with Bo Diddley

Let’s just say that Oumou Sangare stands out in a crowd. Though I had seen only CD-size photos of her, I immediately recognized the elegant woman seated at a long table behind the dance floor waving us over. Oumou greeted our gang of desert rats with hugs and kisses. No sooner had we taken our seats than buckets of champagne and hors d’oeuvres covered the table. The party was continuing. Talk about a multitasker: Oumou carried on conversations with us and other friends in English and French and at the same time chimed in with lyrics to the music coming from the bandstand as she posed for photos with passing fans. Somehow in the middle of all of her “plate spinning,” she found time to conspire with Syndou, and the next thing I saw was Syndou opening the guitar case and taking out my Little Martin. I was about to tell him to put it back when Oumou stood up and spoke into her wireless microphone and announced, in three languages, my impending debut performance at Wassulu Hôtel Résidence. When she was finished, she put her hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear, in that laissez-faire style, “Jimmy, pas de problème. Il est quatre heures du matin” (No problem! It’s four in the morning).

I knew I wasn’t saying no to Oumou. I offered a prayer to the Baby Jesus of late-night jams in West Africa and headed for the stage to less than scattered applause. At that moment, God appeared to me in the form of a tall, thin guitar player who informed me that the band was playing in open E. Tuning was not something I was really thinking about doing at that moment, but then the kind guitar player offered me his digital guitar tuner. The next thing I knew, I was plugged into a vintage Peavey tube combo classic amp onstage and the band was waiting for instructions. I made myself understood in French, and they made me less fearful of what was about to happen. It was showtime, and somehow the ability to make it up on the spot did not fail me. In a millisecond I knew that good as the band was, trying to teach them a head arrangement of a Jimmy Buffett song was not the right choice. So, what was? The great thing about the desert blues sound was that rarely did the band ever change key. They played and stayed in the key of E, and without thinking, I started a groove in E; then the band set an instant groove that I rode like a point break on the North Shore of Oahu—no chord changes, no modulations, and no thinking. The lyrics just flowed.

I walk 47 miles of barbed wire,

I use a cobra snake for a necktie.

I got a brand-new house on the roadside,

Made from rattlesnake hide.


I got a brand-new chimney made on top,


Made out of a human skull.


Now come on take a walk with me, Arlene,

And tell me,
who do you love?

Who do you love?

Who do you love?

Who do you love?

Who do you love?