Jimmy Buffett has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as half of the 2024 class’ Musical Excellence award. Even although he had been eligible since 1998, Buffett was by no means nominated for induction.

The singer-songwriter acquired the award posthumously Saturday evening with an introductory efficiency by fellow Class of 2024 inductee Dave Matthews, who sang a solo acoustic model of Buffett’s 1974 music “A Pirate Looks at Forty.” “He made me feel very special,” Matthews mentioned.

James Taylor inducted Buffett, noting, “For so many of us, Jimmy was like a heroic figure in a Greek myth. His adventure was our adventure. We got to share his huge love of this life. He loved being Jimmy Buffett.

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“He was bigger than life however one way or the other at the similar time at all times right-sized and at all times genuine. Jimmy was the self-made man and a poet, and there will not be one other like him.”

Jimmy Buffett Is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Taylor then joined Kenny Chesney and Mac McAnally for a performance of Buffett’s “Come Monday” to close out his induction.

Buffett, who rose to fame in the ’70s on the hits “Margaritaville” and “Fins,” died at 76 on Sept. 1, 2023, of Merkel-cell carcinoma, a rare skin cancer that he had been diagnosed with four years earlier.

An album he was working on at the time, Equal Strain on All Parts, was released two months later and included appearances by  Paul McCartney, Emmylou Harris and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

In April, a show called Keep the Party Going: A Tribute to Jimmy Buffett was held in Los Angeles and featured performances by McCartney, Eagles, Jon Bon Jovi and Jackson Browne.