Jerry Jeff Walker is a lot of things—a Greenwich village folky who wrote “Mr. Bojangles,” he would later depart to the likes of Miami and Austin, where he became known as a hard-partying musician who would later inspire the outlaw country movement, with many of his own records having a ramshackle quality that sounded more like a grand party than anything else (seriously, Viva Terlingua forever).

But he’s also the man who changed Jimmy Buffett’s life.

When the two first met in Nashville, Jimmy Buffett was a struggling singer-songwriter and Billboard reporter. They would go on a bender, and after staying at Buffett’s place and waking his then-wife with some very early morning phone calls and profanities, Walker apologized profusely and told Buffett to look him up if he was ever down Florida way. When a folk club opened its doors in Miami, Buffett took him up on his offer and stayed in his Walker’s guest house.