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Singer/Songwriter Eric Stone
He doesn't want
to be Jimmy
Buffett, he just wants to be Eric Stone.
"Sailing
life is what I choose
Imported rum is my kind of booze...
"Sailing
life is made for me,
I raise my spinnaker and I'm free..."
Aloha shirt. Shorts. Sandals.
Well-worn cap that looks as if it's been blown – or thrown – overboard
a few times and retrieved.
How else should Eric Stone dress for a show?
Songs about saiboats, scuba diving, beer and lost women
("she stole my heart, my wallet, my car AND all the tequila is
gone").
This is Eric Stone, a lifestyle singer/songwriter who
could easily be confused with Jimmy Buffett. Except he isn't. In fact,
"I don't want to be Jimmy Buffett," he sings in one of his
signature songs. "I just want to be me."
But besides the sound and the "location" of
his songs (mainly tropical-type subject matters) he has this in common
with the most famous of lifestyle lyrics: He can find inspiration for
a song just about anywhere.
Stone got one sitting on a boat dock when, prodded by
a friend's friend, he used a jellyfish and a manatee that just happen
to pass in front of them ("The Manatee and the Jellyfish").
 He's
also written about getting lost on a friend's dingy in a strange harbor,
spending time on other people's sailboats ("Gary's Island"
and "Legend of the Lost Soul"), Bamba's legendary Surfside
Shack in the BVI and a fictional – we think – tale of falling
in love with a Mexican waitress in Cozomel only to have her boyfriend
break up the ensuing wedding while waving a gun.
There's a clever one that every single man has faced on
more than one occasion: "What do you do with a Saturday night girl
on a Sunday morning?"
And then there's "Scuba Joe" about a guy who
spends his time "down below" doing another kind of diving.
"I get song ideas all the time," he said. "The
lyrics usually come pretty easy. It's putting the music with it that
can be a challenge. I used to write with my guitar, but the guitar will
sometimes take you in the wrong direction. Now I just write it down."
Stone lives in Destin, Florida and plays throughout the
state, has a big California tour in the works for October – including
Catalina's Two Harbors on Oct. 23 – does an early-summer tour of
Australia
and is as popular at US boat shows as, well, boats.
He has a magnetic fix on his compass for beach bars and
doesn't mind honkey tonks because "all I need is a little beer
money." After all, everything is "permanently temporary"
anyway.
Stone does a few Buffett covers – "The Coast
of Marseilles" sounds just like The Man himself – sprinkled
in with some Harry Belafonte and Bob Marley (more so in his shows than
on his CDs).
He has nearly a dozen of those CDs – available on
his web site, www.boatsongs.com
– which are as happy to be spinning in a home stereo or car as
they are on a sailboat.
Eric at the Miami
Boat Show. Were these Saturday night girls and if so, what did he do
with them on Sunday morning? Photo: BoatSongs.com
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Stone's Schedule, CDs & More
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