Kenny Chesney, James Taylor Salute Jimmy Buffett at 2024 Rock Hall Ceremony

Dave Matthews, Kenny Chesney, James Taylor, and Mac McAnally paid tribute to Jimmy Buffett as the late singer-songwriter was among the recipients of the Musical Excellence Award at the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Cleveland’s Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

Matthews — whose band was inducted into the Rock Hall as part of the Class of 2024 — delivered a take on “A Pirate Looks at Forty,” which DMB previously performed in concert soon after Buffett’s September 2023 death.

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The singer also performed the cover in December 2023 when stopping by the Howard Stern Show. Following news of Buffett’s death, Matthews shared a message in honor of the late singer on the band’s website, which read: “Whether planned or coincidence, every time I ran into Jimmy it was like seeing an old friend. He was brilliant and a genuinely good and generous man. We didn’t know each other that well. We weren’t old friends, but that’s how I felt around him. He is loved by so many because that’s how he made us all feel. It would be nice to run into him again.”

Following Matthews’ performance, Chesney, Taylor, and McAnally took the stage. “We’re old friends and we miss him,” said Taylor before the trio began to play Buffett’s “Come Monday.”

Buffett and Chesney enjoyed a half-decade of friendship and collaborations beginning in 2018 with their duet “Trying to Reason With Hurricane Season,” an updated version of a Buffett song that first appeared on his 1974 album A1A. Chesney also joined Buffett, alongside country stars like Alan Jackson and George Strait, on a version of Hank Williams’ “Hey Good Lookin’” for Buffett’s 2004 License to Chill LP, and also sang on the title track.

Along with Buffett, other recipients of the Rock Hall’s Musical Excellence Award this year include Dionne Warwick, MC5, and Norman Whitfield. The Class of 2024 includes inductees Mary J. Blige, Cher, Ozzy Osbourne, Kool & The Gang, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, and A Tribe Called Quest.

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