It was a great idea.

On June 21, the Mobile Press-Register announced that Jimmy Buffett was coming home to do a FREE concert in Gulf Shores and, according to Gov. Bob Riley, "bring tourists back to the beach despite occasional tar balls and help save the summer season."

With Buffett would be Kenny Chesney, the Zac Brown Band and some others. For those who could not make the July 1 concert — or could not get one of the 35,000 tickets that would be "given away" — "Jimmy Buffett and his Friends Live From the Gulf Coast" would be broadcast on CMT. Riley applauded the plan and promised that the state tourism development department would pick up some of the production tab. A few folks wondered why BP wasn't paying for it all.

Still, it seemed like a super idea. Everyone was happy.

Until they tried to get tickets.

Within minutes of passes becoming available online, they were gone. A short time later, some appeared on eBay, and the anger grew. There was no shortage of theories about what happened: the tickets went to scalpers; the tickets went to out-of-towners; the computers threw out local requests, and so on and so on.

Promoters fought hard to explain that there was no conspiracy to exclude people who lived on the Gulf Coast, that a third of the tickets went to local hotels, motels and condos to offer as incentives for people who would come down and stay a while, and the rest went to fans on a first-come, first-served basis. The demand was just too great.

So the ticketless began making plans to watch it on TV. The city of Foley announced it would put up a big screen outdoors and invite everyone to the party. Making the best of the situation — coastal folks are good at that. One café owner began telling folks "come see the worst man-made disaster in history."

He was talking about the oil, not the concert, though some folks began to wonder when the whole thing was put on hold. With Hurricane Alex churning the water off Mexico and sending swells crashing onto Gulf beaches, it was decided that the weather was just too uncertain, so promoters put off the concert until July 11.

That sent those with tickets, those who offered tickets as part of a rental package, and those who had changed vacation plans to come down and boogie on the beach scrambling to figure out what to do next.

Buffett, meanwhile, dropped in unannounced at his sister's restaurant in Gulf Shores and played a two-hour set for an audience that word-of-mouth swelled to around 2,000 — mostly locals, along with some disappointed cancelled-concert ticket holders who came down anyway and were glad they did. At a time when meaningless gestures had become common on the Gulf Coast, this one meant a lot — even to those who only heard about it the next day.

So we waited.

Since July 1 was our anniversary, my bride and I planned to have family and friends over, eat shrimp, drink margaritas and watch the concert on CMT in cool and comfort.

Just like Jimmy, we rescheduled.

And, just like Jimmy, we were a reduced crew — just us, the Bentons from Puckett, Miss., and Cousin Benny.

To the disappointment of some, Zac Brown and Kenny Chesney bowed out. Kenny reportedly owns a house on the Florida Panhandle, so his absence was not appreciated one little bit. Bringing on Jesse Winchester dressed like a retiree from New Jersey hardly made up for the loss.

But Jimmy was great.

Although the "Gulf and Western" music that got him started has long since been replaced by the music of the Keys with a Caribbean flavor, and his rowdy days are behind him, folks along the Gulf still love him. And for him to do this won him points from all but the most cynical.

Although the well cap that was siphoning off some of the oil was removed just before the concert began — and oil gushed full force into the Gulf — Jimmy gave the Coast a much needed lift, plus some tourist money. The beach where he played was clean and the folks who watched it on CMT saw what coastal tourism development councils and chambers of commerce wanted them to see — white sand, clear water, rolling surf.

He opened with his Gulf Coast coming-of-age classic "Pascagoula Run" and got the place rocking. Later, when he added the line "It's all BP's fault" to his signature song, "Margaritaville," the crowd cheered.

Buffett at his best.

It was all over too soon. And when he closed with new lyrics to an old favorite and sang, "I hope that I'm around to see, when the coast is clear," some cried.

I was one.

Harvey H. ("Hardy") Jackson is Eminent Scholar in History at Jacksonville State University and a columnist and editorial writer for The Star. E-mail: hjackson@jsu.edu.