I woke up this morning and had a couple of cups of espresso before turning on my computer with a feeling that I might find out something I really did not want to hear. I could almost feel it. I clicked on social media and there it was right on the top of my feed from my friend Chris Huntington “At three am the love of her life had passed away.” I just put my head down and didn’t read anymore. I turned off Facebook quickly and closed my eyes thinking of the last three decades of my life as images and thoughts flew through my brain like a movie on fast forward. I had lost another good friend. Not just any friend. He was one of the very few I call “My brother from another mother.” I am not embarrassed to say I was wiping tears for a few minutes this morning. Other than my workout class this afternoon I have been looking through thousands of photos all day into the evening.
November 2017 on the beach in Key West at the Casa Marina in front of the stage watching the show.
It was 1999. I had learned of Radio Margaritaville and started listening on the internet. The stream could be heard for free and I quickly fell in love with the playlists. They were playing Jimmy Buffett and Jimmy Buffett live shows not to mention tons of artists that I listened to all the time. There were artists that Jimmy was influenced by in his writing at times even doing covers of their songs. There was an amazing list of “deep cuts” and so many artists that I had already listened to over the previous decades. It was a small operation at the time with Carson Cooper and Steve Huntington leading the way in the early days. It wasn’t long before I was contacting them by email and listening online as I worked many days of the week.
By 2003 I was talking to Steve on the phone and had signed on to be a “guest DJ” on Radio Margaritaville. There were were a few of us and several of us knew each other. Back in 2003 the technology was evolving and it was a little bit of a challenge to produce a digital recording, record the vocals, edit it, and “normalize it” to get the levels straight and then burn the exactly one hour show to a CD. The CD would then be mailed to Florida where Steve would review the recording before putting it on air. It would take me roughly six hours of production time for a one hour show with this primitive technology at the time. After a bit this improved as the electronics evolved but enough of that. After a while I was sending shows almost every two weeks. These guest DJ shows would air sometimes three times in a week. By the time Sirius XM took over I had produced around seventy-five shows. I still have most of them in digital format and some on CD. I asked Steve one time in the beginning what I should call my show. His answer was “Down South” referring to my southern accent. Hmm I said…”The Down South Radio Hour.”
My old Virginia license plate that still hangs in my home studio.
t wasn’t too long before I heard about an event called “Meeting of the Minds” in Key West. I recall sitting at home and listening to the live stream from Key West around 2002 and I knew I would soon be heading down to experience the almost week long music all over town but mostly at the Casa Marina Resort. In the fall of 2003 I was in Key West and quickly started meeting lots of people who were working on the event. By now I had been following Jimmy Buffett most of my life. I was going to concerts constantly so it was not hard for me to find someone to talk to in a crowd of Buffett fans. I had met many members of the band over time and I started volunteering to pick up the band or help with most anything. I also spent quite a bit of time talking to Steve and helping him setup to broadcast the stream. Back then the stage and lighting crew had to bury copper phone lines in the sand for the broadcast. This was well before the Sirius transition and the ability to use a laptop on the internet. Those were fun days and Steve and I sent a lot of time together when he was working or when we would go off to find a good local gig downtown when the main show was not on. One of the best memories was at the Green Parrot. It was Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys. Bonerama was a close second. I can taste the popcorn at the Green Parrot as I write this. Needless to say Big Sandy was on the Radio Margaritaville playlist real soon after this adventure.
On the Sunday afternoon in Key West we started a tradition of riding scooters up and down A1A along the water and all over the backstreets of Key West. We usually worked this in around the music event that James White AKA Sunny Jim put on each year at Blue Heaven. The photo above is a very early one when Chris would join us. I can tell you we did this for a lot of years and we called ourselves “The Moped Gang.”
Steve and Sunny Jim in 2012 in Key West. This was a “hold my beer” moment. James has my Modelo Negra in his hand. The beer I requested to be on tap at the Sun Sun Bar on the beach. We had the tap undercover as another beer until the word got out and the keg was drained in a couple of days! I now remember him saying let me hold your beer while you take this photo! I had just walked a few feet from the old Sun Sun bar. I wanted a photo of the two of them together. I am glad I have it now.
Musician Jim Morris, Steve Huntington, Andrew Talbert at Meeting of the Minds Key West
So years went by and I never missed a Meeting of the Minds in the fall. The years flew by and I was always volunteering to do something. It was always fun to talk about music and see people each year. I loved my time with Steve talking about all the bands we liked and what we had gone to see lately or even vinyl albums we were listening to. At times I could call Steve and we might talk for a couple of hours about nothing but music. The man was a walking encyclopedia when it came to music. That is what I would call him at times and he would grin.
Steve Huntington, Andrew Talbert, JD Spradlin, Mac McAnally with Larry Joe Taylor photo-bombing over Mac’s shoulder. This was behind the main stage on the beach in Key West.
My first year of being Director of Meeting of the Minds in 2012 we had Robert Earl Keen as a headliner. By the time I hired Robert I already knew him from having done an interview in 2003 that played on Radio Margaritaville several times. He flew into the airport in Key West with one of his daughters and I took a few minutes to run over and pick him up at the airport. I told him as we walked to his room at the Casa that maybe we could have dinner if he felt like it after the sound check. He liked the idea. Well that never happened! I had planned a beach gig that night and I had to work so ended up skipping dinner all together. I made a deal with Steve that if he would have dinner with REK in my place I would buy them both dinner. He laughed and said “of course.”
Steve and Andrew chilling at the Casa Marina getting ready to do a brief promotion for Meeting of the Minds on Radio Margaritaville. Steve was always coaching me. I remember when we finished the interview the first thing he said was “You said “absolutely” three times!” I said “Well damn Steve if I was as good as you I would be the man at Radio Margaritaville!” We both laughed.
The best steel pan player on the planet Robert Greenidge, Andrew, Steve in Key West 2016 before a set with the Coral Reefer Band.
In 2014 after Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band finished on the main stage my pal Key West photographer Rob O’Neal took this photo at 11:30 pm at night! It was right behind the stage on the sand in the dark. Steve is right behind me.
Andrew, JL Jamison, and Steve in the back of a truck on Duval Street behind the stage as we got ready to go start the day of music in downtown Key West. It was always great fun to hear your voice thunder down Duval Street over the heads of all those people.
Andrew and Steve right outside the sound wing on the stage in Key West. I think Roger Bartlett was playing over Steve’s shoulder. Yes we were wearing JL’s shirts but we never got a union card or a Erie Mafia membership.
I have so many more stories of my adventures with Steve I could write for hours. I have many more photos. Maybe you will see more in another place one day. I didn’t even mention all the fun we had on the stages over the years at the Casa Marina introducing live albums or bands. Steve was the main guy who always did this and I would tag team with him at times.
Back in May of 2021 I got a table at the Jannus Live in St. Petersburg, Florida for a Tommy Emmanuel concert. I called up Roger Bartlett, Steve, and John Frinzi to see if they wanted to go and they all said yes. This was the meet-up location downtown. Later we all had a blast at the concert and were even joined by John Patti who came over and sat with us. That was a fun night.
Like I said when I started writing I spent most of my day looking at thousands of photos and thinking about my friend. When I drove over to work out class this afternoon some of my pals asked me if I was OK like they could tell I was not acting my normal smiling and talkative self. I said yeah I will be OK. I lost a special friend this morning but I have a quarter century of amazing memories. The more I write the more I smile and tear up. I think I will leave it there.
Many people knew Steve Huntington. If you hear anyone who knew him they will all say the same thing. “He was a fine human being.” I knew him well and he was a fine human being.
As I always say on a radio show or a podcast, Until next time, I’ll see you down the road.