New Documentary Traces Jimmy Buffett’s First Coral Reefer Band in Key West

Before Jimmy Buffett’s touring operation became the machine behind Margaritaville, the original Coral Reefer Band was a looser, grittier fixture of Key West’s bars and back roads. That period is the subject of Occupational Hazard: The First Coral Reefers, which opens in theaters Sept. 5, a day after the annual Jimmy Buffett Day.

The documentary, directed and produced by John H. Cunningham and produced by Ted E. Haynes, uses rare archival footage and interviews with founding members, road crew, and associates including Kenny Chesney, Mac McAnally, and Keith Sykes. Jeff Bridges narrates.

A newly released clip gives the film’s tone in miniature. Tour manager Bob Liberman, known as “Lip Balm,” remembers harmonica player Greg “Fingers” Taylor and his refusal to abandon a pillowcase as luggage, even as the band upgraded to finer hotels. The sight of a bellman at a Ritz-Carlton receiving Taylor’s stuffed pillowcase became a running joke, but the anecdote points toward a larger idea: before the polish, the Coral Reefers were young players making it up as they went.

The film premiered at the 2026 Santa Barbara International Film Festival and has since collected festival honors. A U.S. and Canadian digital on-demand release follows in November. Cunningham has said the work felt urgent because many original members are no longer alive. It documents what Taylor called the band’s “heavy artillery years” — a stretch defined less by brand consistency than by chaos, creativity, and the kind of camaraderie that could produce both a signature sound and a punchline at a luxury hotel.

Buffett recorded 32 studio albums and 14 live albums before his death in 2023. Occupational Hazard argues that the Key West years supplied much of the foundation.