'Uncle' Warren Buffett And 'Cousin' Jimmy Make Beautiful Music
Mogul, Singer Feel Like Family
But May Have DNA Tests
To Be Sure of Connection
Even Jimmy Buffett's most ardent devotees -- the margarita-sipping superfans who call themselves Parrot Heads -- might not have heard one 2003 composition by the troubadour of laid-back island living.
"I bought Berkshire way back when it was cheap," he sang in the ditty, strumming softly on an acoustic guitar. "I bought Berkshire way back then, and I do nothing but keep...it."
A two-line ode to the stock of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which currently trades at more than $84,000 a share, might seem out of character for the singer of "Margaritaville" and "Cheeseburger in Paradise." Jimmy Buffett is indeed a longtime Berkshire shareholder, and his short composition was played on videotape at Berkshire's annual meetings in 2003 and 2004.
In fact, the singer has also been friends with Warren Buffett, Berkshire's 74-year-old chairman and chief executive, for more than 20 years, both men say. They don't see each other often, but they talk on the phone regularly about business. They have even performed music together. And they plan to collaborate again at a New York charity dinner for Conservation International tomorrow night.
Besides sharing a surname, the two men have long suspected that they also share a common genetic history. "Warren leaves messages for 'Cousin Jimmy' and always has," says the singing Mr. Buffett, 58. "I'll take it from him." The singer calls the financier "Uncle Warren."
No one knows for sure. The two are only now coming to the end of a two-decade process of determining how or whether they are actually related.
The attempt to link the two strains of Buffettmania has been spearheaded for more than 20 years by Doris Buffett, Warren's 77-year-old sister. "I've spent a lot of time and energy trying to connect up the two families," says Ms. Buffett, who heads a charity for battered women called the Sunshine Lady Foundation Inc. Despite years of research, she has been unable to establish a conclusive link. She says she is considering DNA testing to make a certain determination.
Jimmy Buffett , Warren Buffett and Doris Buffett act more or less as though they were long-lost relatives. Ms. Buffett has been a guest of the singer at performances. Her brother says he has never been to a Jimmy Buffett concert, but he has seen one on TV.
Warren Buffett last May played ukulele and sang "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue (Has Anybody Seen My Gal?)" at the opening of Jimmy Buffett's Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant in Omaha, Neb., where the elder Mr. Buffett has lived most of his life. He was accompanied by Cousin Jimmy. The two didn't rehearse, says Warren Buffett: "He asked me what key I played in. I said, I don't know.'"
Jimmy Buffett says he chose Omaha as a location for his restaurant -- one of 14 in the chain, which is a joint venture between Mr. Buffett's Margaritaville Holdings Inc. and Outback Steakhouse Inc. -- because it is a midsize city, but also because of Uncle Warren. "He's such a cheeseburger freak," Jimmy Buffett says. "He said, 'If you put one in Omaha, I'll buy the first cheeseburger.' " Warren Buffett says he is still a regular customer.
The friendship between the two Buffetts dates back to the early 1980s, when Doris Buffett sent letters to 116 other Buffetts around the U.S. seeking information about her family's history. "I had nothing better to do," she says. "So I became an amateur genealogist."
One of the letters landed on the desk of Jimmy Buffett , where it sat, unanswered, for two years before Ms. Buffett finally heard back from the singer's office. Then, the two began corresponding, and in 1983 arranged to travel together, along with the singer's parents, daughter, nanny and others, to Norfolk Island -- a remote speck of land in the Tasman Sea, between Australia and New Zealand, where there happens to be a large population of Buffetts.
Norfolk was settled in 1856 by descendants of the men who had participated in the 1789 mutiny aboard HMS Bounty, according to local historical societies. The mutineers' families relocated from the more remote Pitcairn Island, led by one John Buffett, a shipwright who settled on Pitcairn in 1823. There are 46 Buffetts on the Norfolk electoral rolls, out of a permanent population of 1,574, according to Grant Tambling, the island's administrator, and 12 Buffett children enrolled in the island's only school.
Jimmy Buffett says he grew up hearing tales of the South Pacific Buffetts from his mother, Peets Buffett. John Buffett, he says, came from the same part of the United Kingdom as he believes his own ancestors did.
The singer and Ms. Buffett found a warm welcome among the Norfolk Buffetts, who are descendants of the many children -- legitimate and otherwise -- of John Buffett, according to Ms. Buffett. "There are just oodles of them over there," she says. "And they're very nice." Jimmy Buffett ended the trip by performing a benefit concert for the Norfolk Island Central School.
What they did not find, however, was evidence of a family tie between either Jimmy or Warren Buffett and the Norfolk Island Buffetts.
Jimmy Buffett serves the first burger from the Omaha Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant to Warren Buffett.
Not long after they got back from the South Pacific, Ms. Buffett introduced the singer to her brother at a lunch in Washington, D.C. It was that meeting that inspired Jimmy Buffett to buy 15 shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock in 1989, he says, adding that he has been buying it regularly ever since. How much does he own? "A lot," he says with a laugh. The share price has risen by about $75,000, or more than 800%, since the year he first bought it.
So far, Ms. Buffett has traced her family's roots to the late 17th century on Long Island, where a John Buffett was married in the town of Huntington, in 1696. Meanwhile, she says, the furthest she has gotten with Jimmy Buffett's family is the town of Rose Blanche, on the southern shore of Newfoundland.
"Trying to relate the two families has been a little more problematic," she says, owing to hazy recollections, wishful thinking and murky records. "There are plenty of miscellaneous Buffetts."
Ms. Buffett recalls with a laugh her recent visit to a genealogical society in England, where a researcher told her it would be difficult to find many records on Buffetts, because the family is "very obscure."
In fact, the strongest evidence she has providing a link between the families is a photograph of a family of Canadian Buffetts who trace their ancestry back to the same part of Canada as Jimmy Buffett does. One of the men in the picture, Ms. Buffett says, bears a striking resemblance to her father, Howard H. Buffett, the late Republican Nebraska congressman of the 1940s and '50s. "My father didn't have a common ordinary, everyday face," she adds. Still, there is not even documentary evidence that the person in the photograph is related to either Warren Buffett or Jimmy Buffett .
But the big-name Buffetts want to believe in their connection. "I do see some family resemblance," insists Jimmy Buffett , who adds that he has always "just kind of assumed" a family relation.
Both Buffett men say they are willing to participate in Ms. Buffett's DNA test, although they add that so far, at least, she hasn't made definite plans with either of them to conduct it.
两位巴菲特共谱美妙乐章
即使是吉米?巴菲特(Jimmy Buffett)最狂热的追随者──那些自称是Parrot Heads、酷爱啜饮玛格丽塔酒的超级歌迷──恐怕也没听过他在2003年创作的这首懒洋洋的歌：
“老早老早Berkshire还很便宜的时候，我就买了；”他弹著吉他，轻轻哼唱著，“我早就买了Berkshire股票，然后什么也没干……一直留著。”
吉米演唱的Margaritaville和Cheeseburger in Paradise广受欢迎，但要为现已超过84,000美元每股的Berkshire Hathaway Inc.唱这么一支只有短短两句的小曲看起来很不符合他的性格。不过，吉米的确是Berkshire的长期股东，而他那首小调的录影带也曾在2003年和2004年Berkshire股东大会上播放。
实际上，歌手吉米?巴菲特一直是沃伦?巴菲特的朋友，后者就是大名鼎鼎、Berkshire年已74岁的董事长兼首席执行长。他俩都说，二十多年来，他们一直是好朋友。虽然不常见面，但会经常通电话，谈谈业务；甚至会在一起演奏音乐。眼下，他们正计划在Conservation International在纽约举办的慈善晚会上合作演出呢。
除了显而易见的相同姓氏之外，人们一直怀疑他俩有亲属关系。“沃伦常给‘吉米表弟’留言，”现年58岁的歌唱家巴菲特说道，“总是我去听取留言。”歌唱家巴菲特把金融家巴菲特称为“沃伦叔叔”。
大家都不能确定。二十多年来他俩一直在寻找线索，想知道他们之间是否有亲属关系，如果有又是什么关系。不过，这个漫长的过程很快就要结束了。
二十多年来，沃伦?巴菲特的姐姐、现年77岁的多丽丝?巴菲特(Doris Buffett)一直在想办法，找出巴菲特家族这两支血脉之间的联系。“我花了很多时间和精力，想把这两个家庭联系在一起，”多丽丝说。她领导著一个名为阳光女士基金会(Sunshine Lady Foundation Inc.)的慈善机构，为遭受暴力侵害的妇女提供帮助。虽然经年累月地调查，她还是找不到确定的联系。她说现在正在考虑进行DNA测试，要得出一个确定的结果。
吉米、沃伦和多丽丝互相之间倒多多少少有点儿像失散多年的亲戚。多丽丝曾被吉米邀请担任一次演出的嘉宾；沃伦说自己从没在现场欣赏过吉米的演唱会，但在电视上看过一次。
去年5月份，在内布拉斯加州奥马哈这个沃伦度过了大半生的地方，他参加了吉米的Cheeseburger in Paradise餐厅的开幕仪式。吉米伴奏，沃伦弹起夏威夷四弦琴，唱了一首“Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue (Has Anybody Seen My Gal?)”他俩从没彩排过，沃伦说，“他问我弹什么调，我说我不知道。”
吉米说，之所以选择奥马哈开设这个连锁店的第14家分店，一方面是因为这是一个中等规模的城市，另一方面是因为沃伦叔叔。“他爱死干酪三明治(cheeseburger)了，他跟我说，‘如果你在奥马哈开店，我肯定第一个去吃。’”沃伦?巴菲特说自己直到现在都是那儿的常客。
这个连锁店是吉米旗下的Margaritaville Holdings Inc.和澳拜客牛排店(Outback Steakhouse Inc.)联手开办的合资连锁餐厅。
两位巴菲特的友谊可以一直追溯到上世纪八十年代，当时多丽丝给全美国166位姓巴菲特的人写了信，询问家族的历史。“我没什么事儿可干，”她说，“所以就成了一个业余的系谱专家。”
吉米就是收信人之一，但他把这封信丢在一边，两年后才想起来回信。后来，吉米和多丽丝就开始经常通信了。1983年，他们还安排了一次集体旅游，带上吉米的父母、女儿、保姆等众人，一起去了诺福克岛──塔斯曼海上一个遥远偏僻的小岛，地处澳大利亚和新西兰之间，那里的居民很多都姓巴菲特。
根据当地的一些历史社团介绍，参加了1789年英国皇家海军邦蒂号军舰(HMS Bounty)叛变的船员的后裔在1856年定居于诺福克岛。反叛船员的家属在造船工人约翰?巴菲特(John Buffett)的带领下，从更偏僻的皮特克恩岛迁来这里，他自己从1823年开始就定居在皮特克恩岛了。现在，据诺福克岛的行政官格兰特?坦布林(Grant Tambling)介绍，岛上共有1,574名永久性居民，其中46人都姓巴菲特。岛上唯一的学校里有12名姓巴菲特的孩子在上学。
吉米说，他是听著妈妈佩茨?巴菲特(Peets Buffett)讲述的那些南太平洋岛屿上巴菲特们的故事长大的。他说，他相信约翰?巴菲特和自己的祖先都来自英国的同一地区。
吉米和多丽丝得到了诺福克岛上诸位巴菲特的热烈欢迎。多丽丝说，他们都是约翰?巴菲特众多子女──婚生与否不论──的后代。“那儿的巴菲特真多，”她说，“也真和善。”吉米在诺福克岛中心学校(Norfolk Island Central School)举办了一场慈善音乐会，为这次旅行划上了一个美丽的句号。
但遗憾的是，他们没能找到吉米、或者沃伦与诺福克岛的巴菲特有血缘关系的任何证据。
在他们从南太平洋回来后不久，多丽丝就在华盛顿的一次午餐中把她的兄弟沃伦介绍给了吉米。吉米说，也就是这次会面让他下决心在1989年时购买了15股Berkshire Hathaway的股票，之后他一直在定期买进这只股票。如今这些股票值多少钱了呢？“可不少。”他笑著说。自从他首次买进这只股票以来，它的价格已经上涨了75,000美元，涨幅超过800%。
到目前为止，多丽丝的寻根工作已经追溯到了17世纪末的长岛，1969年有一位约翰?巴菲特在那里的亨廷顿结了婚。同时她说，与吉米家的渊源最远则追溯到了加拿大纽芬兰的Rose Blanche。
她说，把两家联系在一起还真有些困难，有些回忆已经不太准确了，记录也含糊不清，有时还会被掺入一些主观臆想，“外面各种各样的巴菲特有很多。”
多丽丝笑著回忆起最近一次拜访英国的一个宗谱协会，那里的一位研究者告诉她说，很难找到有关巴菲特家族的太多记录，因为这个家族的地位很是卑微。
实际上，她能证明两家关系的最有力的证据就是一张照片，照片上是加拿大的一个巴菲特家族，他们的祖先与吉米的祖先来自加拿大的同一个地区。多丽丝说，照片上有一个人和她的父亲霍华德?巴菲特(Howard H. Buffett)惊人地相似，她说：“我父亲长得可不是一副大众面孔。”不过，没有具体的文字纪录表明照片上的人与沃伦或是吉米有什么关系。
不过，那家大名鼎鼎的巴菲特表示愿意相信两家有亲戚关系。而吉米也坚持说：“两家人在长相上确实有一些相似之处，”但他一直只是假设两家有血缘关系。
沃伦和吉米都表示愿意参加多丽丝组织的DNA测试，但他们说至少到目前为止她还没有做出具体的计划。
