Jimmy Buffett

Over the course of a four-decade career, singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett established a vast business empire built entirely around the popularity of a single song. For those who doubted such a feat, the tune in question was his 1976 song "Margaritaville," a breezy, instantly likable song about the joys, and secret heartache, of a carefree existence in a tropical paradise that captured the imagination of millions of listeners. By 1998, the song was played over four million times on radio and television since its debut, which roughly translated into 200,000 hours of continuous play. Buffett shrewdly parlayed the song's landslide popularity into a yearly concert tour that attracted millions of dedicated fans, or "Parrotheads," who enthusiastically purchased anything associated with Buffett - from best-selling novels and beer, to meals at his Margaritaville Cafes or a vacation at the Margaritaville resort on the Turks and Calicos islands in the Caribbean. Throughout his transformation from artist to brand, Buffett continued to deliver his effortlessly party-inducing music in concert and on record, which spread the gospel of good times to generations of fans.