Scott Kirby is a lifelong musician, playing most of the year at the music venue, The Smokin’ Tuna, that he and a few other investors opened in Key West. But every September for the last five years, Key West becomes a distant spot on the map as he heads north to Maine, to New Hampshire, then threads his way down the east coast venues to Virginia. This year, North Carolina has been added to the tour, specifically, Washington and the Arts of the Pamlico’s Turnage Theatre.

Kirby doesn’t travel alone, with him comes a little bit of star power: Peter Mayer, a 28-year veteran of Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reef Band.

“Peter Mayer is the lead guitarist for Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band. He really would be the main drawing card for local people who like Jimmy Buffett’s music,” said Brownie Futrell, a native Washingtonian and the link between Kirby, Mayer and the Turnage Theatre. A decade ago, Futrell and his wife Susan heard Kirby perform while they were on vacation in Key West.

“Initially we were fans, but after meeting him we became friends,” Futrell said.

During a visit to Washington last year, Futrell took Kirby on a tour of the Turnage Theatre and the seeds for a Turnage show were planted, Futrell said.

While the friendship between Kirby and the Futrells is long-standing, Kirby and Mayer go even farther back in history, to a Key West meeting in 1991 at the Margarita Café. Mayer was new to Key West and working on Buffett’s “Off to the See the Lizard” album. The two began a musical friendship that included co-writing, live performance and marketing and distribution collaboration through Mayer’s music cooperative, Little Flock Music, according to a press release from Arts of the Pamlico.

In addition to Kirby and Mayer, the band also includes Mayer’s son, Brendan, also an accomplished guitarist and songwriter, and Gary Green, a harmonica player whose playing has earned him national and international awards. Though in their separate bands, electric guitar is at the forefront of Kirby and Mayer’s music, but this tour takes the tone down just a notch, according to Kirby.

“I would call it acoustic rock, that’s the best way for me to describe it,” Kirby said. “We decided a few years ago just to do this acoustically. It adds a little bit of a twist to it.”

The Mayer-Kirby-Mayer Acoustic Group is gathering in Maine for a few days of practice before taking off on their east coast tour. At 8 p.m. on Sept. 17, they’ll be taking the Turnage Theatre stage.

“We’re very much looking forward to getting down there. I’ve seen what a beautiful theater it is,” Kirby said.

Tickets to the Mayer-Kirby-Mayer performance are $35 and can be purchased online at www.artsofthepamlico.org, by phone at 252-946-2504 or by visiting the Turnage Theatre box office, 150 W. Main St., Washington, during normal business hours.