WILL THE REAL “HOOTIE” PLEASE STAND UP
June 17th, 2008 adminSome years ago, we worked with the then Lincoln-Mercury Kapalua Invitational in Maui, Hawaii. The tournament is now the Mercedes Invitational. Our firm acted as the official producer of record for such major concert touring stars as Vince Gill, the Four Tops, Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers, a stand in by Steven Stills and Hootie and the Blowfish.
At the time, there were a number of newspaper articles and media queries about where the band got the name “Hootie and the Blowfish”. Most fans and the media thought lead singer Darius Rucker was “Hootie”. The band apparently got a big kick out of this and they just let it lie. Finally, the truth came out. “Hootie” turns out to be a friend of the band from Columbus, South Carolina and has nothing to do with the band itself other than friendship.
One of my staff hatched the idea of creating some tee shirts to make a gag of the whole “Who is Hootie” phenomenon.We put a great big blowfish on the back in fabulous colors. On the front of the tee shirt it said, “I’m not Hootie”. Prior to sound check at the show, we handed them out to the band and their crew. It was very cool to see their reaction to what had become an inside, running gag.
FYI – Joe Pesci – who regularly plays the pro am at the Mercedes Invitational - is an avid golfer besides being an incredible actor in films like the “Lethal Weapon” series, “Casino”, “Good Fellas”, “My Cousin Vinnie” and many more. What most people don’t know is that Joe was in the 1950’s band Joey and the Starlighters for many years in his early show business days. We groveled but we couldn’t get him to do a tune. A score of musicians have moved on to become fine actors on Broadway, television and film like Reba McIntyre. Even Jon Bon Jovi did a stint in a television series and was extremely effective.
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