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Content Strategy & Execution Content Strategy 843.513.7535 ~ [email protected] riverbendcustomcontent.com Professional Profile Respected leader of creative teams with proven ability to conceptualize and orchestrate communications campaigns that effectively build and reinforce brand. Collaborative team player adept at transforming complex ideas and subject matter into digestible information that connects, enlightens and engages target markets and segments. Select Professional Achievements Established and executed a content/thought leadership communications program to enhance the Elliott Davis brand and strengthen the firm’s position as a diversified business solutions provider offering a full spectrum of professional financial services and consulting. Content Strategy Created and directed the National Golf Course Owners Association’s first Comprehensive In conjunction with CMO and Content Strategy, a three-phase, multi-year plan that established the four pillars under marketing director, developed a which all NGCOA educational content was categorized and developed. comprehensive plan and editorial calendar to create, schedule and Spearheaded two complete repositionings of Golf Business magazine, re-establishing the deliver content and collateral for title as the golf industry’s preeminent business publication. all Elliott Davis business units. Garnered multiple awards for writing and publication excellence from the Society of National Association Publications, Turf & Ornamental Communications Association, International Network of Golf and Carolinas Golf Reporters Association. Areas of Specialty & Expertise Editorial, Creative & Publication Management, Content Strategy & Execution Specialty Writing Production & Consulting Experienced professional Award-winning writer whose Veteran, award-winning skilled in the development articles and columns have magazine editor with more and creation of content, appeared in numerous national, than two decades of experience educational curricula and regional and local publications. managing, producing and sales-driving marketing tools Subjects range from sports publishing business, health for business-to-business, and entertainment to business care, lifestyle and specialty business-to-consumer and and health care—and most any publications serving diverse technical audiences. topic in between. industries and audiences. Editorial, Creative & Editorial, Creative Specialty Writing Editorial, Creative & Editorial, Creative Specialty Writing together as the Wolf Brothers before eventu- “I said in 1989, after hearing ally hooking up with Dean Felber, a former high Radney Foster’s Del Rio, TX 1959, school band mate of Bryan’s, and Jim “Soni” Sonefeld to form Hootie & the Blowfish. ‘I’m going to make a Hootie & the Blowfish—named after two country record someday,’” friends, one who wore glasses that made him look like a hoot owl and another whose cheeks were puffy like a blowfish—began playing the bar and fraternity circuit throughout the South- east and soon developed a loyal following. In 1994, the band released a debut album dubbed Golf Business magazine Cracked Rear View, which was filled with feel- True Believer good songs that stood in stark contrast to the self-loathing musings of grunge that dominated Monthly editor column the airwaves during that time. The music struck a chord, and following an appearance on Late Show with David Letterman, in which Letter- man said, “If you don’t have this album, there’s Tempus-Magazine.com Tempus-Magazine.com something wrong with you,” the band’s popu- By rewards greatest the to leads often traveled less path the that proving is Rucker Darius RONNIE MUSSELWHITE RONNIE larity soared. Cracked Rear View exploded, eventually selling more than sixteen million copies in the United States alone and ultimately becoming the fifteenth-best-selling album of all time in the United States. It also spawned two Grammy Awards: Best New Artist and Song of Spring 2014 Spring the Year by a Duo or Group for “Let Her Cry.” • Illustration By Illustration “When we won, it was such a new, amazing thing—just these kids from South Carolina who had gotten lucky,” Rucker recounts. “That was just a culmination of that record for us—to win PHILIP BURKE PHILIP two Grammys—and I can just remember us being so shocked, especially for the second one.” Rucker and the other Blowfish rode Cracked Rear View to the top of the musical mountains, Pg_47 but when the band failed to replicate the success on their subsequent efforts (four studio albums, two compilations, and a live album), they began a slow descent from the mainstream music scene. In 2005, when Rucker appeared in a Burger King commercial clad in a kitschy country outfit sing- ing a spoof of “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” many Tempus magazine assumed his career was over. Three years later, Hootie & the Blowfish took a self-imposed hia- tus from recording and actively touring, save for Feature on country music star and Hootie & several charity events they continue to perform each year. A FINE LINE the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker There’s a curve in the highway, just south of town Where a man has pulled over to figure life out With only his conscience and the lonesome sound of diesels winding up the grade. —RADNEY FOSTER STAY TUNED 00 Spring 2014 Tempus-Magazine.com Darius Rucker stays true to his country roots and southern music heritage. Summer 2014 When Rucker garnered the Grammy for his version tempus-magazine.com In literature and art, highways have oft been used as metaphors for life, long of “Wagon Wheel,” he became only the third African whole new level.” American recording act to win for a musical performance That man was Mike Dungan, then president and swaths of asphalt punctuated by twists and CEO of Capitol Records Nashville. Dungan saw in True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information. information. conflicting and hazardous, uncertain, of evaluation for capacity the in resides genius True in a country music category. Rucker what others couldn’t—or wouldn’t. “When turns, ups and downs, and any number we met, he said, ‘I never got into the Hootie thing, but I always thought you were a country singer,” L O N G of proverbial roadblocks. Rucker says. “He gave me a rare opportunity to be successful and worked really hard to make sure The blacktop has enjoyed an equally idyllic treatment if you will—that miles of tar, a vivid imagination, and WHAT APPEARED TO BE THE END OF THE ROAD ACTUALLY that I was.” in music, where artists wax poetic about escaping an uncanny knack for telling a story, whether in pic- marked the beginning of a new journey. Following Breaking into country wasn’t the easiest path to the simplicities of the common man and finding a W R O A D tures or in prose, can afford. the release of a solo R&B album that went largely un- travel. For starters, Rucker is African American, and deeper meaning to it all somewhere between points Darius Rucker has traveled more than his share noticed, Rucker gave in to his country leanings and country music is decidedly monochromatic. Then, A and B. Navigating those obstacles and experiencing of those thoroughfares, both literally and figura- made good on a declaration he’d been making for there was the whole Hootie label he had to shake. HOME all the adventures that the open road might unfurl tively, throughout his musical journey. From the nearly two decades. “I think it was more of an issue that I was a pop guy has become a rite of passage for the authors of those back streets of Charleston to the crossroads of Co- “I said in 1989, after hearing Radney Foster’s Del than the fact that I was African American,” Rucker works as well as the legions of fans who cling to their lumbia’s (South Carolina) Five Points to the bou- Rio, TX 1959, ‘I’m going to make a country record muses. “I was called the carpetbagger at first—I was Grammy winner every word, brushstroke, or lyric as if tethered, dan- levards of Beverly Hills and virtually everywhere someday,’” says Rucker, who named his second the guy who was coming over [from pop] and trying Darius Rucker talks about gling almost helplessly, to the freedom—the escape, in between, life has been like a big, open road for to make it in country.” Rucker. He reached the pinnacle of success on the The latter point is one that truly irks his move to country music, pop charts and is now climbing to arguably greater Rucker, who’s generally easygoing and the perfect golf game, heights in country music. So it’s somewhat ironic, amiable. “I read once—and this is one of the glory days of a bit comical even, that earlier this year on the big- my pet peeves—that all the pop guys, af- gest night and the brightest stage of his solo career, ter their careers are over, want to go play Hootie & the Blowfish, country music,” he says. “I always ask Rucker should be stuck in a car on a crowded by- them when they say that to me, ‘Name and the way, unable to experience in person the elation of one person who’s had a successful career importance of family hearing his name called as winner of the Grammy in country music after having a pop ca- for Best Country Solo Performance. reer.’ There isn’t one.” “We were on our way there and we got stuck in the To prove that he was serious about his line,” recounts Rucker, whose category was award- new genre and not merely trying to re- ed before the Grammy telecast went live. “It took suscitate his career, Rucker embarked ONE NIGHT ONLY us two and a half hours to go on a twenty-minute on a whirlwind public relations tour. Darius Rucker with with NFL Hall of Famer and FOX Sports broadcaster, Terry Bradshaw, Jay Leno ride—that’s how bad the traffic was.