Thursday, March 23, 2006

Garth, Celine and .. Jake?

Nashville Answer-Man Neil Haislop seems to know all of the fascinating yarns of our biz, and here's his latest one, shared with his interactive morning show clients:
WHAT DOES NEW ARTIST JAKE OWEN HAVE IN COMMON WITH GARTH BROOKS AND CELINE DION?
Newcomer Owen is making a name for himself with his catchy, danceable, relatable new single “Yee Haw,” but, he almost had his radio tour promoting his song interrupted when his wallet was stolen at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, leaving him without a photo ID to board the plane for his next
appointment.
So, Jake and the RCA rep approached the counter with a brilliant plan, “We’ll talk our way through it,” said Jake with the dogged determination of a 24-year-old. With his cache of his own CD’s and 8 X 10 photos, Jake explained the situation to the customer service manager. “Well, we were prepared for a strip search and a heavy round of interrogation when Diane (the service manager) told us this same exact thing happened with her many years ago with another young singer,” Jake said, with bit of surprise in his voice. “She said it was a female singer with the same problem. The singer gave her some music that day too and signed CD's for her as well. So I said, ‘Is it anybody we know?’” To which she replied, “Probably, you’ve heard of Celine Dion?”

As it turns out, in a post-9/11 world, Jake was lucky that saved the day for him, considering Garth had a rougher time when he once faced the same situation pre-9/11. Brooks was farther along in his career than Jake when he showed up at an airline counter in Pittsburgh, PA without his ID. The gate agent didn’t recognize him and wouldn’t let him on the plane, even after his companion pulled out a Garth CD with his picture on it and showed it to the agent. Eventually, after a lot of convincing, the agent believed him and let him head to his plane. Garth says as he rounded a corner, a group of fans exiting an arriving flight, rushed over to him and asked for his autograph, giving Garth one of those “Where were you when I needed you moments!”

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