Larry Perigo treats the CH2 crew to a bit of saxophone during the photoshoot.
Larry Perigo’s musical career didn’t start when he made the Headliners famous on Hilton Head
Leaf through the stacks of photos in Larry Perigo’s home and you’ll see a kaleidoscope of leisure suits and stage costumes in every color of the rainbow, tracing the trajectory of a fascinating musical career. This is the collection of his band photos, each boasting a new set of colorful threads and, in many cases, new personnel.
The photos are all of the Headliners, members of a rotating band of balladeers that Larry Perigo has led since moving to Hilton Head from Nashville back when the island was barely a blip on the radar.
“I’m the only musician you’ll ever meet that moved away from Nashville,” he said with a laugh.
Flipping through photos, he can name nearly every one of the 40-odd musicians who have called themselves Headliners, their comings and goings marking the progression of a nearly 50-year career in music.
For the first few years after arriving in 1973, the Headliners were snowbirds, playing during the tourist season then moving on. Eventually, Perigo would make the island his permanent home.
Showing off the first, second, third, twelfth iterations, he’ll tell you how he was the best man at one member’s wedding. How he just spoke to another a few weeks ago. How one moved on and found success as a songwriter. How another’s drinking problem led to his ouster from the band. How a handful of them came down for the Headliners’ years-long residency at the Hyatt and opted to remain in the Lowcountry.
There’s one kid he worked with, though, whose picture Perigo doesn’t have. They called him Marbles. A guitar player for his old outfit, The Continentals, whom they’d found cleaning up at the club where they played, Marbles stepped in when their guitarist quit. While his guitar talent was solid, he tended to pawn his guitar or forget to bring his costume to the show. As such, Marbles was only in the band for a few weeks before he was let go—not long enough to make the group photo.
“I walked into this music store in downtown Nashville one day a few years later, and our bass player showed me this magazine—Time or Life or something—and there was Marbles’ picture on the cover,” Perigo said. “I said, ‘What happened? Did he go on a chainsaw massacre or something?’ And my bass player said, ‘No, he’s a star.’”
Marbles, it turned out, had gone a different route from the straightforward lounge-friendly entertainment of The Continentals to become rock ’n’ roll royalty. You might know him better as Jimi Hendrix.
“There’s a guy I play tennis with who loves telling people, ‘You know how smart this guy is? He fired Jimi Hendrix,’” Perigo said. “First of all, it wasn’t my band. I didn’t fire him.”
That’s hardly Perigo’s only brush with musical fame. Throughout his career, both as a saxophone player in other bands and as the leader of the Headliners, he would tour the country on the working man’s side of the music industry. For a few years, his band would play as part of a show with the iconic Phil Harris. At one point, he and Kenny Rogers effectively traded guitar players.
“Kenny hired our guitar player, and so that put his old guitar player out of work,” Perigo said. “And I said, ‘Come and join us.’ It became like a swap.”
But perhaps no musical crossing of stars had as much impact as the day Larry Perigo discovered Hilton Head Island. The Headliners had already racked up a fantastic reputation as road warriors, playing gigs from Nashville to Florida, when Perigo got a call from his agent about a new venue looking for talent.
“He says it’s a new hotel, a Hyatt, and it’ll be a full month on Hilton Head,” Perigo said. “I remember telling him, ‘Hold on, I have to write this down. Is Hilton Head one word or two?’”
This was in the ’70s, when the island essentially shut down between October and March, and the Headliners were being hired to fill the active months with their signature sound and skits in a residency that would see them playing Club Indigo as many as four times a night.
For the first few years after arriving in 1973, the Headliners were snowbirds, playing during the tourist season then moving on. Eventually, Perigo would make the island his permanent home, joining the island just as the loose collection of musical acts was slowly gelling into a scene. Back then, live music brought the island together at places like The Old Post Office, The Mariner’s Inn or Big Rocco’s.
Perigo didn’t just collect stories; he has a few souvenirs. For example, the beautiful piano that graces Perigo’s home, purchased from John Brackett, is the same one used to entertain the crowd at Big Rocco’s. “It still has two or three cigarette burns on top,” Perigo said.
And as The Headliners transitioned from gigging musicians to island institution, Perigo made himself at home, playing at Grace Community Church and occasionally sitting in as a member of Target the Band. Five years ago, a chance encounter over drinks at Okko led him to his beloved wife Dr. Cheryl Shipman.
“In five years, we’ve never had an argument,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that when she hears me talk she isn’t sometimes shaking her head thinking, ‘I married this idiot?’”
Their love has sustained him as the last few years saw live music get hobbled by COVID restrictions and economic uncertainty. “I still play two or three times a month with Target the Band. We call it Target the Band featuring the Headliner Horns,” Perigo said. “She encourages me to play because she knew from day one that’s what makes me happy.”
