WASHINGTON — In 1994, the same year Hootie & The Blowfish burst onto the pop-rock charts,听country star Alan Jackson issued a clarion听call in “Gone Country,” welcoming听artists of all genres听to come join the Nashville听ranks.
Little did we听know that Hootie frontman Darius Rucker was listening, planting a seed that would blossom into one of the听most successful crossovers of the new millennium (a reverse Taylor Swift).
Now, it’s your chance to听hear听Rucker’s听signature sound听as the country sensation听hits听Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia, on Friday night with his aptly named “Good for a Good Time” tour.
“We like to make our shows parties,” Rucker told 海角社区app. “Just have a good time, play some music that people want to hear. High energy. It’s all about trying to just get people to have fun and have a party for an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes, and then they can go home and go back to their lives.”
Can we expect a few Hootie songs sprinkled in among the country hits?
“Absolutely,” Rucker promised. “I think I’d be ripping people off if I didn’t play Hootie songs every night. So every night I play some of the bigger hits and a couple cool covers. Like I said, I just want to have a party, man. I just want to have fun. If it’s not fun, it’s not worth doing.”
It’s been a crazy ride for Rucker since Hootie’s “Cracked Rear View” hit record stores on July 5, 1994.
“Before that, we were just playing clubs on the East Coast from New York down to Florida, just every six weeks playing the same clubs,” Rucker recalled. “We were doing well, just selling out everywhere we were going, and selling our little EP out of the back of our van, and doing well with that.”
But nothing could have prepared him for the success of听“Cracked Rear View,” which landed听four singles in the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot 100: “Hold My Hand” (No. 10), “Let Her Cry” (No. 9), “Only Wanna Be With You”听(No. 6) and “Time” (No. 14, which also hit No. 1 on the Adult Top 40). A fifth single, “Drowning” placed No. 21 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart (more on that song later).
“We were lucky,” Rucker said. “We had each other and we had been a band eight or nine years at that time, so our career just grew so slowly that when [the success]听actually hit, we just didn’t feel like it was anything different. We just felt like our career was taking the step it was supposed to take, and we didn’t really think about our record sales or anything, we were just seeing our shows were getting a lot bigger. That was really the way we saw it, so we just kept doing what we were doing.”
The album got a huge听boost when the band performed “Let Her Cry” live on听“The Late Show with David Letterman,” a favor the band听later during Letterman’s farewell run in 2015.
“Once the David Letterman show happened, it was like wow,” Rucker said. “It was just a rocket.”
Instantly, “Cracked Rear View”听shot to听No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart, ultimately going 16-times platinum to become not only the top-selling album of 1995听but also one of the top-selling albums of all time.听To this day,听it听ranks 19th on the Recording Industry Association of America’s听. If you听remove novelty albums (Greatest Hits, soundtracks, live compilations), it rises to No. 13.
That’s right, it听trails only Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Led Zeppelin’s “Led Zeppelin IV,” Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours,” Shania Twain’s “Come on Over,” The Beatles’ “White Album,” Guns N’ Roses’ “Appetite for Destruction,” Boston’s “Boston,” Garth Brooks’ “No Fences,” Alanis Morisette’s “Jagged Little Pill” and The Eagles’ “Hotel California.”
Not only was听it听a popular favorite, it was a critical darling as the accolades started rolling in. The band won Best New Artist at the 1996 Grammy Awards, beating out Alanis Morissette, while听“Let Her Cry” won for Best Pop Performance by a Group, beating out massive hits听like TLC’s “Waterfalls.”
Meanwhile at听the American Music Awards, megastar Garth Brooks was voted Artist of the Year, but he refused to accept the honor, saying that he thought Hootie & The Blowfish deserved it more.
Rucker told that Garth’s gesture still gives him chills:听“Garth said it best.听The retailers told him that we had helped keep the doors open. We were selling records, and bringing people in to buy other records, and he thought we deserved it.听That was an amazing moment for us that someone that big and legendary would see what we were doing as that cool and wouldn鈥檛 accept that award because he thought we deserved it. That was one of the biggest moments in our career.鈥�
Suddenly, Hootie was a hot commodity.听The听band recorded a cover of “Hey, Hey What Can I Do” for the Led Zeppelin tribute album “Encomium: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin,”听along with 4 Non Blondes’ “Misty Mountain Hop,” Stone Temple Pilots’ “Dancing Days,” Cracker’s “Good Times Bad Times” and Blind Melon’s “Out on the Tiles.” Hootie’s cover hit No. 15 on Billboard’s U.S. Mainstream Rock chart.
That same year, Hootie’s cover of “I Go Blind” by the Canadian band 54-40 was featured on the “Friends” sitcom soundtrack. The song hit听No. 13 on听Billboard’s听U.S. Mainstream Rock chart, No. 22 on the Adult Contemporary chart,听No. 3 on the Adult Top 40 and No. 13 on the Canadian chart.
“54-40听is a Canadian band that we fell in love with, and they put that on the ‘Friends’ soundtrack, and that song just took a mind of its own, too,” Rucker said, laughing with delight. “It went crazy!”
After these novelty singles, the band got back into the recording booth to cut its much anticipated second studio album.听“Fairweather Johnson” (1996) debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart and launched a pair of hits with “Old Man & Me (When I Get to Heaven),” which reached No. 13 in the U.S. and No. 1 in Canada, and “Tucker’s Town,” which reached No. 38 in the U.S. and No. 2 in Canada.
Such airplay would have been听deemed a solid success for most groups, but “Fairweather Johnson” could never match the dominance of听“Cracked Rear View.” The lack of another big followup caused Pitchfork to place “Fairweather Johnson” on its list of the听.
After three more Blowfish studio albums — the platinum-selling “Musical Chairs” (1998), “Hootie & The Blowfish” (2003) and “Looking for Lucky” (2005) — Rucker went solo to cut a one-off R&B album initially called “The Return of Mongo Slade” but ultimately released as听“Back to Then” (2002).听Still, deep down, Rucker听considered听the country leap, pondering his roots in Charleston, South Carolina.
“When I was young, it was Kenny Rogers, Buck Owens and ‘Hee Haw,'” Rucker said. “When I got older,听I discovered bands like Nanci Griffith, New Grass听Revival, Dwight Yoakam and听Foster & Lloyd; those bands just blew my mind and made me go, ‘Man, I wanna make a country record one day.'”
In 2008, that’s exactly what he did.听Signing with听Capitol听Records Nashville, Rucker recorded his debut听country album听“Learn to Live.” Initially, there was skepticism from country insiders.
“Everybody’s calling you ‘carpetbagger,'” Rucker said, laughing. “A lot of people who are friends of mine now said, ‘I never thought I’d play your music.’ It’s pretty open, but they’d look at you with skeptical eyes like, ‘Why are coming over to country music? Why do you wanna be over here?'”
Rucker silenced the doubters when his听debut country single “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” shot听to No. 1, making him the first black听solo artist to top the country charts听since Charley Pride in 1983听(Ray Charles also did it with his 1985 duet with Willie Nelson on “Seven Spanish Angels”).
If听Pride was the Jackie Robinson, Rucker’s breakthrough came听in the presidential year of 2008, marking a huge shift since Hootie’s听听criticized the Confederate flag: “Why is there a rebel flag hanging from the statehouse walls? Tired of hearin’ this s*** about heritage not hate. Time to make the world a better place.” That flag has since been removed —听by a Republican governor.
If you thought you were witnessing听history in the making, you were absolutely right.听The same album’s听“History in the Making” reached No. 3 on the country charts, while the nostalgic听“It Won’t Be Like This for Long” and the upbeat “Alright” both went all the way to No. 1. As a result,听the Country Music Association named Rucker the听Best New Artist of the Year听at the 2009听CMA Awards.
“I was first shocked that I got a record deal,” Rucker said. “I just wanted to make a good enough record that they let me make another one. And when ‘Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It’ went to No. 1, it was like, ‘Wow, this is really happening.’ Then two other songs went to No. 1 and ‘History’ got in the Top 5, and it was just like, ‘Wow this is working. They’ll definitely let me make another.”
Needless to say, Rucker was allowed to make another album with “Charleston, SC 1966” (2010), which spawned three more country radio听hits with听“This,” “I Got Nothin'” and听“Come Back Song,” which offered a delicious double meaning for a comeback hit as he begs his ex-lover to “come back.”
“It was the perfect double entendre,” Rucker said.” I听wrote that听with Chris Stapleton and听Casey Beathard听…听the last song we wrote for the record. I remember that session so well. We wrote it and didn’t think it was going to be on the record, but decided to cut it and it was the first single.”
Rucker’s third country album听“True Believers” (2013) proved his staying power on country radio, featuring hits like听“Radio” and “Miss You.” But its biggest hit was his cover of “Wagon Wheel,” originally written and recorded by Bob Dylan and later expanded by Old Crow Medicine Show.
“It was crazy,” Rucker said. “I decided to cover it one night when I heard it at my daughter’s high school talent show. The teachers had started playing it and they were playing it really country. I had never really thought about cutting it ’cause I love the song and I’m a huge Old Crow fan, but I just thought it was so bluegrass, I never thought about making it a country song until I heard it that way.”
Rucker’s “Wagon Wheel” rendition hit No. 1, went three-times platinum and won the Grammy Award for Best Country Solo Performance, his first Grammy since the Hootie & The Blowfish days in 1996.
“Even after we cut it … I didn’t think it was going to be a single and then it was and it just got a life of its own. That song took off and it was a shocker. Like yesterday, I was in a restaurant and it played. So I was like, ‘This is crazy. It’s still getting played a lot.’ I definitely didn’t expect it to be as big as it was.”
His fourth country album, “Southern Style” (2015), featured the hit “Homegrown Honey,” which hit No. 6 on the country charts, as well as the title track “Southern Style” which hit No. 38.
These days, he’s working on his fifth country album. Its听lead听single听“If I Told You” was released in July, reaching the Top 25 on the country charts, but the album’s release date is still to be determined.
“Later this year or early next year, we’re still debating when it’s going to come out. I’ve gotta finish it first!” Rucker joked. “This record is going to be a little different. I’ve changed producers and stuff. You try to be a little different on every record, but on this one it seems, even the song ‘If I Told You,’ I don’t think I’d ever done a song like that before and it was cool getting it out and seeing what it would do.”
Expect an early taste of that听album this Friday at Jiffy Lube Live, as well as Rucker’s previous country hits and a few of his Hootie favorites.听Every now and then, he reunites with Hootie bandmates Dean Felber, Jim 鈥淪oni鈥� Sonefeld and听Mark Bryan, a Maryland听native from Seneca Valley High School.
“We play every year,” Rucker said. “We’ve got charity shows that we do every year here. We’re still a band. Someday we’ll get back together and do a tour, but we’re going to do it when it’s right.”
Yes, it seems like yesterday that Hootie was dominating the mainstream music charts, which makes it听even harder to believe that it’s been a solid听eight years since听he arrived on the country scene.
“It doesn’t seem like eight years at all!” Rucker said. “Early on, not knowing what was going to happen. … Now, eight years later, being a member of the Opry and all the great stuff and just being a part of country music, it feels great. It feels like exactly where I’m supposed to be, and I’m having a blast.”
As he talks, you can imagine that signature smile — a smile that’ll听grow even wider when football season returns. It’s no secret Rucker is a huge听South Carolina Gamecocks and Miami Dolphins fan.
“I’m so ready for football season. I was talking to my son about that last night. He’s a Packers fan,” Rucker said. “There’s two times of year for me: there’s football season and waiting for听football season.听So I’m about done waiting for football season. I’m ready to watch some football.”
But the big question, as he admitted in “Only Wanna Be With You,” do the Dolphins still make听him cry?
“Not after that 1-15 season!” Rucker joked, referencing Miami’s disastrous 2007 campaign. “After that season, I decided I’m not gonna cry over the Dolphins anymore!”
Click for ticket information. Listen to the full interview with Darius Rucker below:
