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Hootie & the Blowfish’s Darius Rucker to Give Special Performance to Help Those Suffering During the Covid-19 Crisis

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Edited by: JV Staff

Grammy Award-winning artist Darius Rucker will be giving a very special performance to help people who are suffering during the Covid-19 crisis at a virtual Summerfest concert on September 10th.

Darius Rucker is an American singer and songwriter. He first gained fame as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim “Soni” Sonefeld, and Dean Felber, as was reported on Rucker’s Wikipedia profile. The band released five studio albums with him as a member and charted six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Rucker co-wrote most of the songs with the other members.

Wikipedia reported that Rucker released a solo R&B album, Back to Then in 2002 on Hidden Beach Recordings but no singles from it charted. Six years later, Rucker signed to Capitol Nashville as a country music singer, releasing the album, Learn to Live that year. Its first single, “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It”, made him the first black artist to reach number one on the Hot Country Songs charts since Charley Pride in 1983. (Ray Charles hit number one in March 1985 in a duet with Willie Nelson with “Seven Spanish Angels”.) It was followed by two more number one singles, “It Won’t Be Like This for Long” and “Alright” and the number three hit “History in the Making”.

In 2009, he became the first black American to win the New Artist Award from the Country Music Association, and the second black person to win any award from the association, as was reported by Wikipedia. A second album, Charleston, SC 1966, was released on October 12, 2010. The album includes the number one singles, “Come Back Song” and “This”. His third Country album True Believers (2013) reach No. 2 on the US Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the US Top Country Albums Billboard chart with singles True Believers (#24), Wagon Wheel (#1), and Radio (#14), all charting on the Billboard U.S. Country charts. His first Country Christmas album, Home for the Holidays (2014) reached No. 31 on the US Billboard 200 chart and No. 7 on the US Country Chart. His fourth Country album, Southern Style (2014) reached No. 6 (US Billboard 200) and No. 7 (Billboard US Top Country Albums), respectively with singles Homegrown Honey (#6) and Southern Style (#8) both charting on the U.S. Country charts in 2014 and 2015. His most recent Country album When Was the Last Time (2017) charted #8 on the US Billboard 200 and #2 on the US Top Country Albums (Billboard).

According to Wikipedia, Rucker has been the lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish since its formation in 1986. He met fellow band members Mark Bryan, Jim “Soni” Sonefeld, and Dean Felber while attending the University of South Carolina. Bryan first heard Rucker singing in the shower, and the two became a duo, playing R.E.M. covers at a local venue. They later recruited Felber and finally Sonefeld joined in 1989. As a member of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker has recorded six studio albums: Cracked Rear View – 1994, Fairweather Johnson – 1996, Musical Chairs – 1998, Scattered, Smothered & Covered – 2000, Hootie & the Blowfish and Looking for Lucky – 2005, also charting within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 six times. All six albums feature songs that Rucker, Bryan and Felber wrote. As the frontman, Rucker began to be called simply “Hootie” by fans,though the band title combines the nicknames of his college friends.Before his rise to fame, he lived in the basement of the Sigma Phi Epsilon house at the University of South Carolina, attempting to launch his career through the college bar scene.

Rucker’s signature contribution to the band is his baritone voice, which Rolling Stone has called “ingratiating,” TIME has called “low, gruff, and charismatic,” and Entertainment Weekly has characterized as a “barrelhouse growl.”Rucker said they “flipped” the formula of the all black band with a white frontman, like Frank Sinatra performing with Count Basie. Musically, he has sometimes been criticized or spoofed for not being “black enough”. Saturday Night Live ran a sketch of Tim Meadows playing Rucker leading beer-drinking, white fraternity members in a counter-march to Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March.He also received death threats for singing the Hootie song “Drowning,” a protest song against the flying of the Confederate flag above the South Carolina statehouse.

Shortly after gaining a measure of fame, Felber and Rucker (who consider themselves best friends) moved into an apartment in Columbia, South Carolina. With Rucker’s recognition as the frontman of a successful band came increased opportunities. In October 1995, he was asked to sing the national anthem at the World Series. Frank Sinatra invited him to sing at his 80th birthday party; he sang “The Lady Is a Tramp.” That same week, he made a voice cameo in an episode of the sitcom Friends.

He also joined Nanci Griffith on the song “Gulf Coast Highway” for her 1997 album Blue Roses from the Moons, and sang backing vocals on Radney Foster’s 1999 album See What You Want to See. He encouraged Atlantic Records to agree to a deal with Edwin McCain and made a guest appearance on McCain’s debut album, Honor Among Thieves.In regard to the future of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker was quoted by CBS news as stating in late 2011, “I don’t think we’ll ever break up totally. We’re Hootie & the Blowfish. … We’ll make another record and do another tour someday. I don’t know when, but it will happen. There’s one more in us.”After a ten-year hiatus, Rucker and the band announced that they will be touring with Barenaked Ladies in 2019 while releasing a new album the same year.

Their sixth studio album Imperfect Circle was released on November 1, 2019.

The concert will take place via Zoom on Thursday, September 10, 2020 from 7:00 – 8:15 pm

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