Hootie's frontman became country's first Black No. 1 in 25 years
In September 2008 Darius Rucker, best known as the singer of Hootie & the Blowfish, topped the country chart with Don't Think I Don't Think About It. No solo African American artist had reached No. 1 in country since Charley Pride in 1983, and when Rucker heard the news, he cried.
Rucker was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 13, 1966, and raised by his mother Carolyn, a nurse at the Medical University of South Carolina. His father, who sang in a gospel group, was rarely around. Money was tight enough that at one point his mother, two aunts, his grandmother and 14 children shared a three-bedroom house, yet he remembers those years fondly, and his sister said singing had always been his dream.
At the University of South Carolina, Mark Bryan heard him singing in the shower, and the two began playing R.E.M. covers as a duo. With Dean Felber and later Jim Sonefeld they became Hootie & the Blowfish, whose 1994 album Cracked Rear View made them stars. Rucker liked to say the band flipped the old model of a Black band behind a white singer. Fame brought odd moments: fans simply called him Hootie, he sang the anthem at the 1995 World Series, and Frank Sinatra invited him to sing at his 80th birthday. It also brought death threats over Drowning, a protest against flying the Confederate flag above the South Carolina statehouse.
His first solo record was neo soul, inspired by Notorious B.I.G. and Lauryn Hill, and Atlantic shelved it until an independent label released it as Back to Then in 2002. In 2008 he signed with Capitol Nashville instead, toured country radio stations as the new kid, and won over programmers who had expected a sense of entitlement. His first three country singles all went to No. 1, a feat unmatched since Wynonna in 1992.
In 2009 the Country Music Association named him New Artist of the Year, the first African American to win it. His cover of Wagon Wheel topped country airplay in 2013, and the Grand Ole Opry made him a member in October 2012, after Brad Paisley popped the question from the audience mid-set.
Source: Darius Rucker
