Tag Archives: hootie and the blowfish

Interview: Darius Rucker’s gone country

Posted on October 28, 2010 | 2 comments

DARIUS RUCKER has become South Carolina’s biggest-ever country music star. You may now stop calling him Hootie.

(Hilton Head Monthly, November 2010) Veterans of the local music scene talk about a time, 20 or so years ago, when it was still possible to hit local bars like the Old Post Office and see bands on the brink of national fame. At the time Hilton Head played host to a good number of future stars, including Duncan Sheik and Edwin McCain, but nobody blew up nearly like the University of South Carolina classmates in Hootie and the Blowfish — which you already know if you ever left your house in 1994-95.

Popular music marched on, of course, but Hootie stuck around, dropping occasional records, returning to Hilton Head for big local gigs at Honey Horn and Sea Pines and generally maintaining a career of consistent, unsurprising solidity.

The surprise, when it came, was a good one.

In 2008, pretty much out of nowhere, Hootie singer Darius Rucker released his debut solo country record, “Learn to Live,” on the Capitol Nashville label. Haters chuckled, but the single “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” speedily reached the top of the country charts, making Rucker the first solo African-American artist to chart a No. 1 country hit since Charley Pride in 1983 — which is why, these days, you don’t find Rucker having a beer and feeling sorry for himself.

This month, Rucker releases his second solo country album, the hometown love note “Charleston, SC, 1966.” We caught up with him on tour to talk about old times, check in on Hootie’s 25th anniversary and attempt to instigate a rivalry with Stephen Colbert. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in interviews

Tagged , , , ,

Sit back down, have a beer, and feel sorry for art

Posted on April 9, 2009 | 1 comment

Hootie And The Ballet, or, Dance of the Sugar-Plum Blowfish

hootieVia Jeff Vrabel from Island Packet/The Guide staff reports, also starring Other Tim and Justin

Island Packet — Although it’s been more than a decade since Hootie and the Blowfish’s “Cracked Rear View” brought them national fame, the band members still turn heads in South Carolina. And their latest project is a partnership with the Columbia City Ballet for a performance telling the story of the group’s formative years using dance, dialogue and live music. No, really.  No, really.

But odd as it may sound, the tickets are selling. “We’ve always felt like maybe South 
Carolina’s best export and we’ve always tried to carry that with some pride,” said drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld told the Associated Press this week. There are also these plentiful …

Reasons To See The Hootie and the Blowfish Ballet

  • Should be way more successful than “Edwin McCain’s Nutcracker.”
  • The company will include lone a black dancer surrounded by lots of white people.
  • Weird cameo by Dan Marino.
  • Extended sequence lifted directly from the Bob Dylan Ballet.
  • It’s not often you see so many people at a ballet with baseball caps on backwards.
  • Supporting it also will finally give light to other long-awaited representations of white ‘90s culture, including “Friends: The Musical,” “Starbucks LIVE!” and “Watching VH1 On Ice.”
  • Mikhail Baryshnikov performing the “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Blowfish.”

    And the rest of the uncensored list:

  • It’s finally the answer to the question: what dances on tip toes and sucks?
  • It contains a preview of the Deep Blue Something opera
  • Band has desperately been trying to spread “Hooter and the Blowjob” jokes to two art forms
  • Things that will make you cry:  the Dolphins; poorly executed pirouettes

1 Comment

Posted in lists, soapbox friends

Tagged , , ,