Darius Rucker has always had a close kinship to country music and country artists. ‘Growing up in South Carolina, it was always around, always on the radio’, Rucker says. First an acolyte of Buck Owens, Rucker naturally gravitated towards Dwight Yoakam, New Grass Revival and Radney Foster in his twenties. ‘When I first heard Radney’s voice on Foster & Lloyd’s ‘Crazy Over You’ I thought, ‘this guy’s voice is bigger than Texas’. I’m thinking ‘this is cool songwriting’.
Ruckers career path veered first into pop as the singer/co-writer for the wildly successful Hootie & The Blowfish. The Grammy-winning group’s 1994 debut, ‘Cracked Rear View’, is one of the best selling albums in history, surpassing the 16 million album mark.
Fans of the band, many of whom have made the natural migration from pop to country radio, realise that Hootie & The Blowfish’s catchy songs were rooted in the same elements that make great country music. In fact, Rucker says, ‘We talked about being a country band, and I just got outvoted! They also used to kid me about how I always was bringing them country songs that they had to turn into rock songs...’ Therefore, making his first country CD was not so much a big leap for Rucker as simply a slight shift in his musical evolution. As Billboard magazine noted, ‘There’s a sense of purpose that makes Rucker feel like a member of the country family, rather than an interloper... Sounds like country may have a new shining star’.
