Hootie had an uphill battle making the jump to country music.
Back in 2008, Hootie & the Blowfish lead singer Darius Rucker signed a record deal with Capitol Records to make the jump to country music as a solo artist. His debut country single, “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It,” would go on to become his first country #1 hit later that year, and 5 of his first 6 country singles ended up topping the charts. (The other, “History In the Making,” peaked at #3).
According to Rucker, though, he wasn’t expecting it to happen.
Of course artists crossing over to country music is insanely common these days, but back in 2008 the list of artists making the leap wasn’t near as long, and the list of artists having success after crossing over was even smaller. For Rucker though, he saw a bigger obstacle: There weren’t any other black artists in mainstream country music at the time.
Prior to Rucker’s string of #1 hits starting in 2008, the last black artist to have a top 40 hit on country radio was the legendary Charley Pride, who scored his final charting single in 1989 with “Amy’s Eyes.” And as Rucker recalled in his new documentary Darius Rucker: They Call Me Hootie, Pride served as a mentor for him in his own country music career:
“Charley Pride opened the door, and he told me to kick it down. The best revenge is success.”
But Rucker admits in an interview with People that he never expected to get a record deal as a black country artist:
“There wasn’t a Black person on country radio for 25 years at the time. So of course I didn’t think I’d get a record deal. Who would give me a record deal? When I sit back and think about it, I really still don’t believe it worked the way it did.”
And his expectations may have, unfortunately, been influenced by the racism that he experienced in his early days with Hootie & the Blowfish, as a black artist playing college gigs in South Carolina. But he says that he decided early on that he needed to have tough skin if he wanted to make it in the music business:
“Of course I wanted to fight. But I said to myself, ‘If I’m going to do this, I have to be able to take a lot of s—, because I’m going to get a lot of s—.’ So I got tough skin and went about my career. I believe that everything that happened happened for me so I could be the one to bring color to country music.”
Things obviously worked out well for him: He was not only the frontman of one of the biggest groups of the ’90s, but also one of the biggest country artists of the late 2000s and into the 2010s.
Rucker has easily moved into legend status (I’m even willing to forgive him for “Wagon Wheel,” but I hope I never have to hear it again), and last year launched a supergroup called Howl Owl Howl (really likes owls, apparently) along with two other rock legends, R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills, and former The Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman.
The band recently announced a tour for 2027, along with a new single “Everybody Wants Her” today that evokes the classic ’90s sounds of all three of those groups.
Seems like he took Pride’s advice to kick the door down to heart.
