AP - Singer Darius Rucker and comedian Bill Murray will be in the dugouts as captains of celebrity softball teams ... more
Darius Rucker to give special performance at ACMs
(AP)AP - Country music star Darius Rucker is debuting a new song at this Sunday's Academy of Country Music Awards, and ... more
25 and counting: Darius Rucker reaches milestone
(AP)AP - Darius Rucker has spent the last few years reinventing himself as a country star. He's had a platinum debut, ... more
Rucker a little too radio friendly on new CD
(AP)AP - Darius Rucker, "Charleston, SC 1966" (Capitol ... more Darius Rucker readies second country album (Reuters)
Reuters - Darius Rucker admits that the pressure's on, but he doesn't mind.... more more news
Darius Rucker
Darius Rucker (born May 13, 1966) is an American musician. He first gained fame as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the 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. The band has released five studio albums with him as a member, and charted six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Rucker co-wrote the majority of the band's songs with the other three members.. 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 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 five studio albums: Cracked Rear View, Fairweather Johnson, Musical Chairs, Hootie & the Blowfish and Looking for Lucky, 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" in the media, though the band title combines the nicknames of his college friends.. 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." He has brought additional attention as the sole African-American member of a major rock band with otherwise white members. 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. The other band members were protective of Rucker in regards to the issue, and had a policy of generally ignoring racist comments....
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