Hootie who? Rucker fits right into country music scene

By John Gerome

NASHVILLE, Tenn.

After 15 years of being recognized as "Hootie" from Hootie & the Blowfish, Darius Rucker was caught off guard recently while checking into a Baltimore hotel.

"It's the same hotel I stay in all the time, and there's a new clerk back there and she's looking at me and staring at me and I'm expecting, 'Hey, aren't you Hootie?' or 'Aren't you the guy from Hootie & the Blowfish?' And she looked at me and said, 'Aren't you Darius Rucker the country singer?'

"It really took me back," said Rucker, who at 43 looks about the same as he did belting out "Only Wanna Be With You" or "Let Her Cry" in the mid-'90s.

Rucker, whose tour with Rascal Flatts brings him to Virginia Beach on Thursday night, is getting used to being called a country singer. He's had a pair of No. 1 country singles from his CD "Learn to Live" - "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" and "It Won't Be Like This For Long" - and his latest, "Alright," is No. 6 on Billboard's country singles chart and No. 45 on its overall singles chart.

Country Music Television even aired a special about him, "Invitation Only: Darius Rucker," this summer.

Rucker said he's surprised by his country music success.

"There was never a full-page ad in Billboard magazine saying, 'The new Darius Rucker album is coming out. Darius has gone country, and here's his first single.' There wasn't any of that. It was me in the car with a buddy driving around to 85 radio stations."

Rucker's showing is even more unlikely considering the hard time black singers have cracking the country charts. His "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" was the first No. 1 hit by a black artist since Ray Charles' "Seven Spanish Angels" duet with Willie Nelson topped the charts in 1985.

"I'm not going to change what happened in the past or anything," said the Charleston, S.C., native. "I'd like to think the reason it happened for me is the songs."

"I thought being in Hootie was going to hurt a lot, but it got me in the door," he continued. "Everyone saw me because of Hootie. At the radio stations, they sat me down and got to know me and listened to my songs. And I got in because I was in Hootie & the Blowfish."

After selling 16 million copies of their 1994 big-label debut, "Cracked Rear View," Hootie & the Blowfish never came close to matching their early heights. They released four more studio albums; their last, 2005's "Looking for Lucky," peaked at No. 47 on the Billboard 200.

Still, Rucker says the band will record and tour again at some point. Right now, though, he's focusing on his country career, a shift that felt natural to him. He'd always liked the genre and thought a lot of Hootie & the Blowfish songs could be country songs.

When he got a deal with Capitol Records Nashville, he began co-writing with some of Nashville's top tunesmiths and working with producer Frank Rogers, best known for helping craft albums by Brad Paisley and Trace Adkins.

"I thought if it didn't work, I was going to be the biggest joke in music," Rucker said.

His other concern was that "Learn to Live" was coming out at the same time as country offerings by Jessica Simpson and Jewel.

"I was afraid of being lumped in with that - just another pop guy making a country record. I didn't feel it was that way at all," he said.

Neither did listeners. Rucker has become a staple on country radio and a fan favorite.

"Everybody thinks that country music is really exclusive and that we get mad when they cross over, but we really don't," said Julie Stevens, program director at KRTY-FM in San Jose, Calif. "We just want them to give us a country song."