Image Ownership, Public Domain
Singer and songwriter Darius Rucker was born on May 13,
1966 to Carolyn Rucker in Charleston, South Carolina.
His mother, who worked as a nurse, supported him and his five brothers and
sisters because his father, a traveling musician, was rarely able to spent time with the family. Darius attended
Charleston Middleton High School and the University of South Carolina.
While at the University, fellow student Mark Bryan was impressed with Rucker’s voice
rolling from the shower. Guitarist Bryan played with Rucker as the Wolf
Brothers; later, with bass player Dean Felber and drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld,
they formed a group called Hootie and the Blowfish in 1989. With the wide
range of Rucker’s voice, the group played bluegrass,
blues, folk, pop,
soul,
and
rock & roll. Their self-financed album
Kootchypop (1993) sold
50,000 copies.
The group moved beyond the South Carolina border and played throughout the East
coast. Atlantic Records signed the group to a contract, and their album
Cracked
Rear View reached number one on the Billboard charts and sold more than 16
million copies in 1994. The group won Grammys for Best New Artist and for
Song of the Year by a group for “Let Her Cry.” Later, the group won the
MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist with the song “Hold My Hand.”
They also won People’s Choice Awards for Album of the Year and Best Selling
Artist.
Cracked Rear View ranks at number 12 among the
best-selling albums in music history. The group produced five more
albums:
Fairweather Johnson (1996), which sold five million copies;
Musical
Chairs (1998), which sold one million copies;
Scattered, Smothered and
Covered (2000);
Hootie & the Blowfish (2003); and
The Best of
Hootie & The Blowfish (2003)
. Later, they released
Lucky
in 2005.
In 2001, Rucker worked on an album, prospectively titled The Return of Mongo
Slade, but had differences with Atlantic Records so it was never
released. He continued working, and produced an R&B/ hip-hop album, Back
to Then, in 2002. Rucker then turned to country music and released a
country album in 2008 titled Learn to Live. His song “Don’t Think
I Don’t Think About It” reached number one on the Billboard Country Songs
chart—something that had not been done by an African American since Charlie
Pride had a hit with “Night Games” 25 years earlier. Rucker is only the
third African American Country And Western Artist to top the country charts
(his predecessors were Ray Charles and Charlie Pride). Rucker had additional
hits with “It Won’t Be Like This for Long,” “Alright,” “History in the Making,”
“Comeback Song,” and “This.” In addition to Learn to Live, his
other country music albums are Charleston, SC 1966 (2010) and True
Believers (2013).
Rucker has a daughter, Caroline Pearl Phillips, who was born in 1995.
Rucker married Beth Leonard Rucker in 2000, and they have two children,
Daniella Rose (born in 2002), and Jack (born in 2005). Rucker has
received several country music awards, including the Country Music
Association’s New Artist of the Year Trophy, which made him the first African
American artist to receive this award and the second African American artist to
receive any country music award.
