#Hootie November 11

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Each state has artists that they take great pride in. Darius Rucker the former lead singer for HOOTIE and the Blowfish is revered in South Carolina.

So for day eleven of the 30 Day Album #Coach4adayChallenge I am going to listen to Cracked Rear View Mirror.

Rucker was born on May 13, 1966, in Charleston, South Carolina. He attended Middleton HS in Charleston and enrolled at the University of South Carolina. Middleton HS has been replaces by West Ashley HS.

For my college basketball friends Middleton HS was the place were Jerry Waters won SC State Championships in boys basketball in 1972, 1974, and 1977. Waters would later become the Head Basketball Coach at USC Spartanburg (today called USC-Upstate) and win the 1982 NAIA Men’s Basketball Championship.

Hootie and the Blowfish Beginnings

When Rucker got to college Mark Bryan another USC student and guitar player heard him singing in a shower. They began to collaborate and the path to create HOOTIE and the Blowfish was underway.

Bryan and Rucker began playing cover tunes as The Wolf Brothers and eventually hooked up with Dean Felber, a former high school bandmate of Bryan’s, and Brantley Smith as Hootie & The Blowfish. When Smith’s true passion “music ministry” called him home to Greenville, SC in 1989, Bryan reached out to classmate Jim (Soni) Sonefeld to join the band .

They began to become recognized round the college scene in South Carolina by playing countless frat parties and appearing in local bars. It took them five years but they broke out of just playing in and around Columbia SC to all over the Carolinas and eventually into other states up and down the East Coast.

In 1993 they independently released an album called Kootchypop and were able to sell 10,000 copies. Atlantic Record heard them and signed them to a deal to produce “Cracked Rear View Mirror”

Discography

Here are the songs on the original 1994 album. In 2019 there was a 25th Anniversary release that included more songs.

Really enjoyed listening to this album and enjoying their 1990 hits “Hold My Hand” “Only Want To Be With You” “Let Her Cry” and “Time”.

HOOTIE and South Carolina are great partners.