Darius Rucker follows CMA Awards win with parent-teacher conference, tonight’s Tulsa show
Darius Rucker accepts the best new artist of the year award at the 43rd Annual Country Music Awards Wednesday night in Nashville, Tenn. He will perform tonight at Tulsa’s Osage Million Dollar Elm Casino. (Associated Press photo)
Darius Rucker became the first black singer to win new artist of the year at Wednesday’s CMA Awards, joining Charley Pride as the only African-Americans to win major individual awards from the Country Music Association.
When I spoke with Rucker in a recent phone interview, he said his plans for after the CMA Awards would remain virtually the same regardless of whether he won or lost. He went into the show with two nominations; the male vocalist of the year trophy went to Brad Paisley.
“If I win, I’m gonna go out that night with my wife and some of our friends and go to a couple of parties and then I’m gonna get up and be on the 6 o’clock flight to go to my 14-year-old daughter’s school teacher’s conference she’s got. If I lose, I’m gonna go out with my wife and some friends and I’m gonna get up at 6 o’clock and go to my daughter’s teacher’s conference. Either way, I’ll be at that teacher’s conference,” he said.
The former Hootie & the Blowfish frontman told me he wasn’t sure until the nominations were announced that he could even compete in the best new artist category after his previous band’s 1990s success. And he didn’t think he would win anyway, saying he thought hot country act the Zac Brown Band had the new artist title all wrapped up.
Rucker, whose first country album, last year’s “Learn to Live,” has sold more than 1 million copies, took the CMA Awards stage Wednesday night to hearty cheers from the crowd and shouted, “What a year!”
“First of all, to the fans, thank y’all for accepting me,” he said. “And I think most importantly, to country radio, you took a chance on a pop singer from Charleston, S.C. Thank you so much for that!”
Rucker told me he is hard at work on his second country album, which he plans to release next year. He was hoping to start recording later this month or in December. When we spoke, he said he had just written a song a few days earlier with Paisley.
“We wrote a song that we’re going to do as a duet on my record that’s hilarious. That guy — hilarious. Too funny, really too funny. I mean, love hanging out with him,” Rucker said.
Rucker will perform at 7 tonight Osage Million Dollar Elm Casino in Tulsa. For more information, call (918) 699-7667 or go to www.milliondollarelm.com/event-center.
-BAM
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
No comments yet.
Leave a comment