Darius Rucker performing tonight in Tulsa, fresh off CMA Awards win
Country singer Darius Rucker poses for pictures in the press room after winning the best new award at Wednesdayt night’s 43rd Annual CMA Awards in Nashville, Tenn. Rucker will perform in concert tonight at Osage Million Dollar Elm Casino in Tulsa. (Associated Press photo)
A version of this story appears in Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Country give warm welcome to musician at CMA Awards
Darius Rucker to perform tonight in Tulsa
Singer/songwriter/guitarist Darius Rucker still may be best known as the front man of 1990s pop sensations Hootie & the Blowfish.
But as one of his new hits goes, “It Won’t Be Like This for Long,” if his country career keeps booming.
After all, Rucker’s first country record, 2008′s “Learn to Live,” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart and has already sold more than 1 million copies. And the album’s first three singles — the passionate ode to lost love “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It,” the slice-of-life ballad “It Won’t Be Like This for Long” and the breezy toe-tapper “Alright” — topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs list.
“I’ve talked about this record for years, probably since ’86,” Rucker said in a phone interview from Tacoma, Wash. “There were just certain things I wanted to do, certain records I wanted to make. I was making my rock ‘n’ roll records, I wanted to make an R&B record, and I wanted to make country records. I wanted to be Radney Foster, Al Green and Michael Stipe.”
The Charleston, S.C., native will play a solo show at 7 tonight at Tulsa’s Osage Million Dollar Elm Casino. The concert comes just two days after he won new artist of the year at the 43rd Annual CMA Awards in Nashville, Tenn., where he also was nominated for male vocalist of the year.
“I didn’t know I could be nominated for new artist so I was really surprised,” said Rucker, who won a 1996 Grammy for best new artist as part of Hootie & the Blowfish.
Even before he won the award, Rucker was grateful at the warm welcome he has received from the country community. During the show, he thanked country fans and radio stations who “took a chance on a pop singer from Charleston, S.C. God bless y’all for that.”
And he won’t soon forget the shock when Lee Ann Womack listed him along with Kenny Chesney, George Strait, Brad Paisley and Keith Urban as a male vocalist nominee.
“I’m standing up there and she says my name and the ‘Sesame Street’ song — ‘One of these things is not like the other’ — that comes into my head,” he said with a laugh.
“And the African-American thing had nothing to do with it. It was these are four superstars in country music. Superstars. … There’s no one in music bigger than George Strait. No one. And there’s nobody selling out more places than Kenny Chesney and Brad Paisley. And they’re gonna throw me in there.”
While Rucker is experiencing more country music success than any other black singer since Charley Pride, it isn’t the first time he has changed the face of a genre. And the honey-voiced baritone has sold out his share of arenas.
He and three friends — all white — started Hootie & the Blowfish in 1986 at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. The band’s 1994 major-label debut “Cracked Rear View” spun off three smash hits in “Hold My Hand,” “Only Wanna Be With You” and “Let Her Cry” and sold more than 16 million copies. The pop-rock quartet released four more albums, though none were able to tap the white-hot success of their debut. When the band decided a few years ago to take a break, Rucker set out to make his long-awaited country album.
“Country music and bluegrass was such a huge part of us as a band, from New Grass Revival and Lyle Lovett and Radney and Nanci Griffith. You know, these were people that we listened to every day. I mean, when we sat down to play, we played bluegrass or country,” he said.
“The last two or three Hootie records, in the meetings to start the records, I’d say, ‘Hey, let’s do the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band thing and just do country records.’ And you know, they didn’t want to do it, and I was cool with that. But they knew as soon as the first chance I got, I was gonna do it.”
When Capitol Nashville offered him a record deal, he made “Learn to Live” on a modest budget and drove to radio stations around the nation to promote it. He knew his Hootie history might prove a liability with pop artists such as Jessica Simpson, Jewel and Bon Jovi also crossing over to the country side.
“I think it was a benefit because it got me into a lot of program directors’ offices that might’ve not seen me otherwise. I mean, it was a detriment from the fact that just the whole pop invasion was going on at that time. I had to come out with something that was really gonna hit, or I was gonna be thrown by the wayside,” he said.
He already is working the follow-up to “Learn to Live” and plans to make country music for the foreseeable future. But fans can expect to hear him play not just his new hits but also a few songs from his Hootie days tonight.
“I want people leaving our show going, ‘Man, I want to see that again,’” he said.
In concert
Darius Rucker
When: 7 tonight.
Where: Osage Million Dollar Elm Casino’s Osage Event Center, 951 W 36 St. N, Tulsa.
Information: (918) 699-7667 or www.milliondollarelm.com/event-center.
-BAM
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