Hootie & The Blowfish Biography

Hootie & the Blowfish came together in the mid 1980?s while the band members were just starting their academic careers at the University of South Carolina. Dean Felber, Darius Rucker Booking Agent & Management" href="https://www.bookingentertainment.com/artists/country/darius-rucker.php"> Darius Rucker, Brantley Smith, and Mark Bryan began playing cover songs around Columbia, South Carolina. Eventually, Smith left the band, and was replaced by Jim Sonefield, and Hootie & the Blowfish was born.

Hootie & the Blowfish released their debut, Cracked Rear View, in 1994, to critical and commercial success, going platinum almost instantly. On the strength of the hits "Hold My Hand," Only Wanna Be With You," Let Her Cry," and "Time," the album eventually went platinum sixteen times over, and earned the band a Grammy for Best New Artist. Fairweather Johnson followed in 1996, and additional studio albums followed: Musical Chairs (1998), Hootie & the Blowfish (2003), Looking for Lucky (2005), and the compilation and live albums, Scattered, Smothered and Covered (2000), The Best of Hootie & the Blowfish (2004), and Live in Charleston (2006.)

In 2008, Hootie & the Blowfish went on hiatus so that Rucker could pursue a solo career in country music. While they did not disband, and maintained plans for continued albums and tours together, for the next few years Hootie & the Blowfish limited their appearances to charity performances, of which there have been many. The entire band spent October of 2005 working in New Orleans for the reconstruction efforts, building houses. They toured each year with the USO, visiting American troops overseas, and performed for the Animal Mission, raising funds for shelter animals in South Carolina.

Hootie & the Blowfish look forward to future album releases and tours in the coming years.