Having your first country album debut at #1 on the Billboard charts – following a multi-week #1 debut country single – “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It,”  is a huge achievement by anyone’s measure. When you add to that the New York Times’ claim that your debut album is “one of the year’s most vibrant country albums,” and Variety’s declaration that “Country music has a new major star, and the genre may never be the same” – well, it can be pretty heavy stuff.  Not to mention that Darius hit the top of Billboard's Hot Country Charts again and again, with “It Won’t Be Like This For Long,”  followed by "Alright". Only three other artists in the last 20 years have had 3 singles from one album get to #1 on this chart, and Darius is the first to do it in 17 years!

Grateful that the millions of fans that knew Rucker as the voice of Hootie & The Blowfish, the Grammy-winning group whose album Cracked Rear View sold more than 16 million copies, happily followed the singer/songwriter in his natural evolution to country music. Rucker has always had a close kinship to country music and country artists. “Growing up in South Carolina, it was always around, always on the radio,” he says.

 “You know, I had been in that rock cocoon for a while . . . But now I get to come out and sing these songs,” says Darius Rucker.  “I plan to be doing this for a long time.  This isn’t a one album deal – it’s a career thing.”