Darius Rucker photo by Jim Wright courtesy of Essential Broadcast Media.
By Kip Kirby
© 2013 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.
Darius Rucker wasn’t expecting interruptions during his Grand Ole Opry set on the ...
Darius Rucker photo by Jim Wright courtesy of Essential Broadcast Media.
By Kip Kirby
© 2013 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.
Darius Rucker wasn’t expecting interruptions during his Grand Ole Opry set on the night of Oct. 2.
He was nearly through with his performance, playing songs from his upcoming third album True Believers and enjoying the response from the sellout house. Then, Opry VP/GM Pete Fisher stood up in the audience, stopping the show and inviting Rucker to answer questions from fans. When the final audience member took the microphone, there was an audible gasp as Rucker realized it was none other than Brad Paisley. Nothing could have prepared him for what came next: Paisley’s invitation for his good friend to become the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry.
Read our album review of True Believers >>
That moment, and the audience’s joyous reaction, underscored the Country community’s embrace of Rucker as one of its own. His journey toward this achievement began years ago back in his home state of South Carolina, long before the singer had become a household name as front man for Hootie & The Blowfish. Growing up, Rucker listened to all kinds of music: “Hee Haw” with his mother on Saturday nights, church music on Sunday mornings, big band swing standards, beach music, R&B, rock ‘n’ roll. Rucker’s musical explorations took him into all kinds of genres, and he sang along enthusiastically to them all. It never occurred to him to limit himself to one particular style or format.
“Ever since I was a kid, I was always baffled by the different labels for music because it seemed to be the same notes and the same words,” said Rucker. “I sang everything I heard and let the music take me wherever I wanted to go. I just thought all singers could sing everything. Later on, I realized they can’t.”
Rucker’s vocal versatility extends beyond the ranges of pop, rock and Nashville. In 1995, he received a personal invitation to sing at Frank Sinatra’s celebrity-studded 80th birthday gala in Los Angeles, where he performed “The Lady Is a Tramp.”
“That was one of the great days of my life! They sent us this great arrangement of ‘The Lady Is a Tramp’ that sounded exactly like ‘I Only Want to Be with You,’” Rucker said, referring to the hit single by Hootie & The Blowfish. “So we started in, but then I said, ‘I don’t want to play it like that. I want to do it exactly like Sinatra did it live at The Sands in ’64. I want Quincy Jones’ arrangement of it. Can we get it?’ They said, ‘Sure.’ So we get there that night, we’re all in zoot suits and we do the Quincy Jones arrangement — and we just killed it. When we got finished playing, Mr. Sinatra stood up and made me come over and shake his hand. It was really a great, great moment.”
Rucker continues to appear as a regular featured guest with the Peter Graves Orchestra, performing big band standards at charity events around the country. Graves admits that in the beginning he was hesitant about bringing in the lead singer for Hootie & The Blowfish to sing American songbook classics. But prior to their first show together, Rucker flew in several days early to rehearse. It didn’t take long for the orchestra leader to change his mind.
“Like everyone else, my jaw hit the floor,” Graves said, whose orchestra was Sinatra’s hand-picked ensemble for 20 years on shows throughout the Southeast. “He doesn’t try to mimic Frank (Sinatra). He’s still Darius, but he does the music justice. He did his homework and he came prepared. I see people all the time trying to work outside their genre and it doesn’t work. Darius is one of the rare ones who can make the programming switch inside his own head. For me, one of the biggest things is his smoothness and the way he phrases. It’s such a distinctive voice. It brings a lot of uniqueness to what he does.”
Frank Rogers has been Rucker’s producer and frequent co-writer since the singer signed with Capitol Records in 2008. “I’ve worked with hi
