From Hootie to Howdown!

Darius Rucker.  He was the robust baritone of the 90's group Hootie & the Blowfish.  The name made most radio program directors laugh.  "You can't have a successful rock band with THAT name!"  Then with their song "Hold My Hand" they knocked every mellow sounding artist (read Michael Bolton) off the radio stations across the country.  It was rock radio that first played them; alternative rock radio interestingly enough.  Yes, there was a time when Darius Rucker was considered "alternative."

They had 4 hit songs off the first album.  Radio stations repositioned their formats just so they could play them.  Alternative Rock radio stations didn't like that they were playing something mellow music stations were playing so they scrambled to play harder fair, grunge, and they've never looked back.

Then, like everything on today's radio, they were overplayed.  No one could hear their music without cracking a joke.  Their name was funny enough.

Darius tried to solo.  He tried a smooth r & b sound and tried to be the next Luther Vandross.  That failed (but it sure is funny to go back and listen to THAT album!) 

Then, right at the time that Jewel and Jessica Simpson were putting out "country" albums, Darius followed suit.  He grew up in the south so he said he knew that music backwards and forwards.  He was good friends with Foster & Lloyd singer/songwriter Radney Foster.  He put out a CD in 2008 that, low and behold, became a hit country album.  He even had hit country singles.

Now I have long since ABANDONED country radio.  That business said goodbye to me in a fit of "we can't pay you anymore and we're idiots."  I still own that album and sometimes hear a song from it when it comes up on my windows media player.  I just laugh when I hear him trying to be something that he's clearly not.  In our collective conscience he IS Hootie.  You didn't live through the 90's and not absorb that.  And that music was great.  He put a banshee force of a voice behind lyrics that weren't always smart but conveyed an emotion that went beyond the "frat rock" everyone was labeling them. 

How interesting that "frat rock" never took off, but the just-as-horribly-named "grunge" took off and reverberates years later.

Given time will others from the early 90's become country artists too?  I wouldn't mind so much if contemporary country wasn't so formulaic and unabashed in who and what it appeals to.  There's no artistry in it.  It's crass commercialism like the latest from Miley or the Jonas Brothers.  I know some people don't want to think with their music (that's why God made Toby Keith) but at some point doesn't your brain cry out for something more?

Sorry, ranted just then.

Kudos to Darius for making an interesting transition.  Taylor Swift, whom I talk about in the blog below, is crossing over the other way now.  In the NEXT decade will she do a "frat rock" album?

Taylor Swift is on an Interesting Trajectory!

So it was in 2006 and I was working for a pop station.  We had a country station in the same building that I had worked at for 12 years and they had a new artist coming in named Taylor Swift. 

I met her and thought that she matched the type of female country artist every record company was trying to churn out to be the next Carrie, Shania, or Faith.  The only thing different about this gal is she was REALLY young and she brought a guitar along and sang songs SHE WROTE.  She was also extremely humble and funny.  She cracked jokes with a humor that was beyond a typical country singer's range.

She came back to our little town to perform for free at a free outdoor event we were doing.  She did a little known song that was just starting to get some airplay called "Tim McGraw" and then launched into a very personal ditty called "Teardrops On My Guitar."  I liked her stuff, but I thought country would find her too folky and since the format is run primarily by an annoying boys club I thought she didn't have a chance since they'd already handed all the control over to another blond whose last name was Underwood.

Here we are at the beginning of the "Tennies" and Taylor has had a couple songs crossover from the country charts as well as had numerous number ones on said chart.  The tabloid machine is following her closely and trying to find anything to use against her.  They know how well she's liked so any scandal would be lots of issues sold. 

What will happen?  Taylor is going to keep writing and singing songs no matter who's listening or how many paparazzi are outside her door.  I just hope she doesn't get caught up into the crazy world that is Hollywood.  There is always the newest and craziest addictions that are shoved into the faces of the biggest stars.  Some succumb, some summon up the strength that made the popular in the first place and avoid it. 

Country at some point will reject her.  They hate it when someone gets too popular or too pop.  Taylor is walking down that Shania/Faith road.  She should keep an eye, or ear, on what her music's base is.  If it's pop, she can go the Dixie Chicks route, produce a pop record, and win all the Grammies.  Or she can go the Shania/Faith route where country and pop audiences began turning their backs.  OR she can try to keep it country. 

Whatever it is, we'll all be watching and listening!