Hootie and the Blowfish is an American rock band from Columbia, South Carolina. It became popular in the second half of the 1990s. The band is formed at the University of South Carolina, by Darius Rucker, Dean Felber, Jim Sonefeld and Mark Bryan, who are still current members. Hootie has seven studio albums and has placed in the rankings with 16 singles. Their first album, Cracked Rear View is their best-selling album in the world, with more than 16 platinum records.
Hootie and the Blowfish is formed in 1986 at Columbia, University of South Carolina.
The band independently recorded two EPs, in 1991 and 1992. In 1993, they released 50,000 copies of their self-produced Kootchypop, referring to the female genital tract, so called in a stand-up of Shirley Hemphill.
Their first real album was released in 1994, and immediately became a commercial success, certified platinum 16 times, and became the best-selling album in the United States in 1995. Cracked Rear View owes its success to four superb Hold My titles Hand, Let Her Cry, Only Wanna Be With You and Time. In 1996, the group received the Grammy Award for "Best New Artist / Group" . Hootie and the Blowfish make an appearance at the MTV Unplugged to promote their second album Fairweather Johnson, this album meets the expected success, with more than 4 million copies sold on American soil, only a tube comes off the album Old Man and Me. In the face of these dazzling successes, the band is coming out chronologically, Musical Chairs (1998), Hootie and the Blowfish (2003) and Looking For Lucky (2005), with rather mediocre successes.
In 1995, the band participated in the title Hey Hey What Can I Do on the album Encomium, in tribute to Led Zeppelin. In addition, their cover of I Go Blind is used for the soundtrack of the TV series Friends. These two titles not being present on the albums studio, the group will leave in 2000, Scattered, Smothered and Covered, which is a compilation of rarities studios, face B, and covers.
