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HOOTIE HEAVEN A Gamecock's Hootie & the Blowfish Page straight from Columbia, South Carolina, where it all started |
FAIRWEATHER JOHNSON IS OUT!!!The new album came out Tuesday, April 23, and I was standing at the door of the record store when they unlocked it. I have listened to it about thirty times. My review is coming soon! |
Hey y'all! I'm Mary. I'm 20, I'm a sophomore at the University of South Carolina, and Hootie & the Blowfish are the best band in America, and they started RIGHT HERE, at Carolina, in a dorm. I made this page in October in the computer lab, between classes, when I should have been writing a paper on Reconstruction. (I got a B. Worth it.)
| DARIUS RUCKER Lead vocals and guitar. That voice! It sounds like it's coming up out of the ground. He is NOT Hootie. Nobody in the band is Hootie. Please stop asking. |
| MARK BRYAN Lead guitar. He's the one who heard Darius singing in the dorm showers freshman year and decided they had to start a band. The most important shower in Columbia history. |
| DEAN FELBER Bass. He played with Mark in a band back in high school, so the two of them go way back. The quiet one, which is fine. Somebody has to be. |
| JIM "SONI" SONEFELD Drums. He's been the drummer full time since 1989, way in the back holding the whole thing together. My roommate Hollie has his picture on our refrigerator. |
| 1986 | Darius and Mark meet as freshmen at Carolina. The name comes from the nicknames of two college friends of theirs: one wore big round glasses and looked like an owl, and the other had puffy cheeks like a blowfish. |
| The next few years | Covers and their own songs in bars and fraternity houses all around campus. If you were at Carolina back then, you saw them. Everybody's older brother saw them. |
| 1989 | Soni joins for good. Now it's the four of them. |
| 1991 and 1992 | Two homemade cassettes. If you have one of these, I would like to talk to you. |
| 1993 | Kootchypop, their own EP. They pressed 50,000 copies of it themselves. I own one. Then they sign a real record deal. |
| July 5, 1994 | Cracked Rear View comes out. The summer before my freshman year. Good timing, guys. |
| 1995 | Hold My Hand, Let Her Cry, Only Wanna Be with You and Time, on every radio station in America at once. More than ten million copies sold. It's one of the best-selling debut albums EVER. |
| Feb. 28, 1996 | Two Grammys! Best New Artist, and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for Let Her Cry. We watched in the dorm lounge with about fifty people, and when they read the name for Best New Artist, the RA had to come out and ask us to scream more quietly. Nobody did. |
| April 23, 1996 | Fairweather Johnson. See below! |
From Cracked Rear View, which I have worn out once on tape and am wearing out again on CD.
Honorable mention: Goodbye, the last one on the album. I can't get through it without a lump in my throat.
| #1 · Spring 1993 Brandon was at Carolina then, and he took me along to a big outdoor party near campus where they were playing. I was a junior in high school and had never heard of them. By the second song I was standing on a cooler. Mom, if you're reading this, it was a nice party. |
| #2 · Fall 1994 Freshman year. Cracked Rear View had been out a few months and everybody on my hall had it. Hollie and I got right up front, and I lost a shoe and never found it. I'd lose it again. |
| #3 · Summer 1995 An amphitheater, lawn seats, rain from the first song to the last. Not one person left. We sang every word, soaked to the skin, and I got a cold, and I'd do that again too. |
| #4 · Summer 1995 Two weeks later. A big arena, real seats, a roof! My friend Sarah's dad got the tickets. Darius looked right at our section during Let Her Cry, and Sarah says he looked at her. He looked at me. |
You have to understand what it's like going to school here right now. Every time you walk through Five Points on a Friday night and hear some band playing in a bar, you think, maybe it's the next ones. Every time you cross the Horseshoe you think, they walked here. When people from out of state find out I go to Carolina, the first question is not about the football team (it's never about the football team), it's "Do you know Hootie?" No, I don't know Hootie. Nobody knows Hootie. But I feel like I do.
They're the biggest band in the country, and they're ours. Go Gamecocks!
Out Tuesday, April 23, 1996! The first single, Old Man & Me (When I Get to Heaven), has been on the radio since the beginning of April, and I turn it up every single time. The title song is only 51 seconds long. I timed it. Twice.
MY REVIEW: COMING SOON!Song by song, with my favorites and the ones that are growing on me. I want to get it right, so I'm living with it a little longer. Finals first, then the review. Promise. |
Sign it by e-mailing me. I'll put you up here!
| July 12, 1998 · Terence, Charlotte, North Carolina Mary, are you still out there? You must have graduated by now. Are you still a fan? I'm still waiting on that Fairweather Johnson review, ha ha. Two years and counting! |
| March 2, 1997 · Anthony, Spartanburg, South Carolina Great page! Found it looking for Hootie stuff. Are you still a big fan? What did you end up thinking of the new album? I don't see your review anywhere. |
| October 30, 1995 · Hollie (your roommate!) Mary, I'm signing your guestbook from across the room. Turn it down. I'm trying to study. |
E-mail me: [email protected]
Last updated Saturday, May 4, 1996
This is a fan page. I don't know the band (yet).