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Darius Rucker on His Early Days in Country: "I Was Going To Give It All I Had"

The Hootie and the Blowfish frontman recalls his breakout country success on Clint Black's new program 'Talking In Circles'

On the May 22 debut of Clint Black's TV series Talking in Circles, Darius Rucker discussed his late 2000s era transition to country music upon signing to Capitol Records Nashville in 2008.

"For me it was, if we're gonna do it on this level, I was going to give it all I had," notes the vocalist who has netted 10 number-one hits in the genre since his 2008 debut. "I knew the best way I could do that was to let everybody that were the people playing the songs to know that I know I'm not anything in this genre. I'm just trying to get on the radio like everybody else. If you play my song, great. If not, hey man we had a beer, it was cool."

"We were in a meeting, the very first meeting about the record when I was finishing up [my debut album]. And they were like, 'Well you do a radio tour...And I said, 'Light it up.' We went to almost every radio station in the country," he recalls. "We went around...and people liked the song," Rucker notes regarding his 2008 country single "Don't Think I Don't Think About It," which allowed the Hootie and the Blowfish frontman to become the first Black country artist number one country hit since Charley Pride achieved the feat in 1983.

Clint Black's "Talking in Circles" is described as a "candid artist-to-artist conversation with some of the top entertainers in the business about songwriting, recording, and performing on the road," Black noted. "I'm excited to let people 'overhear' some of the things we artists have to say when we talk shop."

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