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(AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, file)
FILE - In this June 16, 2009 file photo, Darius Rucker performs at the CMT Music Awards in Nashville, Tenn.
After selling 16 million copes of their 1994 big-label debut, "Cracked Rear View," Hootie & the Blowfish never came close to matching their early heights. They released four more studio albums, their last, 2005's "Looking for Lucky," peaking at No. 47 on the Billboard 200.
The group's decline seemed cemented when Rucker portrayed a singing cowboy in a 2005 Burger King commercial.
Still, Rucker says the band will record and tour again as some point. Right now, though, he's focused on his country career _ a shift that felt natural to him. He'd always liked the genre and thought a lot of Hootie & the Blowfish songs could be country songs.
When he got a deal with Capitol Records Nashville, he began co-writing with some of Nashville's top tunesmiths and working with producer Frank Rogers, best known for helping craft albums by Brad Paisley and Trace Adkins. Paisley, Alison Krauss and Vince Gill all make guest appearances on the CD.
Rucker fretted: "I thought if it didn't work I was going to be the biggest joke in music."
His other concern was that "Learn to Live" was coming out at the same time as country offerings by Jessica Simpson and Jewel.
"I was afraid of being lumped in with that _ just another pop guy making a country record. I didn't feel it was that way at all," he said.
And neither did listeners. Rucker has become a staple on country radio and a fan favorite. He toured with Paisley and Rascal Flatts and performed on the main stage of the Country Music Association festival this summer. "Learn to Live" topped the country albums chart last year.
"He didn't try to do '80s rock on the country format," offered Julie Stevens, program director at KRTY-FM in San Jose, Calif. "Everybody thinks that country music is really exclusive and that we get mad when they cross over, but we really don't. We just want them to give us a country song."
