So, how did Hootie & the Blowfish come to be? Well, it all started in Columbia, at the University of South Carolina.
A guy named Mark Bryan, who liked to jam on his guitar heard the wonderfull vocals of a man named Darius Rucker echoing through
the dorms, as he sang along to the radio. Later, the pair got together and started doing some songs together. Clearly
they were good enough to play in public, so they played for people at the university for a while, and called themselves 'The
Wolf Brothers', with Mark on guitar and Darius singing. They then went on to recruit a bassist named Dean Felber, who
was already a friend of the guys. But there was one thing missing. A drummer. They invited a guy called Brantley Smith
to come along and play drums for them. He agreed. Then, one night, at a bar, two friends walked in. One had puffy cheeks,
and Darius had given him the affectionate nickname of 'Blowfish', and the other guy had big eyes, and Darius' nickname for
him was 'Hootie'. "Hey!" Someone said. "There's Hootie and the Bowfish". The guys looked at eachother
and grinned. They all knew that was going to be the name of the band. But soon, it was decision time. The guys had now
graduated. So, were they gonna persue this music thing and make it into a career, or were they gonna find themselves 'stable'
jobs? Brantley decided he wanted to stay at home and follow another career. The others, however decided they were gonna
take the long haul up to stardom. But the guys were without a drummer again, so in stepped a guy named Jim 'Soni' Sonefeld,
to take on Brantleys role as the drummer of the band. There. The band was complete. They guys spent several years on the
road, just them and afew roadies travelling round and playing at small clubs until they had there big break. Finally the were
noticed, and a record label signed them up and they put out their first smash album, 'Cracked Rear View'. They had made
it. They were finally famous. They have earned it too. The band have gone on to please millions of fans with the releases
of two other albums. 'Fairweather Johnson' and 'Musical Chairs'. Lets hope they'll be many more to come.
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