Hootie & the Blowfish
American rock band
Hootie & the Blowfish is an American rock band formed in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1986. The band's lineup for most of its existence has been the quartet of Darius Rucker, Mark Bryan, Dean Felber, and Jim Sonefeld. The band went on hiatus in 2008 until they announced plans for a full reunion tour in 2019 and released their first new studio album in fourteen years, Imperfect Circle.
As of 2026, Hootie & the Blowfish have won two Grammy Awards, landed 16 singles on various Billboard singles charts, and released six studio albums. The band's debut album, Cracked Rear View (1994), became one of the best-selling albums in the United States and was certified platinum 22 times. The band is known for its three Top 10 singles: "Hold My Hand" (1994), "Let Her Cry" (1994), and "Only Wanna Be with You" (1995). The band is also popular in Canada, having three number-one singles in the country.
History
Early years
Darius Rucker and Mark Bryan met in Columbia, South Carolina, in the mid-1980s when they were both freshmen at the University of South Carolina. Bryan, a guitar player, heard Rucker singing in the showers of the dormitory they shared and was impressed by his vocal ability. The pair began playing cover tunes as the Wolf Brothers.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hootie & the Blowfish” as american rock band. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1476499. VIAF identifies the subject as 146764611. The Library of Congress control number is no95020694. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986, 2008, 2019 and 2026.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hootie & the Blowfish” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.