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Darius Rucker Reveals Moment That Inspired Him to Pursue Country Music

Darius Rucker made the transition to country music 12 years ago. On Sunday, he went on “Living and Learning with Reba McEntire” to talk about that change.

Skip to just before the 22-minute mark to hear Darius Rucker talk about the moment that inspired the change.

In the episode, entitled “Reinventing Yourself” he shares all the things about the musical transition. Rucker says that it affected his life in numerous ways. As he moved away from the rock and roll band, “Hootie” he talks about how he needed to reinvent himself. In order to make the change work, he needed to change his whole attitude about music.

As Rucker says: “Radney Foster came out with an album in 1989 called ‘Del Rio Texas’ which just changed my world. I heard him sing and I want to sing just like that dude… I want to do that someday.”

Obviously, as kids, we all have dreams that we can’t fulfill because they are too far fetched. But, Rucker was playing for a pop music band. And felt that as a black man he would never have the chance to explore his country music dream.

Rucker recalled jokingly saying, “to the band, I always said that we’ll make a country music record one day.”

The Rucker Turning Moment

The transition moment turns out to be a number of things, but chiefly it’s his desire to be like Foster.

“One day we decided we weren’t going to tour anymore. It was shocking to me. And my first thought was ‘I’m going to go make a country record.’” When the band decided that it was time to take a break from touring, Rucker knew this was his shot at country music.

Rather luckily, Rucker’s agent got a record deal with Capitol Records. Under the unbelievably influential label, he released his first new single on March 12, 2008 called “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It.” His country stardom skyrocketed immediately after the single.

Since then, Rucker has six number one hits on the country charts. Although his journey is a tough one, he’s come out on the other side with an impressive career, thus far.

Rucker and McEntire are going to be hosting the Country Music Awards show this year together.