With the rich, bluesy vocals of Darius Rucker and gleeful harmonies of guitarist Mark Bryan, bassist Dean Felber and drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld, Hootie & the Blowfish have sold over 25 million records worldwide to date after their infectious melodies hit the airwaves in 1994 with hits such as “Hold My Hand,” “Let Her Cry” and “Only Wanna Be With You.”
In 2019, Hootie & the Blowfish made a triumphant return with the release of highly-anticipated album Imperfect Circle, their first in nearly 15 years. Named one of the “biggest albums to hear this season” by Entertainment Weekly and highlighted in The New York Times’ fall music preview, the album arrives on the heels of the band’s critically-acclaimed, sold-out Group Therapy Tour that played to nearly three-quarters of a million fans across the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Ireland this year.
As Billboard praised in a feature chronicling the final leg of the tour in Europe, the album encourages “good times and easy-to-love music, sure, but also an incrementally more just and inclusive world for everyone — black, white and otherwise,” also noting that “Hootie now occupies an anomalous cultural space, residing on both Spotify’s Fresh Country and All Out 90s playlists as once-severe critical backlash has receded into general warm nostalgia [and] the band is seemingly at home in both realms.”
