Darius Rucker wins New Artist of the Year at "The 43rd Annual CMA Awards," on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009, live from the Sommet Center in Nashville on the ABC Television Network. Photographer: Donn Jones / CMA.

A certain amount of irony accompanied Darius Rucker’s victory as New Artist of the Year at Wednesday’s 43rd annual CMA Awards. He is, under the Country Music Association’s voting rules, a new artist to the genre, though he’s hardly new to the music business. He experienced the big time before as the lead singer for Hootie + The Blowfish.

Still, he’s done such a good job of reinventing himself that he’s now begun to encounter fans who know nothing of his history. That became clear when he played a concert in Houston. Two women stood throughout the show singing all of his songs verbatim, but when Darius launched into “Let Her Cry,” from the 16-times-platinum Cracked Rear View, they sat down.

“They had no idea what I was playing — no clue what it was!” Darius told The Maryville Daily Times in East Tennessee. “I just laughed. All I could think was, ‘Wow.’ There’s just a whole new generation getting turned on to Learn To Live, I found out that night. But still, it was just funny to me, man. I couldn’t stop looking at them.”

With three No. 1 singles and the CMA victory under his belt, Darius has already exceeded his expectations with the Learn To Live album, though the seeds were sewn a couple decades ago when he first heard the music of Radney Foster and Bill Lloyd while working at a record store in college.

“I was never early — it was so bad that when I was supposed to come in at 1 p.m., my boss would write down one-ish,” he said. “Well, I was watching TV one day in my apartment, and Foster & Lloyd’s video for ‘Crazy Over You’ came on. I remember it was like the first time I saw R.E.M. — it was just huge. I sat there watching that song, and I got up and got dressed and went into work two hours early, because I had to find that song. I probably played it 20 times that day, and from that first day, I realized I could really sing to this music as well.”

Obviously, plenty of other folks agree. In addition to his win at the industry-voted CMAs, Darius is up for the fan-voted American Music Award for Favorite Male Country Artist against Jason Aldean and Keith Urban. The victor will be announced Nov. 22.

ShareThis