Darius Rucker Credits Mom, Wife For Career Success

Darius Rucker has had two successful careers, both as the lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish, and as a solo country artist. But the South Carolina native says he probably wouldn't have had any of his career achievements if not for his mother, Carolyn, who raised Rucker and his five siblings by herself.

"My mom was just always great," Rucker boasts. "She was a nurse and she worked a lot. She took a lot of overtime and stuff to make sure we could live basically, but she always just so supportive, ever since I was a kid. I was always a music kid. Growing up in an African-American neighborhood, I was never that guy who was gonna be pigeon-holed to let people say I could only listen to this and I could only do this, because I was African-American.

"She always supported whatever I wanted to do, whatever I wanted to listen to; wherever I wanted to go, she always had my back," continues Rucker. "Going to college and everything, she was my biggest supporter and never let my brothers and sisters knock me down or try to tell me I can't do this or that. All of my success comes because my mother was always in my corner."

Rucker also credits the other woman in his life, his wife Beth, with giving him the stability he needs when the demands of his career seem overwhelming.

"I thank her every day for staying with me and being the strong woman she is, because with Hootie & the Blowfish, I could be gone for three months and then I'd come home for two days and then I'd be gone again for a month, and she put up with all that crap," recalls Rucker.
"[Beth] and country music saved my life."

The Grand Ole Opry member had such strong feelings for his now-wife that he told Beth early on he wanted to spend his life with her.

"I told her I was going to marry her on our first date," Rucker says. "Beth's a strong woman. It takes a strong woman to be married to a musician, especially a musician who was drinking and partying as hard as I was, and I think life for us is where we are now. It took a long time for us to get to where we are now, and we say to each other all the time, 'I love us. I love our family. I love us.'"

Rucker will head out later this summer on a co-headlining Summer Plays On Tour with Lady Antebellum. Dates can be found on his website.

Photo Credit: Instagram/dariusrucker