WILMINGTON — As part of his 20-city “Songs of Summer Tour,” Darius Rucker is coming to Live Oak Bank Pavilion in Downtown Wilmington this summer.
With George Bird and Austin Williams, Rucker will perform June 19. Tickets go on sale Friday, Feb. 27, 10 a.m., here.
“For me, it’s not summer if we’re not playing music outdoors,” Rucker said in a release Tuesday announcing his tour. “When I think of the concerts I love attending, it’s the people, the hits and the hot summer air … there’s nothing that compares, so ‘Songs of Summer’ in a lot of ways is my nod to being in that moment together.”
Rucker started his career in music in the mid-’80s as founder of Hootie and the Blowfish. The band, consisting of his friends from University of South Carolina. charted the Billboard 100 with numerous hits throughout the mid-’90s. The group released six albums throughout the years, with its debut “Cracked Rear View” charting No. 1 in the U.S., Canada and New Zealand.
A South Carolinian, Rucker has since transitioned to a solo country music career — also the first Black artist to chart in the genre since Charley Pride in the mid-’80s. Rucker has released eight albums since 2002, including his latest, 2023’s “Carolyn’s Boy.” It’s a tribute to his mother who passed away in the early 1990s before Rucker’s career took off.
Rucker has won numerous Grammys, for Best New Artist and Pop Artist in the mid-’90s with the Blowfish, and for country music’s Best New Artist, Best Country Solo Performance and British CMA International Album of the Year.
He won the 2023 Country Music Awards Foundation Humanitarian Award for his commitment to using music to uplift others and give back. He frequently hosts charity concerts and benefits, including with the World Golf Foundation’s The First Tee Program and raised $4.5 million to go into public school systems in South Carolina via the Hootie & The Blowfish Foundation. He also has raised more than $5 million for St. Jude’s Children Research and helped co-chair a capital campaign that generated $150 million to help build the new MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital in his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina.
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