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Only Wanna Be with You: The Inside Story of Hootie & the Blowfish
In 1985, Mark Bryan heard Darius Rucker singing in a dorm shower at the University of South Carolina and asked him to form a band. For the next eight years, Hootie & the Blowfish--completed by bassist Dean Felber and drummer Soni Sonefeld--played every frat house, roadhouse, and rock club in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast, becoming one of the biggest independent acts in the region. In Only Wanna Be with You, Tim Sommer, the ultimate insider who signed Hootie to Atlantic Records, pulls back the curtain on a band that defied record-industry odds to break into the mainstream by playing hacky sack music in the age of grunge. He chronicles the band's indie days; the chart-topping success--and near-cancelation--of their major-label debut, cracked rear view; the year of Hootie (1995) when the album reached no. 1, the Only Wanna Be with You music video collaboration with ESPN's SportsCenter became a sensation, and the band inspired a plotline on the TV show Friends; the lean years from the late 1990s through the early 2000s; Darius Rucker's history-making rise in country music; and one of the most remarkable comeback stories of the century. Featuring extensive new interviews with the band members, some of their most famous fans, and stories from the recording studio, tour bus, and golf course, this book is a must-listen for Hootie lovers and music buffs.
296 pages, Hardcover
Published April 5, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
May 9, 2022
10 stars🌟
It’s not an understatement for me to say that I would not be the person I am today if it wasn’t for Hootie & the blowfish. They were the first band that I ever fell in love with and I never fell out of love with. They are deeply embedded in my ❤️. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect with this book - other than obviously I was going to buy it and read it. I was completely blown away by the level of detail and research Tim Sommer put into this story. It was a travel through time behind the scenes look at my favorite four guys that I didn’t realize I was missing. I’ve read a lot about this band and there was so much in this story I didn’t know- and so much that brought back so many memories of times in my life. I didn’t entirely agree with Tim’s assessment of their albums (Fairweather Johnson is my favorite hootie album) but good thing everyone can have their own opinion. 😄 This book is a treasure and I can’t recommend it enough- it’s worth the read by anyone who wants an incredible story.
It’s not an understatement for me to say that I would not be the person I am today if it wasn’t for Hootie & the blowfish. They were the first band that I ever fell in love with and I never fell out of love with. They are deeply embedded in my ❤️. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect with this book - other than obviously I was going to buy it and read it. I was completely blown away by the level of detail and research Tim Sommer put into this story. It was a travel through time behind the scenes look at my favorite four guys that I didn’t realize I was missing. I’ve read a lot about this band and there was so much in this story I didn’t know- and so much that brought back so many memories of times in my life. I didn’t entirely agree with Tim’s assessment of their albums (Fairweather Johnson is my favorite hootie album) but good thing everyone can have their own opinion. 😄 This book is a treasure and I can’t recommend it enough- it’s worth the read by anyone who wants an incredible story.
June 25, 2022
Hootie & the Blowfish occupies a unique place in rock history. It’s probably the most popular act, at least of the modern era, to have become a complete joke in only a few years. In scoring a ubiquitous presence upon its major label debut, Hootie really had nowhere to go but down.
Tim Sommer does an adequate job of tracing the most convenient interpretation of the band’s career. Sommer was a label talent scout who helped discover Hootie, and his close working association with the band, during most of its tenure at Atlantic, gives him a decent view of how it played out. What he lacks is any real perspective. From the moment the second album “failed,” everyone needed some kind of explanation. But I doubt anyone is very interested in the simplest one, that as of 1996 there wasn’t room in the popular culture for Hootie anymore. And that’s pretty much it.
Hootie’s popularity, how the first album blew up so big, is competently spelled out in these pages. The American pop landscape was rapidly expanding, from the late night wars between Letterman and Leno to the last major era of the sitcom as led by Friends, both of which featured Hootie to everyone’s benefit. A music video featuring the emerging phenomenon of ESPN certainly didn’t hurt, although how it made the band look (as a bunch of goofs) probably only fed into all the concerns that Hootie was as uncool as everyone had already assumed.
But Hootie was cool, in a way that still somehow is invisible in pop culture: the college scene as it’s been for the past forty years. Hootie was always called a “bar band,” but the band formed in college and mastered the art of being a college band. Classic rock still gives the image of garage bands formed in high school. Hootie came together out of a scene that obsessed over small acts as much as major ones. Sommer rightfully emphasizes how these were guys who lived and breathed music. They patterned their ideas of success not on, say, the Beatles, but some outfit called Johnny Quest, out of their very left field origins in the music scene of their native South Carolina.
The result in their music very often eschewed the expectations of…everyone. Rock music, and not just the grunge phenomenon playing out in the backdrop of Hootie’s rise, but the whole history of it, tends to feed on itself, the successful acts. The Beatles, for instance, adored Buddy Holly. But Hootie just loved music.
And Sommer tends to be dismissive of music from the band’s later albums. His interest rapidly diminishes after the first one. But his outline of the band’s origins is comprehensive, and clearly his primary interest, as well as reporting on the successful 2019 tour. If you want to know much more than that, this book is only gonna disappoint you.
Someone else will put all this in perspective. And perhaps more people will decide it’s okay to take Hootie seriously.
Tim Sommer does an adequate job of tracing the most convenient interpretation of the band’s career. Sommer was a label talent scout who helped discover Hootie, and his close working association with the band, during most of its tenure at Atlantic, gives him a decent view of how it played out. What he lacks is any real perspective. From the moment the second album “failed,” everyone needed some kind of explanation. But I doubt anyone is very interested in the simplest one, that as of 1996 there wasn’t room in the popular culture for Hootie anymore. And that’s pretty much it.
Hootie’s popularity, how the first album blew up so big, is competently spelled out in these pages. The American pop landscape was rapidly expanding, from the late night wars between Letterman and Leno to the last major era of the sitcom as led by Friends, both of which featured Hootie to everyone’s benefit. A music video featuring the emerging phenomenon of ESPN certainly didn’t hurt, although how it made the band look (as a bunch of goofs) probably only fed into all the concerns that Hootie was as uncool as everyone had already assumed.
But Hootie was cool, in a way that still somehow is invisible in pop culture: the college scene as it’s been for the past forty years. Hootie was always called a “bar band,” but the band formed in college and mastered the art of being a college band. Classic rock still gives the image of garage bands formed in high school. Hootie came together out of a scene that obsessed over small acts as much as major ones. Sommer rightfully emphasizes how these were guys who lived and breathed music. They patterned their ideas of success not on, say, the Beatles, but some outfit called Johnny Quest, out of their very left field origins in the music scene of their native South Carolina.
The result in their music very often eschewed the expectations of…everyone. Rock music, and not just the grunge phenomenon playing out in the backdrop of Hootie’s rise, but the whole history of it, tends to feed on itself, the successful acts. The Beatles, for instance, adored Buddy Holly. But Hootie just loved music.
And Sommer tends to be dismissive of music from the band’s later albums. His interest rapidly diminishes after the first one. But his outline of the band’s origins is comprehensive, and clearly his primary interest, as well as reporting on the successful 2019 tour. If you want to know much more than that, this book is only gonna disappoint you.
Someone else will put all this in perspective. And perhaps more people will decide it’s okay to take Hootie seriously.
May 27, 2022
I don't dislike Hootie and the Blowfish, but I wouldn't consider myself a "fan". However, I totally enjoyed this book! A nostalgic trip for anyone who grew up Gen-X. I was navigating the music scene in the late 80s and early 90s as a college music student myself and remember all too well how we had to make cassettes of our music, flyers, and other promotional items had to be done without a computer or cell phone, and we literally had to call up all our friends on the phone or send post cards to get them to come to our gigs. The early 90s was a great era for music that was raw and real. I really enjoyed Tim Sommer's tale about this band. I listened to it on audiobook and the narrator did a great job as well. If you like memoirs about musicians, this is one to read.
August 19, 2024
If you were a teenager in the 1990s, there’s a good chance you owned (or knew someone who owned) a copy of Hootie & the Blowfish’s debut album, cracked rear view. (That’s right, no capital letters. PSA to any Swifties reading this—artists were using lowercase letters for album titles long before folklore.) At a time when record labels were scouring the pacific northwest to sign as many flannel-clad, angsty, Nirvana and Pearl Jam wannabes as they could find, Atlantic Records took a chance on something very different—a southern rock group with catchy, upbeat songs like “Hold My Hand” and “Only Wanna Be with You.”
The gamble paid off. The band sold 13 million copies in 1995 alone and went on to sell 21 million in the United States. That’s more than Metallica’s Black Album, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, and the top grossing albums from artists in multiple genres, including Whitney Houston, Shania Twain, Boston, Journey, Backstreet Boys, Alanis Morissette, Nirvana, and Bruce Springsteen. In fact, as of this writing, cracked rear view is the tenth best-selling album of all time in the United States. The band won two Grammys in 1996.
Tim Sommer—a long-time music journalist and former Atlantic Records talent scout who signed Hootie & the Blowfish—chronicles the band’s meteoric rise in the early 1990s and its gradual (and unfortunate) decline with each successive album. Based on extensive interviews with each band member (Darius Rucker, Mark Bryan, Jim Sonefeld, and Dean Felber) and others who had a front row seat to the band’s initial twelve-year run, Sommer provides an entertaining, behind-the-scenes account of the rise, fall, and comeback of one of the more underappreciated bands in American music. Here’s a sampling of some of my favorites:
• Studio musician John Nau played all the piano tracks for cracked rear view in one take without ever hearing the songs before
• Every member of Hootie & the Blowfish received song writing credit for every song the band put out their first decade together so they could get an equal share of the publishing revenue
• An executive at Atlantic Records thought cracked rear view, was awful—“unreleaseable”—the first time he listened to it. The album never would have seen the light of day if the band’s talent manager at Atlantic hadn’t gone over his boss’s head and convinced someone higher up to release the album
• Bob Dylan almost sued the band for using five lines from his song “Idiot Wind” in “I Only Wanna Be With You” (“I shot a man named Gray, took his wife to Italy, She inherited a million bucks and when she died, it came to me. I can’t help it if I’m lucky.”) The band’s lawyer got permission to release the song on an indie label but never got permission for a major record label release because the band was too small at the time. They paid $350,000 to keep the song on the album.
• Atlantic almost dropped Hootie & the Blowfish (again) when cracked rear view was charting in the 160s. But David Letterman happened to hear “Hold My Hand” on the radio and immediately asked his talent manager to book the band. The appearance had an immediate effect on sales, catapulting it into the top 50 almost overnight.
Hootie & the Blowfish's success in the mid 1990s unfortunately sowed the seeds of its decline. Overexposed, the band attracted more than its fair share of critics and became an object of mockery (think the Nickelback of the late 1990s). Fairweather Johnson (1996), Musical Chairs (1998), and Hootie & the Blowfish (2003) were all viewed as commercial flops. Fairweather Johnson sold 3 million copies, Musical Chairs just over 1 million, and Hootie & the Blowfish sold a little more than 500,000. I love those albums – I spent a lot of high school listening to them over, and over, and over again. After finishing the book, I spent a day at work listening to the entire Hootie catalogue, and the music has aged remarkably well. As Sommer's points out, a lot of music critics agree with me. On the eve of a Hootie & the Blowfish reunion tour, Dave Homes published an article in Esquire titled, "How Our Cruelty Killed Hootie & the Blowfish and Damaged Our Souls." He thinks we owe the band an apology.
Sommer’s fast-paced, engaging, and intimate portrait of the band is well worth the read. I highly recommend it. And while you’re at it, give a listen to these hidden gems from the band’s later work (or deep tracks from cracked rear view) that didn’t get a lot of play on the radio:
• Space
• Go and Tell Him
• Half a Day Ahead
• Silly Little Pop Song
• Michelle Post
• Home Again
• Not Even the Trees
• Goodbye
• Hey Sister Pretty
• Deeper Side
• Wishing
• All That I Believe
• Waltz into Me
• Bluesy Revolution
• Tootie
• Honeyscrew
• Earth Stopped Cold at Dawn
The gamble paid off. The band sold 13 million copies in 1995 alone and went on to sell 21 million in the United States. That’s more than Metallica’s Black Album, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, and the top grossing albums from artists in multiple genres, including Whitney Houston, Shania Twain, Boston, Journey, Backstreet Boys, Alanis Morissette, Nirvana, and Bruce Springsteen. In fact, as of this writing, cracked rear view is the tenth best-selling album of all time in the United States. The band won two Grammys in 1996.
Tim Sommer—a long-time music journalist and former Atlantic Records talent scout who signed Hootie & the Blowfish—chronicles the band’s meteoric rise in the early 1990s and its gradual (and unfortunate) decline with each successive album. Based on extensive interviews with each band member (Darius Rucker, Mark Bryan, Jim Sonefeld, and Dean Felber) and others who had a front row seat to the band’s initial twelve-year run, Sommer provides an entertaining, behind-the-scenes account of the rise, fall, and comeback of one of the more underappreciated bands in American music. Here’s a sampling of some of my favorites:
• Studio musician John Nau played all the piano tracks for cracked rear view in one take without ever hearing the songs before
• Every member of Hootie & the Blowfish received song writing credit for every song the band put out their first decade together so they could get an equal share of the publishing revenue
• An executive at Atlantic Records thought cracked rear view, was awful—“unreleaseable”—the first time he listened to it. The album never would have seen the light of day if the band’s talent manager at Atlantic hadn’t gone over his boss’s head and convinced someone higher up to release the album
• Bob Dylan almost sued the band for using five lines from his song “Idiot Wind” in “I Only Wanna Be With You” (“I shot a man named Gray, took his wife to Italy, She inherited a million bucks and when she died, it came to me. I can’t help it if I’m lucky.”) The band’s lawyer got permission to release the song on an indie label but never got permission for a major record label release because the band was too small at the time. They paid $350,000 to keep the song on the album.
• Atlantic almost dropped Hootie & the Blowfish (again) when cracked rear view was charting in the 160s. But David Letterman happened to hear “Hold My Hand” on the radio and immediately asked his talent manager to book the band. The appearance had an immediate effect on sales, catapulting it into the top 50 almost overnight.
Hootie & the Blowfish's success in the mid 1990s unfortunately sowed the seeds of its decline. Overexposed, the band attracted more than its fair share of critics and became an object of mockery (think the Nickelback of the late 1990s). Fairweather Johnson (1996), Musical Chairs (1998), and Hootie & the Blowfish (2003) were all viewed as commercial flops. Fairweather Johnson sold 3 million copies, Musical Chairs just over 1 million, and Hootie & the Blowfish sold a little more than 500,000. I love those albums – I spent a lot of high school listening to them over, and over, and over again. After finishing the book, I spent a day at work listening to the entire Hootie catalogue, and the music has aged remarkably well. As Sommer's points out, a lot of music critics agree with me. On the eve of a Hootie & the Blowfish reunion tour, Dave Homes published an article in Esquire titled, "How Our Cruelty Killed Hootie & the Blowfish and Damaged Our Souls." He thinks we owe the band an apology.
Sommer’s fast-paced, engaging, and intimate portrait of the band is well worth the read. I highly recommend it. And while you’re at it, give a listen to these hidden gems from the band’s later work (or deep tracks from cracked rear view) that didn’t get a lot of play on the radio:
• Space
• Go and Tell Him
• Half a Day Ahead
• Silly Little Pop Song
• Michelle Post
• Home Again
• Not Even the Trees
• Goodbye
• Hey Sister Pretty
• Deeper Side
• Wishing
• All That I Believe
• Waltz into Me
• Bluesy Revolution
• Tootie
• Honeyscrew
• Earth Stopped Cold at Dawn
August 25, 2022
If you were in high school or college roughly between 1990 and 1997, this book will be like a warm bath of musical nostalgia, especially if you are from the Southeastern part of the US. The chapters leading up to Tim Sommer's involvement actually read better than the ones he shares in the first person, but still, well worth the trip down memory lane.
My favorite quote is from Rob Light (booking agent/advisor): "Music defines your youth. It always has, it always will. Your favorite bands when you are seventeen to twenty-five become the soundtrack of your life. Now, that doesn't mean that you won't like music when you're thirty, or you won't find new things when you're thirty. And it doesn't mean you didn't like music when you were twelve. But that junior year of high school to the end of college is the soundtrack of your life, and that music has an impact that is indefinable. You can't put it into words. Twenty years later, twenty years after college, when you're now in your forties, when you've had a couple of kids, when everything about your life has taken on a different look - good bad, or indifferent - all you want is to feel what you felt when you were eighteen, and the only thing that really takes you back there is music."
My favorite quote is from Rob Light (booking agent/advisor): "Music defines your youth. It always has, it always will. Your favorite bands when you are seventeen to twenty-five become the soundtrack of your life. Now, that doesn't mean that you won't like music when you're thirty, or you won't find new things when you're thirty. And it doesn't mean you didn't like music when you were twelve. But that junior year of high school to the end of college is the soundtrack of your life, and that music has an impact that is indefinable. You can't put it into words. Twenty years later, twenty years after college, when you're now in your forties, when you've had a couple of kids, when everything about your life has taken on a different look - good bad, or indifferent - all you want is to feel what you felt when you were eighteen, and the only thing that really takes you back there is music."
July 6, 2022
Of course I read this hoping for hot gossip and insider details on the band members' personal lives, and potential references to people I knew in college, but I came away with a better understanding of how the music industry works (or worked, I should say, back in the early 1990s) and how, exactly, Hootie & the Blowfish produced one of the best-selling albums of all time. Sommer, who started writing about music for Trouser Press as a teen, and was the first American to interview U2, has an engaging style, full of humor. And he asked good questions. He got Darius Rucker to talk about race, and he also addressed the political content of some of Hootie's songs.
My only quibble is that there wasn't an index, which is a little surprising since this book was published by a university press. Nevertheless, it's a solid and entertaining account of a band that will down in history.
My only quibble is that there wasn't an index, which is a little surprising since this book was published by a university press. Nevertheless, it's a solid and entertaining account of a band that will down in history.
May 29, 2022
DNF.
I really dislike it when an author inserts himself into the story, and this author is a super fan boi, who thinks he’s part of the story. “Because of xx and me.” “Because I and ….” way too many times. The author def thinks the bands breaking and success has to do with him.
Also didn’t care for the flowery way the author writes and when an event (even minor) happens, he has quotes from several members of the band. He knows the band, but it reads as though someone downloaded every word any of the band members ever said, and cut and pasted together to form the book.
I really dislike it when an author inserts himself into the story, and this author is a super fan boi, who thinks he’s part of the story. “Because of xx and me.” “Because I and ….” way too many times. The author def thinks the bands breaking and success has to do with him.
Also didn’t care for the flowery way the author writes and when an event (even minor) happens, he has quotes from several members of the band. He knows the band, but it reads as though someone downloaded every word any of the band members ever said, and cut and pasted together to form the book.
August 9, 2022
I've been a Hootie and the Blowfish fan since I first heard them on the radio back in 1994, so was really looking forward to reading this book. As a fan, some of the things in the book I already knew about, but there are a LOT of things I didn't know. Lots of stuff from the early college days through to their Group Therapy Tour in 2019 (which was great). If you're a casual fan, you'll appreciate this book, and if you're a True Fan Johnson, you'll love this book!
August 27, 2024
This was a well written, pretty comprehensive telling of the story of Bootie & the Blowfish, and cracked rear view. It's hard to believe that a lot wasn't left out since the author was the person who signed them to their first big contract and his interests were and probably largely still are tied to theirs. Still, I enjoyed the journey from the very first time Mark and Darius met until the release of their newest album.
May 27, 2022
Great look at the early days of one of my favorite bands. From their inception through their third album in 1998, this biography is super in depth. It falls off a bit in detail after that time period but does give some interesting insights, including a nice chapter detailing Darius Rucker’s solo stardom in country music.
August 9, 2022
This is a great behind the scenes look at the entire history of Hootie and the Blowfish. It's informative and dense and provides a great story of the band, the people in the band and behind the band, and the music industry in general. I know way more about Hootie and the Blowfish than before I read this book!
February 12, 2024
detailed history, the Hootie story. I liked it but if you aren't into music and H&BF you'll probably be bored. I'm not a huge Hootie fan but wanted to read this since me and Darius both live in charleston and love playing and singing on stage. I don't know him but we have mutual friends. maybe someday we'll hang and jam.
April 19, 2025
Strong book. I really liked this and would recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of the band or of their music. It goes in depth with what happened to the band and gives great detail about them. I read Darius Rucker’s book first while I won’t say this is as good as that it’s still a strong book in its own right.
May 30, 2022
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book, but it still surprised me. The author shares the inside story- from a music business standpoint. The book made me nostalgic for going to the store when new albums dropped- and makes me hope Hootie goes on tour again.
June 4, 2022
Highly recommended. I've loved Hootie and the Blowfish pretty much since I heard the first note of "Let Her Cry" many years ago. So, obviously, I devoured this book. An amazing and fascinating chronicle of a band that made a massive impact on music in the early-to-mid 90s.
June 13, 2023
Only Wanna Be With You has a very heavy music industry approach. It's not necessarily bad and is fitting for their story. The book just isn't as focused on the personal narrative/backstory of the band members or on the songwriting process as many books of this nature.
July 5, 2023
YOU AND MEEEEEE
Seriously though. Don’t. Ever. Go up to Hootie and call him Hootie. He will either beat the crap out of you, insult you, or leave. He don’t play around he doesn’t consider himself Hootie anymore. Keep that online.
Seriously though. Don’t. Ever. Go up to Hootie and call him Hootie. He will either beat the crap out of you, insult you, or leave. He don’t play around he doesn’t consider himself Hootie anymore. Keep that online.
April 29, 2024
I enjoyed the book from cover to cover. It included a lot of behind the scenes stories that were new to even the most diehard of fans. The in depth perspectives from all members of the band and those closest to them painted a vivid picture of their experiences.
June 12, 2022
Loved it. As one who saw the shows in the years they are talking about, including the "comeback" Imperfect Circle anniversary tour and 2 Darius solo shows, this book was very insightful.
June 21, 2022
Such a fun read. It was great to see all the behind the scenes of where the band was started. I am a huge Hootie fan. But I think even if you do t know much about the band you would enjoy this book.
June 7, 2024
Pretty good. Between 3.5 and 4 but I’ll go with 4 because go cocks.
November 8, 2024
For someone who does not listen to this band that much I enjoyed this quite a bit
July 6, 2025
I learned a ton about the band and a precious time in my life. Also a great primer if you are interested in how the music industry works.
May 31, 2022
Exactly what it says on the tin. A thorough history of a classic band. If you care about them, you'll enjoy it. If you don't, you probably won't.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews