Pop-rocker-turned-country star Darius Rucker was spotted filming a new music video in downtown Charleston today (Wed. July 28). Local writer Olivia Pool, editor of Charleston Art Magazine and a contributor to The Post & Courier, posted a brief report and a snapshot on her Facebook and blog page: “Darius Rucker is filming his video right outside of our Gillon Street office. We’re being forced to listen to the same 60 seconds of his song over and over … but it’s still exciting!”
A small camera and audio crew followed Rucker as he strolled along the Gillon Street cobblestones (between Prioleau and East Bay streets).
Rucker’s forthcoming solo album Charleston, SC 1966 will be released on Oct. 12. It the highly anticipated follow-up to his country breakthrough, Learn to Live, which sold more than 1.4 million copies.
“I don’t think it’s going to be light-years different,” Rucker said of the new album in a recent press release. “I don’t think we set out to reinvent the wheel or do a new sound. I think this record is more of an expansion of the last record than anything else. It’s like picking up where the last record left off.” The album’s title is a reference to his hometown, the year of his birth, and a tribute to veteran roots/country songwriter Radney Foster’s first solo album, Del Rio, TX 1959.
The Charleston native spent much of the spring and summer touring United States, Canada, and Europe with country superstar Brad Paisley on the H2O World Tour (presented by Chevy). Rucker heads out west this week for concerts in the Dakotas before hooking back up with Paisley in Texas next week. The H2O World Tour winds its way back to the Carolinas next month, with concerts at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Charlotte on Fri. Aug. 27 and at the Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion in Raleigh on Sat. Aug. 28.
Rucker will leave the H2O Tour briefly when he heads back to Charleston for a show on Daniel Island with his longtime band, Hootie & The Blowfish. Their annual Homegrown Concert at the Family Circle Stadium is solid for Wed. Aug. 11. The event will raise money for the Hootie & The Blowfish Foundation, a private nonprofit organization that funds music programs at S.C. schools.
Visit hootie.com and dariusrucker.com for more info on tour dates and recordings.
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