DARIUS RUCKER Back To Then (Hidden Beach Recordings) Rating: NN Rating: NN
However sick Darius Rucker may be of having people call him Hootie, he’s now putting himself at risk of audiences asking him, “Where’s your Blowfish?” since he decided to go solo. The twist with Back To Then is that the jam-band celeb is trying to recast himself as an R&B smoothie, sort of a male Jill Scott. In fact, he hired Scott’s A Touch of Jazz posse to produce the recording, which wasn’t such a bad idea. However, letting them also co-write the songs was a mistake, since most of the tunes come off like sappy Boyz II Men cast-offs. Not the sort of thing Hootie & the Blowfish followers were waiting for.