Darius Rucker: Songs Of Summer Tour 2026

Flytjendur

• 

  Darius Rucker

  Darius Rucker first attained multi-platinum status in the music

  industry as former lead singer and rhythm guitarist of GRAMMY award-winning Hootie & the Blowfish.

  Since re-introducing himself to the world as a country artist, he has released four consecutive albums to top the Billboard Country albums chart and earned a whole new legion of fans.

  Rucker’s first two country albums,

  Learn To Live and Charleston, SC 1966 produced five No. 1 singles including “Come Back Song,” “This,” “Alright,” “It Won’t Be Like This For Long” and “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” "—and earned him the New Artist award from the Country Music Association.

  A few events in the last couple of years may have helped him dig

  even deeper into his country roots, even in the face of new trends that have been pushing the music into a more pop direction.

  First was his induction into the Grand Ole Opry in 2012, after Brad Paisley broke the news to Rucker in the middle of a show.

  Then from his 2013 album True Believers came his triumphant version of “Wagon Wheel,” the Old Crow Medicine Show song initially based on a sketch by Bob Dylan (with an assist from his tour partners and label mates Lady Antebellum). The song hit No. 1 on the Country charts, and won the GRAMMY Award for Best Country Solo Performance.

  “‘Wagon Wheel’ was one of those great anomalies in a career—you have to just be happy with something like that and go on and try to make another record,” says Rucker. “But it did help me realize that fans really do want country music from me.

  With everything happening in the music, on the radio, ‘Wagon Wheel’ showed that you can still have big hits with real country songs.”

  Following his first Christmas album, Home for the Holidays, he released Southern Style, his fourth studio country album, featuring his most recent No. 1 single “Homegrown Honey,” co-written by Rucker, label mate Charles Kelley of Lady Antebellum and Nathan Chapman.

  Choosing a moniker for his 2016 headlining tour,“Good for a Good Time,” another personal favorite off of Southern Style seemed the perfect choice. “That was what I was looking for,” he says, “a big, old-fashioned, sing-a-long drinking song. I’m older now, I’m a dad, I don’t go out that much. But if it’s a good song, a song I really want to sing, I can still channel the old Darius, the one who’s always ready to party. I think that’s the signature song on the record.”

• 

  Robert Randolph

  There are showstoppers and then there’s Tal Wilkenfeld, who has literally stopped the music world in its tracks on more than one occasion. One of the first times was in 2006 at a memorable 40-minute sit-in performance with the Allman Brothers at New York’s Beacon Theater, in which a 19-year-old Tal was given the stage to perform a 5 minute bass solo during “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” It was part of the audition tape—along with her debut solo album, Transformation—that she sent to Jeff Beck, leading to her next seismic moment: joining Beck for his 2007 Crossroads Guitar Festival, where we see the guitar legend bowing down to Tal while she plays a solo on “Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers” that went viral and made Tal a global phenomenon. Equally impactful was the follow-up Beck recording, Live at Ronnie Scott’s. With the world now watching, Tal would go on to lend her talents to Mick Jagger, Prince, Bob Weir, Eric Clapton, Steven Tyler, Herbie Hancock, Brian Wilson, Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, Todd Rundgren, Toto, Jackson Browne and Hans Zimmer. Returning to her roots as a guitar-playing singer-songwriter growing up in Australia, Tal once again drew the eyes and ears of fans globally when she released her debut vocal album, Love Remains [BMG], in 2019. Universal acclaim came from such outlets as Rolling Stone, Billboard, iHeart Radio and Paste for the record’s rich lyrics and Tal’s unparalleled journey from instrumental force to profound singer-songwriter. She subsequently brought her music to audiences via solo shows and as the opening act for the Who’s U.S. tour. Even the pandemic couldn’t stop Wilkenfeld, as the Prince estate released Welcome 2 America, a riveting trio project for which Tal enlisted drummer Chris Coleman and recorded with the Purple One in 2008, on the heels of her Beck breakout. Post-pandemic, Tal hit the road to continue to share and cultivate the ten gems on Love Remains, while also performing with Incubus on a U.S. tour, JP Saxe and Cory Wong at Bonnaroo and Scary Goldings featuring John Scofield and Larry Goldings at the Newport Jazz Festival.
• 

  Austin Williams

  singer/songwriter Nashville TN Broken Things Break Things EP OUT NOW!