IN: Rucker was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, where his family history goes back generations. He lives in Charleston with his wife and three children. His single mother, Carolyn, a nurse at Medical University of South Carolina, raised him with his three sisters and two brothers. According to Rucker, his father was never around, and Rucker saw him only before church on Sundays.

Rucker has been the lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish since its formation in 1986. He met fellow band members Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, and Dean Felber while attending the University of South Carolina. Bryan heard Rucker singing in the shower, and the two became a duo, playing R.E.M. covers at a local venue. They later recruited Felber and finally Sonefeld joined in 1989. As a member of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker has recorded six studio albums: Cracked Rear View - 1994, Fairweather Johnson - 1996, Musical Chairs - 1998, Scattered, Smothered & Covered - 2000, Hootie & the Blowfish and Looking for Lucky - 2005, also charting within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 six times. All six albums feature songs that Rucker, Bryan and Felber wrote. As the frontman, Rucker began to be called simply "Hootie" in the media, though the band title combines the nicknames of his college friends. Before his rise to fame, he lived in the basement of the Sigma Phi Epsilon house at the University of South Carolina, attempting to launch his career through the college bar scene.  Rucker's signature contribution to the band is his baritone voice, which Rolling Stone has called "ingratiating," TIME has called "low, gruff, [and] charismatic," and Entertainment Weekly has characterized as a "barrelhouse growl." Rucker said they "flipped" the formula of the all black band with a white frontman, like Frank Sinatra performing with Count Basie. Musically, he has sometimes been criticized or spoofed for not being "black enough". Saturday Night Live ran a sketch of Tim Meadows playing Rucker leading beer-drinking, white fraternity members in a counter-march to Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March. He also received death threats for singing the Hootie song "Drowning," a protest song against the flying of the Confederate flag above the South Carolina statehouse.  Shortly after gaining a measure of fame, Felber and Rucker (who consider themselves best friends) moved into an apartment in Columbia, South Carolina. With Rucker's recognition as the frontman of a successful band came increased opportunities. In October 1995, he was asked to sing the national anthem at the World Series. Frank Sinatra invited him to sing at his 80th birthday party; he sang "The Lady Is a Tramp." That same week, he made a voice cameo in an episode of the sitcom Friends. He also joined Nanci Griffith on the song "Gulf Coast Highway" for her 1997 album Blue Roses from the Moons, and sang backing vocals on Radney Foster's 1999 album See What You Want to See. He encouraged Atlantic Records to agree to a deal with Edwin McCain and made a guest appearance on McCain's debut album, Honor Among Thieves.  In regard to the future of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker was quoted by CBS news as stating in late 2011, "I don't think we'll ever break up totally. We're Hootie & the Blowfish. ... We'll make another record and do another tour someday. I don't know when, but it will happen. There's one more in us."
QUESTION: Who are the other members of the band?
IN: Miguel Indurain Larraya (Spanish pronunciation: [mi'gel indu'rain la'raja]; born 16 July 1964) is a retired Spanish road racing cyclist. Indurain won five consecutive Tours de France from 1991 to 1995, the fourth, and last, to win five times.

He also won the Criterium du Dauphine Libere in 1996.  Indurain aimed for a sixth victory in the 1996 Tour, but suffered from the beginning. He came seventh in the prologue. After bronchitis in a cold and wet first week, he lost time from stage seven. He said that, on the Cormet de Roseland on 6 July, "my legs started to feel odd but, because the speed of the group wasn't very high, I didn't take much notice. I even imagined attacking at the foot of the Arcs climbs." He dropped out of the group and lost three minutes in three kilometres. Race referees penalised him 20 seconds for accepting a bottle of drink in the last kilometre. He said the 20 seconds were nothing compared to the minute he would have lost had he not taken the bottle. He later said he would stop racing. The Dane Bjarne Riis won and his teammate Jan Ullrich finished second. Indurain finished 11th and, in a stage passing through his hometown and ending in Pamplona, he finished 19th, eight minutes behind the stage winner.  He won the individual time trial in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, where professionals competed for the first time.  In September 1996 Indurain rode the Vuelta a Espana at the insistence of his team. He dropped out unexpectedly on the Mirador del Fito, 30 km (19 mi) from the end of the stage to Covadonga. Relations with his team manager, Jose-Miguel Echavarri, had been difficult since an aborted attempt on the hour record in Colombia in October 1995. The two no longer speak.
QUESTION: Why did he suffer?
IN: O-Town is an American boy band formed from the first season of the MTV-produced reality television series Making the Band in 2000. As of 2015 the group consists of Erik-Michael Estrada, Trevor Penick, Jacob Underwood, and Dan Miller. The most popular line up also included Ashley Parker Angel, who refused to participate in the 2013 reunion. Ikaika Kahoano was originally part of the band but replaced by Miller after dropping out of the group.

The members of O-Town moved on to solo careers. The most successful member of the group has been Ashley Parker Angel, who was signed to Universal's Blackground Records, and also given his own reality show on MTV, There and Back. Released in 2006, Ashley's solo debut album was heavily promoted, but did not achieve solid sales numbers. In January 2007, he began playing the role of Link Larkin in the Broadway production of Hairspray. Ex-bandmate, Trevor Penick, now professionally known as "Tre Scott", was signed to Mach 1 Music, and worked with established industry producer Eddie Galan. The other band members retained a fanbase and had success in their own right, as evidenced by their Myspace profiles. Erik stayed in the music business and went on to collaborate and co-write songs for other artists. Jacob Underwood went on to start his own country band "Jacobs Loc".  Back in January 2011, rumors were swirling that a reunion was in the works for the band. TMZ reported that Erik, Trevor, Dan & Jacob have returned to the studio to record the follow-up to O2, however, it was confirmed that Ashley Parker Angel declined the offer from the guys. He told TMZ in a following article his explanation. "O-Town was one of the greatest chapters of my life, so when the idea of a reunion was brought to me, of course I was intrigued. However I have made the decision not to be a part of an O-Town reunion. It was a difficult decision, but ultimately necessary to move on with the next chapter of my career."  He has, however, given the guys his blessing for them to reunite without him. When interviewed about his rejection, Erik said that the guys eventually come to terms with it, but admitted "I would just think he would want to come on board and be a part of it ... but he doesn't and that's cool."  The remaining guys continued to pursue the reunion over the next few years, keeping details very private.
QUESTION:
Did Trevor release any songs?