GRAMMY Award-winning band Hootie & the Blowfish recognize the sacrifice of military service members and their families as the holiday season approaches, with today’s release of “Won’t Be Home For Christmas” featuring Abigail Hodges. The song written by Hootie & the Blowfish and produced by Jeff Trott is available everywhere now.

Opening with Hodges’ earnest plea – “Dear Santa Claus / I write to you because / I don’t want toys this year / I just want my daddy here” – the duet portrays the dynamic between a young daughter at home and her deployed father, brought to life by lead singer Darius Rucker’s distinct baritone vocals.

“Abigail is actually the daughter of David Hodges, who’s an awesome producer here in Nashville” notes Rucker. “She did a great job of adding that perspective to this song and really bringing the lyrics to life.”

“We feel very fortunate to have the freedom to enjoy the holidays with our families, however we know that isn’t the case for everyone,” adds guitarist Mark Bryan. “Whether they’re deployed overseas or stationed far away from their families, this can be a tough time for military members. We wanted to really pay tribute to that sacrifice and thank these men and women for everything they do to keep us safe.”

Hootie & the Blowfish also recently released “Turn It Up (Walshy Fire Of Major Lazer Remix),” a re-imagined version of the track off their November 2019 album Imperfect Circle – the first new music in nearly 15 years from the Diamond-certified hitmakers, which followed their sold-out, five-country Group Therapy Tour.

For more information, visit www.Hootie.com, and follow on Facebook @hootieandtheblowfish, Twitter @HootieTweets and Instagram @hootieofficial.

About Hootie & the Blowfish 
With the rich, bluesy vocals of Darius Rucker and gleeful harmonies of guitarist Mark Bryan, bassist Dean Felber and drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld, Hootie & the Blowfish have sold over 25 million records worldwide to date after their infectious melodies hit the airwaves in 1994 with hits such as “Hold My Hand,” “Let Her Cry” and “Only Wanna Be With You.”

The quartet met at the University of South Carolina where endless gigs at frat houses and local bars built a major local buzz. Their blend of pop, folk, blues, soul and rock made them hard to pigeonhole, but easily accessible to anyone who loved good music.

Atlantic Records, impressed by their regional draw, signed them and released Cracked Rear View in 1994. The album had been out for six months before the band played on the Late Show with David Letterman which sent sales skyrocketing, eventually landing at No. 1 on the Billboard chart the following spring. Cracked Rear View and the band went on to win two GRAMMY Awards, an MTV Video Music Award, a Billboard Music Award, and multiple People’s Choice Awards. Cracked Rear View went on to earn the band Billboard‘s Band of the Year Award in 1996 and the RIAA’s Diamond Award for sales in excess of 10 million units. Cracked Rear View remains the 7th most certified studio album in music business history.

The band remained a top draw nationwide and released five more albums for Atlantic: Fairweather Johnson, Musical Chairs, Scattered, Smothered & Covered, Hootie & The Blowfish and The Best of Hootie & The Blowfish, as well as Looking For Lucky on their own Sneaky Long Records and LIVE in Charleston, The Homegrown Concert Event DVD and CD. The band took a break from full-time touring in 2007, reuniting annually for a variety of philanthropic events while also pursuing solo projects. 2019 marked the band’s first full-time touring year in over a decade as they embarked on the sold-out Group Therapy Tour in support of Imperfect Circle, released in November 2019 under a new record deal with Universal Music Group.

Diamond-selling hitmakers Hootie & the Blowfish have teamed up with GRAMMY-Award winning producer & DJ Walshy Fire to remix “Turn It Up,” featured on the re-release of their latest album Imperfect Circle, available now.

Best known for his role as part of the EDM trio Major Lazer, Walshy Fire further highlighted the track’s inherent dancehall and reggae influences for a reimagined version of the song praised by NPR’s “Fresh Air” as a “warm contrast to the harshness of a country that’s tense and divided, alluding to the current situation in a mild protest song [which] serves as a reminder that Hootie & the Blowfish were always a little more aware of things than they were given credit for.”

“You can hear the children crying / It’s not safe to go outside / We’re free but we gotta keep our kids alive / Oh, y’all, we can’t let ’em down / Turn it up ’cause I’ve had enough / I wanna feel the love / Ah, come on, turn it up,” lead singer Darius Rucker sings over a bed of horns and an infectious jam.

Initially released in November 2019 following their sold-out, five-country Group Therapy Tour – the band’s first full-time return to the road in over a decade – Imperfect Circle marked the first new music in nearly 15 years from the group The New York Times celebrated as “genuinely excellent… deft, flexible and unflashily skilled” in their June 2019 cover story.

Keen on remembering their musical origins while continuing to forge, Hootie & the Blowfish also recently released their take on the classic “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M., whom the band has credited as a major inspiration since their earliest days at the University of South Carolina.

For more information, visit www.Hootie.com, and follow on Facebook @hootieandtheblowfish, Twitter @HootieTweets and Instagram @hootieofficial.

About Hootie & the Blowfish
With the rich, bluesy vocals of Darius Rucker and gleeful harmonies of guitarist Mark Bryan, bassist Dean Felber and drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld, Hootie & the Blowfish have sold over 25 million records worldwide to date after their infectious melodies hit the airwaves in 1994 with hits such as “Hold My Hand,” Let Her Cry” and “Only Wanna Be With You.”

The quartet met at the University of South Carolina where endless gigs at frat houses and local bars built a major local buzz. Their blend of pop, folk, blues, soul and rock made them hard to pigeonhole, but easily accessible to anyone who loved good music.

Atlantic Records, impressed by their regional draw, signed them and released Cracked Rear View in 1994. The album had been out for six months before the band played on the Late Show with David Letterman which sent sales skyrocketing, eventually landing at No. 1 on the Billboard chart the following spring. Cracked Rear View and the band went on to win two GRAMMY Awards, an MTV Video Music Award, a Billboard Music Award, and multiple People’s Choice Awards. Cracked Rear View went on to earn the band Billboard‘s Band of the Year Award in 1996 and the RIAA’s Diamond Award for sales in excess of 10 million units. Cracked Rear View remains the 5th most certified studio album in music business history.

The band remained a top draw nationwide and released five more albums for Atlantic: Fairweather Johnson, Musical Chairs, Scattered, Smothered & Covered, Hootie & The Blowfish and The Best of Hootie & The Blowfish, as well as Looking For Lucky on their own Sneaky Long Records and LIVE in Charleston, The Homegrown Concert Event DVD and CD. The band took a break from full-time touring in 2007, reuniting annually for a variety of philanthropic events while also pursuing solo projects. 2019 marked the band’s first full-time touring year in over a decade as they embarked on the sold-out Group Therapy Tour in support of Imperfect Circle, released in November 2019 under a new record deal with Universal Music Group.

“When we were cutting our teeth as a band, almost every night fans would hear us on stage covering R.E.M.,” shares Hootie & the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker. “‘Losing My Religion’ is a song that when you first listen to it, you can feel the struggle, the back-and-forth. Plus, Peter Buck wrote the song on mandolin, and being in the south, it’s a lot of fun to perform live. We’re releasing it as a cover with Amazon Music as I think it’s still as thrilling to people today as it was when it was first released.”

Amazon Music Unlimited listeners can find the track on “Fresh Country” and Prime Music listeners can find it on “Certified Country.” Or find it on the Amazon music app and on Alexa-enabled devices by asking “Alexa play the Amazon Original by Hootie & The Blowfish.”

Hootie and the Blowfish are climbing the country charts with their single, “Hold On,” which was written by Chris Stapleton and Jim Beavers, is the from the band’s album, Imperfect Circle.

“The one thing we figured out through the years is that the Hootie and the Blowfish sound is just what it is. We can take any song and it’s gonna sound like us, no matter what we try and do to it. I think it turns out to be a great thing for us ‘cause it doesn’t limit us to a certain category of song or genre. It just allows us to kind of pick the songs that are the best songs and not worry about anything else.”

The band has sold over 25 million records worldwide after they hit the airwaves in 1994 with such smash hits as “Hold My Hand,” “Let Her Cry” and “Only Wanna Be With You.”

Here are holiday liners from some UMG Nashville artists, including Adam Hambrick, Alan Jackson, Billy Currington, Brandon Lay, Brothers Osborne, Clare Dunn, Darius Rucker, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church, Gary Allan, George Strait, Jon Pardi, Jordan Davis, Josh Turner, Kassi Ashton, Keith Urban, Kip Moore, Lauren Alaina, Little Big Town, Luke Bryan, Maddie & Tae, Parker McCollum, Sam Hunt, Shania Twain, Travis Denning and more!

Hootie & the Blowfish will perform on The Talk on CBS on Thursday (November 7th), followed by an appearance on ABC’s Strahan, Sara, Keke on Friday (November 8th).

Carrie Underwood will appear on ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday (November 8th), as well as co-host Live With Kelly & Ryan with Ryan Seacrest, leading up to next week’s CMA Awards.

Luke Bryan and Carrie Underwood will make appearances during ABC’s pre-CMA Awards Special, hosted by Robin Roberts. The special focuses on Dolly Parton, who is co-hosting the Awards show with Carrie and Reba McEntire. Dolly Parton: Here She Comes Again airs Tuesday (November 12th) at 10pm ET on ABC.

Dierks Bentley and Brothers Osborne‘s John Osborne are among the artists performing a tribute to Kris Kristofferson during Wednesday’s (November 13th) CMA Awards. The Country Music Hall of Famer is being honored with the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award, which has only been given out four other times four other times, to Willie Nelson (2012), Kenny Rogers (2013), Johnny Cash, posthumously (2015) and Dolly Parton  (2016). The artists, which also includes Sheryl Crow and Chris Janson, will perform the Kristofferson-penned classic “Me and Bobby McGee,” which was made famous by Janis Joplin and Roger Miller, who released it first in 1969.

Travis Denning will hit the road with Dustin Lynch on the Stay Country Tour 2020, which kicks off January 30th in Detroit, Michigan. Tickets go on sale November 15th and November 22nd.

Can’t think of a better way to kick off 2020 than with some country damn music. Hittin’ the road with @dustinlynch on the #StayCountry Tour.

Tickets on sale Friday, November 15th. Tickets for Kansas City, MO and Bensalem, PA on sale Friday, November 22nd. pic.twitter.com/jbnrxRAHFK

— Travis Denning (@Travis_Denning) November 6, 2019

Vince Gill is among the nominees for this year’s Songwriters Hall of Fame, along with Sonny Curtis, Kye Fleming, Bob McDill and Dennis Morgan. The official induction ceremony will take place June 11th (2020) in New York City.

Hootie & the Blowfish make a triumphant return today, Nov. 1, with the release of highly-anticipated album Imperfect Circle, their first in nearly 15 years. Named one of the “biggest albums to hear this season” by Entertainment Weekly and highlighted in The New York Times’ fall music preview, the album arrives on the heels of the band’s critically-acclaimed, sold-out Group Therapy Tour that played to nearly three-quarters of a million fans across the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Ireland this year. Stream and download the new album HERE.

As Billboard praised in a feature chronicling the final leg of the tour in Europe, the album encourages “good times and easy-to-love music, sure, but also an incrementally more just and inclusive world for everyone — black, white and otherwise,” also noting that “Hootie now occupies an anomalous cultural space, residing on both Spotify’s Fresh Country and All Out 90s playlists as once-severe critical backlash has receded into general warm nostalgia [and] the band is seemingly at home in both realms.”

To celebrate the album’s eagerly-awaited release, Hootie & the Blowfish stopped by “Good Morning America” earlier today, Nov. 1, for the live television debut of their current single, “Hold On.” Watch the full performance HERE and view the song’s recently released music video filmed in the band’s birthplace of South Carolina HERE.

The band now travels to the West Coast for a series of appearances next week, beginning with a sold-out performance at L.A.’s iconic Troubadour on Monday, Nov. 4. The band will also perform on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday, Nov. 5, as well as “The Talk” on Wednesday, Nov. 6.

For more information, visit www.Hootie.com, and follow on Facebook @hootieandtheblowfish, Twitter @HootieTweets and Instagram @hootieofficial.

About Hootie & the Blowfish
With the rich, bluesy vocals of Darius Rucker and gleeful harmonies of guitarist Mark Bryan, bassist Dean Felber and drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld, Hootie & the Blowfish have sold over 25 million records worldwide to date after their infectious melodies hit the airwaves in 1994 with hits such as “Hold My Hand,” “Let Her Cry” and “Only Wanna Be With You.”

The quartet met at the University of South Carolina where endless gigs at frat houses and local bars built a major local buzz. Their blend of pop, folk, blues, soul and rock made them hard to pigeonhole, but easily accessible to anyone who loved good music.

Atlantic Records, impressed by their regional draw, signed them and released Cracked Rear View in 1994. The album had been out for six months before the band played on the Late Show with David Letterman which sent sales skyrocketing, eventually landing at No. 1 on the Billboard chart the following spring. Cracked Rear View and the band went on to win two GRAMMY Awards, an MTV Video Music Award, a Billboard Music Award, and multiple People’s Choice Awards. Cracked Rear View went on to earn the band Billboard‘s Band of the Year Award in 1996 and the RIAA’s Diamond Award for sales in excess of 10 million units. Cracked Rear View remains the 5th most certified studio album in music business history.

The band remained a top draw nationwide and released five more albums for Atlantic: Fairweather Johnson, Musical Chairs, Scattered, Smothered & Covered, Hootie & The Blowfish and The Best of Hootie & The Blowfish, as well as Looking For Lucky on their own Sneaky Long Records and LIVE in Charleston, The Homegrown Concert Event DVD and CD. The band took a break from full-time touring in 2007, reuniting annually for a variety of philanthropic events while also pursuing solo projects. 2019 marked the band’s first full-time touring year in over a decade as they embarked on the Group Therapy Tour ahead of Imperfect Circle, their first album in nearly 15 years out now under a new record deal with Universal Music Group Nashville. The album’s lead single, “Hold On,” earned most-added distinction at Country radio upon its release and is currently climbing the charts.

Hootie & the Blowfish are celebrating the release of Imperfect Circle, their first album in nearly 15 years, with multiple live appearances on national television. They appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday (November 1st), and they’ll head to the West Coast to perform on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday (November 5th) and The Talk on CBS on Wednesday (November 6th).

Carrie Underwood has been tapped to co-host Live With Kelly & Ryan with her friend, Ryan Seacrest, on November 8th. The two first met during Season 4 of American Idol in 2005. Guests include Maura Tierney (The Affair, The Report) and Brian Cox (Succession, Good Omens).

The members of Little Big Town are among the artists performing November 10th at Nashville’s War Memorial Auditorium for the premiere of YouTube Originals documentary, The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash. Proceeds from ticket sales will go to MusiCares. Midland, Cam and Devin Dawson are also scheduled to perform.

Dierks Bentley and Darius Rucker are among the artists featured in the music video for Clint Black’s new video for “This Old House” filmed primarily at the Grand Ole Opry. Trace Adkins, Sara Evans, Michael Ray, Travis Tritt, Steve Wariner and Cody Jinks are also featured.

And that’s a wrap for Carrie Underwood‘s Cry Pretty Tour 360 with Maddie & Tae and Runaway June. They wrapped the all-female tour Thursday night (October 31st) in Detroit.

https://twitter.com/carrieunderwood/status/1189996144719515648

Hootie & the Blowfish are getting ready to release their new album, Imperfect Circle, on Friday (November 1st). Highlights on the album — their first in 15 years — include Lucie Silvas on “Wildfire Love,” which features Ed Sheeran as a co-writer, as well as Chris Stapleton’s penmanship on the only outside cut, “Hold On,” and Sheryl Crow on backing vocals throughout the album.

“I think it’s cool that Imperfect Circle kind of has the same ring to it as Cracked Rear View where you’re looking back and you realize nobody’s journey is perfect, but here we are,” says guitarist Mark Bryan of the album’s name. “We’ve been playing together for thirty-something years and for us to be here and to be doing this tour, to be making a record, it just seems like Imperfect Circle was perfect,” adds Rucker.

“There’s a lot of energy getting back in the studio to record Imperfect Circle,” says Jim “Soni” Sonefeld. “It was good to gather again, it had been some years. Just the energy felt so strong recording brand new music and we’re so proud of what we came up with.”

With the rich, bluesy vocals of Darius Rucker and gleeful harmonies of guitarist Mark Bryan, bassist Dean Felber and drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld, Hootie & the Blowfish have sold over 25 million records worldwide to date after their infectious melodies hit the airwaves in 1994 with hits such as “Hold My Hand,” “Let Her Cry” and “Only Wanna Be With You.”

Catch the band performing on ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday (November 1st).

Imperfect Circle Track Listing:
1.   New Year’s Day (Hootie & the Blowfish, Tofer Brown, Eric Paslay and Jeff Trott)
2.   Miss California* (Hootie & the Blowfish, Andrew DeRoberts and David Ryan Harris)
3.   Wildfire Love (Featuring Lucie Silvas) (Hootie & the Blowfish, Joel Crouse, Kyle Rife and Ed Sheeran)
4.   Hold On* (Jim Beavers and Chris Stapleton)
5.   Turn It Up (Hootie & the Blowfish and Jeff Trott)
6.   Not Tonight (Hootie & the Blowfish, Andrew DeRoberts and David Ryan Harris)
7.   We Are One (Hootie & the Blowfish)
8.   Everybody But You* (Hootie & the Blowfish and Frank Rogers)
9.   Lonely On A Saturday Night (Hootie & the Blowfish, Eric Paslay and Jeff Trott)
10. Why (Hootie & the Blowfish, Chris August and James Slater)
11. Rollin’ (Hootie & the Blowfish, Adam Doleac, Zach Kale and John King)
12. Half A Day Ahead (Hootie & the Blowfish)
13. Change (Hootie & the Blowfish)
Album Produced by Jeff Trott
*Produced by Frank Rogers