Darius Rucker became the first African-American to hit the top of the country music charts since Charley Pride. (AP)

Info on Friday’s Rascal Flatts/Darius Rucker show

Listen to Janis’ interview with Darius Rucker:

When a fan walked up to Darius Rucker in a hotel recently, he was expecting to be recognized as the lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish.

Instead, the fan said, “Aren’t you Darius Rucker, the country singer?”

Rucker happily said yes.

After years as “Hootie,” Rucker is not looking behind him in his cracked rear view mirror, but ahead to a new career as a country artist.

He’s had two No. 1 singles off his debut country album Learn To Live, and the third, Alright, has rocketed to No. 5. And he’s making new fans opening up for Rascal Flatts on its tour, which comes to Cruzan Amphitheatre Friday.

Making a country record wasn’t much of a stretch for a man from South Carolina who routinely heard country music on the radio growing up. Rucker insists he’s not a crossover artist.

“This is the record I’ve been talking about making for years, and I just felt like I was doing what I do,” said Rucker, phoning in from his tour bus. “Writing the songs I always write. I didn’t feel one time I was writing a ‘country’ song. And I wrote 60 songs. We promised ourselves that we were not going to put this record out until we had something special.”

There’s something for everyone on this CD: love songs, fun songs, serious songs, angry songs, socially sensitive songs, even an embarrassed-by-my-behavior-last-night song called “Drinking and Dialing.”

Rucker’s gravelly baritone easily translates to country, and the songs have just enough banjo and mandolin to keep him on the country side of the pop music highway.

Rucker, 43, has come to love the “magic moments” of country song-writing, when anything can inspire a song.

“If I Had Wings”, a lovely ballad with a big metaphysical meaning, was inspired by a T-shirt his producer Frank Rogers was wearing. They were packing up their guitars after a session when songwriter Rivers Rutherford played a chord and sang, ‘If I had wings. . .’

“I said, ‘What’s that?’ He said, ‘I just came up with it,’ and we said, ‘OK, everybody, take your guitars back out …’

“When we were done with it, I knew that it would probably never be a single, but when you hear it, you’ve got to hear it again.”

No story about Rucker’s country music success would be complete without mentioning that he’s the first African-American artist to hit No. 1 on the country charts since Charley Pride in 1983. (The only other African-American to score a No. 1 was Ray Charles in 1985, with “Seven Spanish Angels”, a duet with Willie Nelson.)

“They have to make a deal about it,” Rucker said. “You have to talk about it. It’s something I wish wasn’t a big deal, but it is.

“I get so many e-mails from African-Americans who say, ‘I can’t believe I’m calling or writing to tell you I love country music. I heard your song and I listened to your record and it took me (to country music).’ Every time I see that I feel awesome. And I see it every day.”

Still, Rucker could not have imagined how welcoming country fans would be. No one thought so.

“Before we signed with Capitol, when I told Doc (McGee), my manager, I wanted to do this record, he said ‘You’re not looking for a deal, are you, because I don’t think I can get one. We can get an indie deal, but we might as well do it ourselves.’ ”

Then Capitol Records called.

“(President) Mike Dungan said of all his friends in country music, only two of them thought he was doing the right thing. He had a lot of guts and I still thank him for taking a chance on me.”

In search of a producer, Rucker met Frank Rogers, and it took less than an hour for Rucker and his new friend to write a song. “We wrote All I Want, and when he left my bus, I called my management and said I don’t want to meet anyone else. That song made me know this guy gets what I want to do, and I want this guy producing my record.”

It’s all pretty amazing to the married father of three.

“Who gets a second chance? Seriously.”

Looks like you do, Hootie.

RUCKER ON THE ROAD

On golf: ‘Actually I’m going to have my kids with me so I don’t think I’ll play any golf. I do play with Tiger (Woods). I will never win. It’s as simple as that. If he gets serious and stops talking on the course, I know it’s over for me.’

On reading comic books: Rucker reads 50 comic books a month and admits he’s ‘a dork.’

On singing Hootie songs: ‘I think I would be ripping off the people who came to see us if I didn’t play “Let Her Cry”. How could I not want to? The roar that I hear the second I say “She sits alone by a lamppost.” I’ll play that for the rest of my life.’

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