Hootie And The Blowfish: A Series of Short Trips on PAL VHS

• Cert: E
• Running time: 52 minutes
• Cat.no: 8536-82967-3
• Released: 7th April 1997
• Sound: Dolby Stereo
• Presented in fullscreen
• Price: £12.99
  

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  Director and Producer:

  Catherine Berclaz

  Performers:

  Mark Bryan (guitar)
  Darius Rucker (lead vocals, guitar)
  Dean Felber (bass)
  Jim Sonefield (drums)

Hootie and the Blowfish are a band from Columbia, South Carolina, who formed in the early 1990’s when they all met at the University of South Carolina, and performed in front of local college crowds.

Although not very well known in the UK, in their own country, they have had big success with their first album, Cracked View Mirror (1994) selling 12 million albums, following the success of the single, Hold My Hand which made No.1 there at the beginning of 1995, subsequently followed by another hit single, Let Her Cry. In 1996, they won two Grammy Awards the first for Best New Artist, and the second for the single Let Her Cry (Best Pop Performance by a Group with Vocal).

This was then followed up by their second album, Fairweather Johnson, continuing their turn-out of sold, rootsy folk-rock songs with powerful and memorable tunes. Success has still yet to be attained in the UK, where Hold My Hand and Let Her Cry just scraped a place inside the Top 75 in 1995, and in 1996, Old Man and Me made No.57. However, you may not realise it but chances are you’ll have heard at least one of their songs as they’re the sort of US band who’ll have no trouble finding their way onto the radio playlists over here, especially with the summer months on their way.

As well as behind the scenes footage of the making of their videos; candid, never before seen interviews with the band; backstage and on-the-road footage of their national tour; and in-studio footage of the band recording and mixing, this video features the following songs :

• Hold My Hand
• Let Her Cry
• Only Wanna Be With You
• Time
• Old Man and Me
• Tucker’s Town
• Sad Caper
• Honeyscrew
• She Crawls Away
• Be The One
• Before The Heartache Rolls In
• Araby
• I’m Over You
• 16 Runners and No Jim Beam

Sound quality of the video is excellent, and certainly is best shown off when the music promos kick in, but the only gripe I have is with the picture quality of the interview footage which was shot on a camcorder, and then done as a standards-conversion to PAL. However, this is to be expected, Hootie being a US band, so once you get into the music it doesn’t detract too much from the songs which get your feet taping, have you singing along to the choruses, and may even encourage a little air-guitar…

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1997.