I normally steer clear of biographies.
There’s just something about that category of books, with their smug sense of self-importance. Most people are lucky to be remembered with a short obituary, or an online memorial website— so why do some people rate an entire book? And it’s even worse when the subject is still living. Like somehow a person can be so self-assured of their legacy, when they haven’t even run out the clock yet.
But sometimes, books have a way of choosing their readers.
This happened to me not long ago, when I was loading up my Kindle through the Libby app, and my usual keyword search for books about the great state of South Carolina came back with an unlikely recommendation:
I took a chance on this one, and was pleasantly surprised when “Only Wanna Be With You” turned out to be pretty good (you know, as biographies go). This book chronicled a group of college friends who formed a band, reached the highest heights of rock and roll fame, and then fell off the charts entirely, disappeared into obscurity after that. As a former record executive, Tim Sommer had personally signed Hootie and the Blowfish to their first recording contract, which gave him an amazing level of inside access. Even thirty years later, in his second career as a music journalist, Sommer’s enthusiasm for the adult-pop-rock band hadn’t dropped off at all.
The book ended up being a great story, but for me personally, one of the best parts was the unexpected burst of nostalgia.
See, back in 1994, before cell phones and wireless Internet crept their way into our daily lives, things were just… different. In those days, there was a cable television channel called “MTV”, which one day, suddenly introduced the world to a new band called “Hootie and the Blowfish”.
MTV kept Hootie in heavy rotation, while just one channel down, its sister network, VH1, was doing the exact same thing. Never mind that the band had only released one or two singles by that point— during that weird summer, it seemed as if every other video was a Blowfish track. Pop radio got into the act soon after, and the rotation continued this way for months.
1994 turned into 1995, and the band somehow managed to keep up the momentum. Their debut album, Cracked Rear View, sold nearly ten million copies in the first year alone, and the band maintained a frenetic touring schedule, appearing on pretty much every stage, from late-night TV to Farm Aid.
And then the next year, on one fateful spring afternoon, I was sitting on the couch and mindlessly surfing through the channels, trying to avoid thinking about my impending high school graduation, and the terrifying prospect of real life waiting after that. And in that moment, MTV just happened to be showing an Unplugged acoustic concert performance featuring Hootie and the Blowfish, performing from the band’s alma mater: The University of South Carolina.
To my young and impressionable mind, it felt like fate had just slapped me awake. Not long before, I’d opened the mail to discover a scholarship offer from the University of South Carolina— completely unexpected, and unsolicited.
Yes, that’s right— the very same institute of higher learning that was responsible for giving the world Hootie and the Blowfish, had somehow discovered my talents as well.
Obviously, the universe was smiling on me. Never mind that I didn’t know a single person from South Carolina, or that I had never visited the state, and could barely find it on a map. Those details seemed inconsequential as I signed the acceptance letter to RSVP for my date with destiny. At that point in my life, it was obvious that the state which had given us Hootie and the Blowfish just had to be one of the most progressive and forward-leaning places on Earth.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
As I read through Mr. Sommer’s book, I couldn’t help flashing back to my first year in Columbia. That fall, once the cooler weather crept in, I set off on a personal quest to visit every local landmark featured on the album art for Cracked Rear View. On weekends, I skipped most of the Gamecocks football games for this musical pilgrimage, with the unique walking tour passing across the wrong side of the tracks on more than one occasion.
And when Mr. Sommer described how the band first met in a dilapidated quad block of dormitories known as “The Towers”, I was instantly taken back to my own memories of these dorms. The Towers were dated even back then, bricked out in a honeycomb style of concrete latticework, which made them feel like more high-security prison cells to the unfortunate residents. Although the narrow patios did allow a little sunlight to creep into the rooms, the open spaces between the bricks were just wide enough for students to throw their empty beer cans down to the sidewalks below.
Eventually I graduated from the USC, and the demands of the traveling circus took me far from the hallowed halls of my alma mater. As I write this, it’s been over twenty years since I’ve been back to Columbia! In that time, the Towers dorms have long since been demolished to make way for new construction, and countless other local landmarks have disappeared as well.
Times change— that’s just how it goes. But even though you can really never go “home” again, sometimes you can get lucky, and come across a good book that helps you squeeze in a quick visit.