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YOU COULD SAY the history of Hootie & the Blowfish began 20 years ago, when they were mere minnows. Back in the spring of 1975, a critic for The New York Times had these choice words for another laid-back, roots-rocking troupe that happened to sell zillions of records: ''As long as one can accept the notion of pleasant music without much import beyond its pleasantness, the Eagles are a pretty nice band.''
Hootie & the Blowfish, like the Eagles, occupy a time-honored space in the spin cycle of rock & roll: They're that nice band. The critics and the combat-boot crowd may write off the South Carolina quartet as a pack of bland, status-quo party boys, but this year the Blowfish swam blissfully and defiantly upstream, selling 11 million copies of Cracked Rear View and joining Boston and Whitney Houston among the top debuts of all time. In other words, nice guys finish first. ''The only negative thing about how great this year has been,'' recalls guitarist Mark Bryan, 28, ''is that I haven't been able to go home and hang out with my girlfriend and my dog as much as I'd love to.'' Aw, shucks.
In one year, these four wholesome veterans of the Southern keg-party circuit -- Bryan, second from right; frontman Darius Rucker (no, his name is not Hootie), 29, far right; bassist Dean Felber, 28, far left; and drummer Jim Sonefeld, 31, second from left -- morphed into a Gumpish emblem of their time. They blanketed VH1; they were satirized on Saturday Night Live. An episode of Friends swirled around a Hootie concert where Courteney Cox scored a hickey from an unseen Blowfish. ''You're just sitting there watching a show you like,'' marvels Bryan, ''and all of a sudden you're part of the subject matter of the show!'' Rucker even lent his soul-trained baritone to the World Series, where he sang the national anthem. Try to imagine Courtney Love howling her way through ''The Star-Spangled Banner,'' and you get the gist of Hootie's apple-pie appeal.
Indeed, Blowfish fans are a nice, patriotic bunch -- a silent majority of well-groomed wage-earners who are fed up with nose rings, gangstas, and grunge. For them, Hootie's mild vibe is a relief. ''Our sound has been around for a while,'' Bryan concedes. ''But it so happens that at the time we put our record out, America was really hungry for something like that.'' It makes sense that Rucker and Bryan covered ''Take It Easy'' a decade ago at the University of South Carolina; by now, the band has forged the same emotional link that shaggy strummers like the Eagles, Jackson Browne, and Loggins & Messina molded in the '70s. As Bryan explains, ''Fans say things like ' ''Let Her Cry'' was the first song we heard on our first date! Will you play at our wedding?'''
And why not? In Hootie's case, fans and stars are the same -- regular folks, fond of Budweiser, baseball caps, a round of golf, and a game of hoops. Just ask David Letterman, who perfectly pegged the phenomenon of Hootie & the Blowfish when he waved a copy of Cracked Rear View at the camera in February. ''If you don't have this record,'' Dave decreed, ''there must be something wrong with you.''
