"Hold My Hand" From A Different Perspective

Cris Cohen: After finishing this book, there are two moments that kind of stuck in my mind…

…And then the other one is the moment when you and your wife are at a solo performance by Darius (Rucker). You are in the crowd as everyone sings along to “Hold My Hand.” To me, those are very movie-esque moments. You can picture them as you read them.

Jim "Soni" Sonefeld of Hootie and The Blowfish: …And then same with the second moment you mentioned, with finding myself willing to go out, in the lawn section. Thank goodness I had no hair, because no one knew me from the man on the moon. And I had a ball cap on. I was a little incognito on purpose.

But to feel for the first time what it would be like watching Darius sing “Hold My Hand,” a song I'd written in the late 80s, with his country band in front of an amphitheater full of people. I wanted to experience that. I actually feel like I needed to release something and to get rid of some hang up or some illusion. Not sure what it was exactly, but I wanted to be out there.

I wanted to feel that. I didn't know how it was going to feel. I'm glad that it was a feeling of relief and celebration. I think that's how I describe it in the book.

I wasn't particularly hung up. I wasn't ever really hung up that Darius had moved on, made a solo record, did an amazing thing with it, and got fame and notoriety. He never quit the band. He always lifted up the name Hootie & the Blowfish in interviews.

He was an opening act for another big country act, but he had the whole full audience out there. The lawn was packed. I knew he was going to play “Hold My Hand” because it was on the set list. It was pretty cool to see how that spectacle looked, because I knew I was part of it too. It wasn't just Darius singing a Hootie song.

It was a song I'd scripted and something I'd been part of for many, many years before that. So that was a full positive for me.