Charlie Daniels

Charles Edward Daniels (October 28, 1936 – July 6, 2020) was an American singer, musician and songwriter. His music fused rock, country, blues and jazz and was a pioneering contribution to Southern rock and progressive country. He was best known for his number-one country hit "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". Much of his output, including all but one of his eight Billboard Hot 100 charting singles, was credited to the Charlie Daniels Band.

Daniels was active as a singer and musician from the 1950s until his death in 2020. He was inducted into the Cheyenne Frontier Days Hall of Fame in 2002, the Grand Ole Opry in 2008, the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2009 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.

Early life

Charles Edward Daniels was born October 28, 1936, in Wilmington, North Carolina, to teenage parents William and LaRue Daniel. The "s" in Daniels' name was added by mistake when his birth certificate was filled out. Two weeks after Daniels had begun to attend elementary school, his family moved to Valdosta, Georgia, commuting between Valdosta and Elizabethtown, North Carolina, before moving back to Wilmington. After enduring measles, Daniels would require glasses to see for most of his life afterward, which led to his being bullied by other children at his school. Despite these challenges, Daniels found inspiration in Pentecostal gospel music, local bluegrass groups, and rhythm and blues artists he heard on the radio. Additionally, Western films sparked his imagination and creativity. These early influences motivated him to start writing and performing songs, laying the foundation for his future musical career.

Career

Sideman career and first rock band

Daniels began his music career as a member of the bluegrass band Misty Mountain Boys in the 1950s, already skilled on guitar, fiddle, banjo, and mandolin, In the 1960s, Daniels was performing rock and roll. Daniels formed a band, the Rockets, who later changed its name to the Jaguars after scoring a hit single with the instrumental recording "Jaguar". After discovering jazz, the Jaguars began performing jazz music, before reverting to rock and country music by 1964.

Daniels lent his talents to the bass guitar playing, arrangement and co-production of a single, "Love" bw "Black Olives" by The Bad Boys which was released on the Paula Records label in 1966. It became an R&B hit, first registering on the Cash Box Top 50 in R&B Locations chart on 17 December 1966, and still active on the Cash Box Looking Ahead chart 18 March 1967. where it peaked at no. 11. It also made the Record World national R&B chart, peaking at no. 28 on 28 January.

During his career as a rock and roll sideman, Daniels also wrote songs for other performers. In July 1963, soul singer Jerry Jackson recorded Daniels's song "It Hurts Me"; the following year, on January 12, 1964, Elvis Presley recorded the better-known recording of Daniels's song. The songwriting credits list Charles E. Daniels and Joy Byers as the songwriters, although Byers' husband, songwriter and producer Bob Johnston, was the actual co-writer with Daniels. Johnston encouraged Daniels to move to Nashville to get work as a session player, which led to Daniels's recording with Bob Dylan on his 1969 album Nashville Skyline, Ringo Starr on his 1970 album Beaucoups of Blues and Leonard Cohen on his 1971 album Songs of Love and Hate, as well as further sessions with Dylan and Cohen's 1971 tour. Dylan and Daniels found each other creatively invigorating during their recordings together, with Dylan saying that "when Charlie was around, something good would usually come out of the sessions", and Daniels describing the recording sessions with Dylan as "loose, free and, most of all, fun". Daniels also produced albums for the Youngbloods, including their 1969 album Elephant Mountain.

Solo career and formation of the Charlie Daniels Band

Daniels released his self-titled debut album in 1970, which helped lay the foundations for Southern rock. Two years later, Daniels formed the Charlie Daniels Band. Daniels scored a Top 10 hit on the Billboard Pop charts with "Uneasy Rider", a talking bluegrass song, in 1973. The following year, Daniels organized the first Volunteer Jam concert. The same year, the Charlie Daniels Band released the gold selling Fire on the Mountain, followed by the even more successful Nightrider, whose success was spurred by the Top 40 hit single "Texas". Saddle Tramp was also a gold seller, and was the first release by the band to reach the top 10 of the Billboard Country charts.

In 1975, he played fiddle on Hank Williams Jr's breakthrough studio album Hank Williams Jr. and Friends on the songs "Losin You", originally by The Marshall Tucker Band, and "Stoned At The Jukebox". He would also later provide a fiddle solo to the bridge of Williams Jr's song "Family Tradition" from his 1979 studio album of the same name.

In 1979, the Charlie Daniels Band released their most commercially successful album, Million Mile Reflections, which reached number five and was certified triple-platinum. It featured the single "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1979, and won Daniels the Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance. The band also attracted a high-profile fan in President Jimmy Carter, who used Daniels's song "The South's Gonna Do It Again" as his campaign theme, After Carter's win, the band performed at his 1977 inauguration. In 1980, Daniels played himself in the film Urban Cowboy, starring John Travolta, and as a result became closely identified with the revival of country music generated by the film's success. Subsequently, the combination of the success of the more country-oriented song and the decline in popularity of Southern rock led Daniels to shift focus in his sound from rock to country music. After the platinum-certified Full Moon (1980) and the gold-certified Windows (1982), Daniels would not have another hit album until the 1989 release Simple Man, which earned Daniels another gold album, although the title track sparked controversy, as it was interpreted by some as advocating vigilantism, because of lyrics such as "Just take them rascals [rapists, killers, child abusers] out in the swamp/Put 'em on their knees and tie 'em to a stump/Let the rattlers and the bugs and the alligators do the rest", which garnered Daniels considerable media attention and talk show visits.

Later career

In the 1990s, Daniels's albums failed to chart, although he continued to draw audiences as a concert performer well into the 21st century. In 1995, Daniels released the first of three Christian albums for Sparrow Records, The Door. In 1999, Daniels was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.

The 21st century saw Daniels, who had previously recorded for major labels, predominantly recording for independent record labels. In 2001, Daniels received considerable attention for his song "This Ain't No Rag, It's a Flag", released in November, 2001, which was written in response to the September 11 attacks. Daniels then followed with a book entitled Ain't No Rag. Songs from the Longleaf Pines (2005) marked Daniels's first fully bluegrass and gospel album, and began an association with Koch Records, which began releasing a series of Daniels's albums which included holiday albums, live albums and theme compilations.

On October 18, 2005, Daniels was honored as a BMI Icon at the 53rd annual BMI Country Awards. The following year, Daniels played in the backup band for Hank Williams Jr.'s opening sequence to Monday Night Football. In November 2007, Daniels was invited to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry. He was inducted during the January 19, 2008, edition of the Opry. In 2009, Daniels was featured playing fiddle in a commercial for GEICO.

In 2016, Daniels released Night Hawks, an album of Western swing music. In October of that year, Daniels became a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. In March 2017, HarperCollins announced that Daniels's memoir, Never Look at the Empty Seats, would be released on October 24, 2017. In the late 2010s, Daniels, drummer James Stroud, guitarist Billy Crain and bassist Charlie Hayward formed a new band, Beau Weevils, which debuted on the 2018 album Songs in the Key of E, which Daniels described as being in a "down-home, swampy rock meets funk with a little taste of Delta-type of style." On September 28, 2018, Daniels was awarded the MMP Music Award and inducted into the MMP Global Entertainment Hall of Fame in Biloxi, MS. On November 6, 2018, Daniels released a book of daily inspirational quotes and stories titled Let's All Make the Day Count: The Everyday Wisdom of Charlie Daniels through HarperCollins's Thomas Nelson imprint.