Country music legend Charlie Daniels passed away this morning after he suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. He was 83 years old.
Daniels was a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and his best known recording was his 1979 single “The Devil Went Down To Georgia,” which was released with The Charlie Daniels Band.
Born in Wilmington, N.C. in 1936, Daniels grew up listening to Pentecostal gospel music, bluegrass and country. In the mid-to-late-1960s, he worked as a session musician in Nashville. During that time, he played on three Bob Dylan albums (providing guitar and electric bass work), as well as playing fiddle on the Marshall Tucker Band’s early albums.
In 1973, Daniels reached number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the novelty song “Uneasy Rider.” Two years later, he would reach the top 30 (with The Charlie Daniels Band) with “The South’s Gonna Do It Again.” Finally, in 1979, he reached number 3 on the charts with the aforementioned “The Devil Went Down To Georgia,” which also earned Daniels a Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance.
In 2008, Daniels was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, and in 2016, he became a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
“Charlie Daniels was a reverential innovator. He was a fiddle-playing bandleader, like King of Country Music Roy Acuff. His music fused the immediacy of Southern Rock with the classic country storytelling that he heard as a child in Wilmington, North Carolina,” said Kyle Young the CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (via press release). “He brought new audiences to country music, pointing people to the sources even as he explored the edges. He was also a delight to be around, always with wife Hazel at his side. Just as fiddler Johnny did in the famous song, Charlie Daniels beat the Devil.”
Daniels is survived by his wife, Hazel, and son Charlie Daniels Jr.
24 Comments comments associated with this post
anonymous
July 8, 2020 at 11:12 amyour letting your “community” use the N word relix? What a shit show
confederatepride
July 7, 2020 at 5:20 pmWe just lost a true hero. I hate niggers! Yee-haw! #Trump2020 #WhiteLivesMatter
JW
July 8, 2020 at 10:05 amI respect the man. He was not a racist and we owe much good music to him.
John Popper
July 8, 2020 at 1:00 pmYou’re a sick, ignorant FUCK
confederatepride
July 10, 2020 at 9:47 pm@John Popper
And you’re a fat fuck with a band that sucks ass. #Trump2020 #WhiteLivesMatter #IHateNiggers
Greg
July 7, 2020 at 2:16 pm“Zappa” you are an idiot, the anti-Zappa. Just read above what the man had to say about the klan. CDB was my first concert in 1978 at 8 years old. Kings Dominion theme park near Richmond. Still remember that fun day. First time smelling weed, liked it already. That place was Rebel flag central back then, best coaster was Rebel Yell. Different era for sure. Charlie was never a racist. Uneasy Rider sums up how he felt about over the top rednecks.
Zappa
July 7, 2020 at 12:05 amCharlie was a racist piece of shit
Johnny
July 6, 2020 at 7:56 pmTruth be told the Devil’s solo was better
John Popper
July 6, 2020 at 10:51 pmNot better than mine on Harp.
RIP Charlie Daniels, a great character and musician in the live musical landscape that is my experience.
JC
July 7, 2020 at 6:36 pmI read Popper’s autobiography and found him to be an unlikable pathetic clown.
John Popper
July 8, 2020 at 1:03 pmNo you are wrong. I am great songwriter, singer, world class on harp, and a great all around guy. Check out Alone, Crystal Flame, and Sweet Pain. Those three can go up against anything.
onenitemike
July 6, 2020 at 6:37 pmRalph, I am pleased that this site allows the truth being a truth farmer myself its getting tough to find these days.
RIP Charlie. He was a true patriot!
Ralph Howard’s southern cousin
July 6, 2020 at 5:37 pmCharlie wrote what he felt at the time. He was a true patriot. He was a great songwriter and he loved God. All you black lives matter people need to quit being coddled and put on your big boy pants. All lives matter!! Period !! Racism has been going on since the beginning of time you will never change it. it will always be present in our society. deal with it Crybabies
Albert Dente
July 6, 2020 at 11:02 pmYes, it’s true that All Lives Matter. But there has never been any doubt that White Lives Matter – that was kind of the whole premise between the United States from the beginning. Remember that the Constitution counted slaves as three fifths of a person, and that was for the benefit of their owners who would receive Congressional representation for them at that rate. It’s not ancient history. I was born in 1961 when in vast stretches of the country African American people could not vote, attend a decent school, find a job, or get decent pay. They couldn’t even pick their seat on the bus. Today, systemic racism has taken on the form of mass incarceration that has destroyed several generations of young men and women of color. So saying Black Lives Matter does mean something that saying All Lives Matter doesn’t even approach.
baloney
July 7, 2020 at 12:44 pmSystemic racism leads to mass incarceration? I thought committing crimes leads to incarceration.. People are responsible for their own lives (and their children, up to a certain age)… If someone chooses to rob you for money because they don’t want to work for it…, how is that systemic. Systemic racism is a bunch of baloney
Ethan Ice
July 7, 2020 at 1:05 amHe loved God? Cmon Ralph Howard’s cousin, all gods matter, dontcha know?
rizzo
July 7, 2020 at 9:24 am“Racism has been going on since the beginning of time you will never change it. it will always be present in our society. deal with it Crybabies”
Some of us believe that we can do better.
Ray Sism
July 7, 2020 at 12:45 pmracism runs both ways…
Ray SISM gets it
July 7, 2020 at 1:29 pmCorrect, did the current Martyr only rob black owned liquor stores at gunpoint? What is more violent & racist then “give me your money or i’ll kill you for it? Head to the hills people, inner cities are going to burn and the cops are going to sit back and laugh, rightly so.
Dixie Lee
July 6, 2020 at 5:35 pmGod Bless A Southern Gentleman
Drunken Hippie
July 6, 2020 at 4:26 pmSouthern Rock has lost another Icon. RIP Charlie!!
RALPH HOWARD
July 6, 2020 at 2:23 pm“The South’s Gonna Do It Again” – this song title is inheritable racist and not proper in today’s pandering environment. I insist nothing good be said in his memory. Not.
Chris
July 7, 2020 at 10:40 amThat song is about Southern Rock bands…CD himself denounced it’s use as racist rallying cry.
“The song uses a clever play on words to promote Southern rock music….Daniels in fact bristled at more nefarious interpretations of what the “it” was. When the Ku Klux Klan used the song as background music for radio commercials for a 1975 rally in Louisiana, Daniels told Billboard magazine, “I’m damn proud of the South, but I sure as hell am not proud of the Ku Klux Klan. … I wrote the song about the land I love and my brothers. It was not written to promote hate groups.”[1]
MarZaPhiGar
July 6, 2020 at 2:18 pmAlso, perhaps a bit surprisingly, CD had a friendship with Leonard Cohen & toured with him early on.