AI
Saturday, June 22, 2002 5:33:41 PM
Charlie Daniels Band
I don’t want to push the envelope. I want to do away with the envelope. Get rid of the envelope....Charlie Daniels
Charlie Daniels has been making music for more than twenty years, sticking to one rule and one rule only. If it sounds good, he plays it.
He’s mastered rock and roll, bluegrass and jazz, swirled them all together and created his own unique sound. He’s the Big Daddy of Southern Country Rock; a musical pioneer whose influence on country music remains strong decades after he first came on the scene. He’s won Country Music Association and Grammy Awards throughout his long career. Gold and platinum records line the walls of his den at home. The list of accomplishments go on and on and while music historians will certainly provide a detailed analysis of Daniels’ work, the artist himself offers this simple assessment of his career. "Basically I’m an entertainer," he says. "I want my music to entertain people."
Everyone seems to agree that Same Ol’ Me, Daniels’ 28th release, is his best album yet. Daniels co-wrote all ten songs, presenting an amalgam of musical styles that add up to his own unmistakable sound. Dixieland jazz gets a whirl in My Baby Plays Me Just Like a Fiddle, a kicker of a tune that manages to sound both old and new at the same time. Fais Do Do is a Cajun romp. Guilty represents a change of pace for this done-everything performer -- it’s a serious love song. The swampy blues of Bad Blood and the eerie calm of Take Me To The Wild Side reinforce the dark imagery of these two story songs. The title tune, a straightforward country rocker, takes a good-natured swipe at political correctness and recalls such this-is-my thinking-like-it-or-don’t Daniels classics as The South’s Gonna Do It Again and Simple Man.
"I had a great time cutting this record," says Daniels. "Over the past year, working with some Nashville songwriters, I wrote about thirty songs. We just picked the ten that were best for this album. We decided which songs to include based on the fun factor."
Daniels knows that the fun factor leads to great success. Think about the sheer fiddle-playing joy that screams through his 1979 pop and country chart-topper, The Devil Went Down to Georgia. Winner of both Grammy and Country Music Association Awards, the song showed off Daniels’ incredible musical talents and attracted a huge non-country audience. Or think about the Volunteer Jam, a concert with a couple of friends like the Allman Brothers Band and the Marshall Tucker Band, that turned into a yearly event -- featuring anyone from Tanya Tucker to Billy Joel -- and broadcast over Voice of America.
His first big hit, Uneasy Rider, still elicits smiles even though it was recorded back in 1973. A talking bluegrass number, the song started a tradition of Charlie Daniels making music that captured both the spirit of the times and of the singer. In this case, he told a tale of a long-haired, peace-loving hippie trapped in a redneck-infested tavern when his car breaks down. In 1980, it was In America, a patriotic response to the Iran hostage crisis. In 1990, Simple Man, raged against the violence and cruelty that dominated the news day after day, leaving ordinary folks feeling both disgusted and helpless. In 1994, a time when many Americans felt the need to return to core beliefs and religious faith, Daniels released his first gospel album. The Door contained spiritual songs that were aimed at the sinner rather than the already saved. Daniels knew both sides.
"I got more mail from The Door than anything I’ve ever done," he says with pride. "I laid it on the line on that album because that’s the only way I know how to operate. I guess nobody had done that before, because people responded and it was all positive." The Door received a Dove Award and a Grammy nomination, and Cashbox magazine named his work on this release the Best Positive Christian Country Performance by a Secular Artist. And so Daniels conquered yet another musical category.
That success should come as no surprise, since Charlie Daniels is indeed the Same Ol’ Me. Or as he likes to say, "I’m still doing what I’ve been doing for the last twenty years. I’m still writing songs, still making records and playing shows. It’s who I am and where I’ve been and where I intend to stay."
Chronology
1936: Charles E. Daniels born October 28th in Wilmington, North Carolina
Early 40’s: Charlie bounces between North Carolina and Georgia, goes coon and deer-hunting with his father, and writes his first story: a ghost story about a wooley swamp.
Circa 1953: Charlie has a bluegrass band and writes his first song. "The first thing I wrote that was recorded was in the late 50’s but it was nothing really big."
1959: Charlie has by now been in several rock and roll and R&B groups. The longest stretch is with the Jaguars (1959-1967). They record an instrumental single in Fort Worth, Texas. It’s called "Jaguar."
Early 60’s: Charlie raised on country, a fan of bluegrass, and an adept rock and roll singer and guitarist, discovers jazz on a visit to Washington, D.C. The Jaguars begin to play Louis Prima shuffles, "Mack the Knife," and "some real jazzy stuff."
1964: Back to country and rock. Daniels co-writes "It Hurts Me," and it’s recorded by Elvis Presley and put on the flip side of "Kissin’ Cousins."
1967: Daniels is invited by producer Bob Johnston, who’s joined CBS Records in Nashville, to try Music City. He agrees. "I was playing a lot clubs, and I wanted to get off the road."
He begins work as a session player. After being told by producers that he plays too loud, he joins Johnston on Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline. "It was the first time I felt at home in Nashville. You experience a lot of freedom from Dylan. He liked what I did, and I was very much into what he was doing."
Charlie and his fiddle go on to other sessions and other stars, among them Ringo Starr and Marty Robbins.
1969: Charlie tries his hand as a producer, and when Johnston gets overloaded with work, he suggests Daniels to the Youngbloods. He produces Elephant Mountain and Ride the Wind, the latter recorded live at a rock festival in Louisiana and at the Fillmores East and West.
1970: Daniels cuts his first solo album, Charlie Daniels (Capitol Records). He forms the first Charlie Daniels Band and joins the first wave of Southern rock bands.
The CDB joins Kama Sutra Records and records Te John Grease and Wolfman, named after the band members nicknames. "Grease" was keyboard player Joel Digregorio, still with the CDB. Daniels was "just Charlie. Or, on occasion, ‘the Fat Boy.’"
1972: Their next album, Honey in the Rock, includes "Uneasy Rider," a talking bluegrass number which becomes a hit the following year, reaching #9 in Billboard in August 1973.
1974: The CDB issues Way Down Yonder, which will be reissued in 1977 by Epic as Whiskey.
Recording Fire on the Mountain, including "The South’s Gonna Do It Again," which hits the top 30, and "Long Haired Country Boy," which peaks at #56. Daniels decides to record several songs live in concert and chooses an auditorium in Nashville. In a nod to the Volunteer State, the CDB calls the concert the Volunteer Jam and invites friends from the Allman Brothers Band, the Marshall Tucker Band, and others to join them. "We had such a good time, we decided we should do this once in a while."
"Once in a while" becomes almost every year. Before its first run ends in 198, the jams are broadcast nationally and internationally (by the Voice of America); guests range the world of music and include Willie Nelson, Ted Nugent, Ray Price, Roy Acuff, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Crystal Gayle, James Brown, Emmylou Harris, Amy Grant, George Thorogood, Kris Kristofferson, Little Richard, Tammy Wynette, and Boxcar Willie, along with Alabama, Black Oak Arkansas, the Dirt Band, the Oak Ridge Boys, and in 1986, a reunion of the Allmans.
1975: CDB issues the Night Rider album.
A second Volunteer Jam in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, will result in an album, Volunteer Jam.
1976: With the album, Saddle Tramp, the CDB joins Epic Records.
Daniels aligns himself with presidential candidate Jimmy Carter. "I didn’t think he had a chance. When I was asked about doing something for him, he was ‘Jimmy Who?’ But he called me one night. I read some clips about him, and I felt good about him. We’d come out of a catastrophic political time...Carter personified honesty and goodness." When "Jimmy Who?" becomes President Carter, the CDB are among performers at his inauguration.
1977: The CDB issues two albums, High Lonesome and Midnight Wind.
1978: More Volunteer Jams result in a two-record set, Volunteer Jam III and IV.
1979: Million Mile Reflections yields "Devil Went Down to Georgia," which reaches #3 and for which Daniels wins the Grammy for Best Country Vocal.
1980: The CDB appears in the film, Urban Cowboy ; another Jam bring another VJ (VI) album. CDB’s Full Moon includes "in America," Daniels’ response to the Iran hostage crisis and the renewed patriotism it ignites. The record reaches #11 in Billboard. "We’d just come through the sixties and the backlash of Watergate and Vietnam," says Charlie. "I got the feeling that patriotism was almost dead. But then they took the hostages. I travel a lot, and everywhere I went, people were saying, ‘How dare that S.O.B. take our people! We oughta go over there...’ I never thought I’d see somebody standing up and saying, ‘Damn, we’re America, man. How dare they do that!"
1981: Yet another VJ and album (VII)
1982: In the Windows album, the CDB’s version of Dan Daley’s "Still in Saigon" reaches #22.
1983: The CDB issues a compilation, The Charlie Daniels Band-A Decade of Hits.
1985: Me and the Boys album is released.
1987: The Volunteer Jams have continued non-stop since 1977, but a combination of business and financial difficulties -- along with the time and energy required of the CDB staff--take their toll, and the 13th will be the last for a few years.
The CDB releases its Powder Keg album.
1988: Homesick Heroes is issued out of CBS/Nashville and results in a top 10 record on the country charts: "Boogie Woogie Fiddle Country Blues." 1990: Simple Man is issued and rises to #2 on the country charts. The album is ignited by the title single, in which a simple man ("with simple attitudes," Daniels explains) calls for the lynching of drug-dealers and slow deaths by way of gators and snakes for murders, child abusers and rapists. The song gets Daniels onto numerous talk show, where he’s asked to explain himself. He wrote the song, he says, "out of frustration." He’s read about a scandalous case in which a child was killed by her stepfather. "I know how I feel about it; I know what I’d like to do. Some of it’s kind of tongue-in-cheek; it’s a knee-jerk reaction. I don’t really want to take people out and leave them in the swamps... But violent crimes--that’s what that song’s about."
Daniels is also the subject of a long-form music video, Charlie Daniels: Homefolks and Highways.
The CDB released its first holiday album, Christmas Time Down South.
1991: Renegade is released, and Daniels announces the return of the Volunteer Jam, in May in Nashville. "We took a three and a half year look at it an d feel that we’re ready to do it again," says Daniels. As always, the VJ will provide a stage for a wide mix of music, including B.B. King, Steppenwolf, Tanya Tucker, and, of course, the Charlie Daniels Band.
1992: Charlie Daniels signs new record deal with Liberty Records. Daniels says, "I have been a long time admirer of Jimmy Bowen. I like his style; we both kind of came to Nashville as renegades...Jimmy runs a different kind of record company - an energetic record company..... Jimmy wants the Charlie Daniels Band to sound like us and be what we are. That means an awful lot to us." Bowen says, "Charlie Daniels is a trend setter and an innovator. We at Liberty are proud to have him recording for us and look forward to a long association."
1993: Liberty Records releases the first Charlie Daniels album in April, titled, America, I Believe In You, and commences on a tour. Dickies workwear, out of Ft. Worth, Texas signs Daniels as a involvement as a sponsor of the 1993 tour.
1994: Charlie Daniels releases his first Christian album on Sparrow Records, titled, The Door. Produced by Ron Griffin, the project centers around material written by Charlie and the Band and includes a co-written song with Grammy Award winner Steven Curtis Chapman. "Sunday Morning," the first single release to Christian Country radio takes the #1 slot on the Positive Country chart. A video is released for the single "Two Out Of Three," and is voted Video of the Year for the Christian Country Music Association. Charlie and Chris LeDoux celebrate Christmas, cowboy-style, through song and story at Charlie’s home, Twin Pines Ranch.
1995: Charlie Daniels is named Cashbox Magazines’s Best Positive Christian Country Performance by a Secular Artist for 1994. He receives a Grammy nomination for his Christian album, The Door and inks another contract to host a nationwide talent search television show. A tour is set with Charlie, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Travis Tritt.....the versatility continues!
I don’t want to push the envelope. I want to do away with the envelope. Get rid of the envelope....Charlie Daniels
Charlie Daniels has been making music for more than twenty years, sticking to one rule and one rule only. If it sounds good, he plays it.
He’s mastered rock and roll, bluegrass and jazz, swirled them all together and created his own unique sound. He’s the Big Daddy of Southern Country Rock; a musical pioneer whose influence on country music remains strong decades after he first came on the scene. He’s won Country Music Association and Grammy Awards throughout his long career. Gold and platinum records line the walls of his den at home. The list of accomplishments go on and on and while music historians will certainly provide a detailed analysis of Daniels’ work, the artist himself offers this simple assessment of his career. "Basically I’m an entertainer," he says. "I want my music to entertain people."
Everyone seems to agree that Same Ol’ Me, Daniels’ 28th release, is his best album yet. Daniels co-wrote all ten songs, presenting an amalgam of musical styles that add up to his own unmistakable sound. Dixieland jazz gets a whirl in My Baby Plays Me Just Like a Fiddle, a kicker of a tune that manages to sound both old and new at the same time. Fais Do Do is a Cajun romp. Guilty represents a change of pace for this done-everything performer -- it’s a serious love song. The swampy blues of Bad Blood and the eerie calm of Take Me To The Wild Side reinforce the dark imagery of these two story songs. The title tune, a straightforward country rocker, takes a good-natured swipe at political correctness and recalls such this-is-my thinking-like-it-or-don’t Daniels classics as The South’s Gonna Do It Again and Simple Man.
"I had a great time cutting this record," says Daniels. "Over the past year, working with some Nashville songwriters, I wrote about thirty songs. We just picked the ten that were best for this album. We decided which songs to include based on the fun factor."
Daniels knows that the fun factor leads to great success. Think about the sheer fiddle-playing joy that screams through his 1979 pop and country chart-topper, The Devil Went Down to Georgia. Winner of both Grammy and Country Music Association Awards, the song showed off Daniels’ incredible musical talents and attracted a huge non-country audience. Or think about the Volunteer Jam, a concert with a couple of friends like the Allman Brothers Band and the Marshall Tucker Band, that turned into a yearly event -- featuring anyone from Tanya Tucker to Billy Joel -- and broadcast over Voice of America.
His first big hit, Uneasy Rider, still elicits smiles even though it was recorded back in 1973. A talking bluegrass number, the song started a tradition of Charlie Daniels making music that captured both the spirit of the times and of the singer. In this case, he told a tale of a long-haired, peace-loving hippie trapped in a redneck-infested tavern when his car breaks down. In 1980, it was In America, a patriotic response to the Iran hostage crisis. In 1990, Simple Man, raged against the violence and cruelty that dominated the news day after day, leaving ordinary folks feeling both disgusted and helpless. In 1994, a time when many Americans felt the need to return to core beliefs and religious faith, Daniels released his first gospel album. The Door contained spiritual songs that were aimed at the sinner rather than the already saved. Daniels knew both sides.
"I got more mail from The Door than anything I’ve ever done," he says with pride. "I laid it on the line on that album because that’s the only way I know how to operate. I guess nobody had done that before, because people responded and it was all positive." The Door received a Dove Award and a Grammy nomination, and Cashbox magazine named his work on this release the Best Positive Christian Country Performance by a Secular Artist. And so Daniels conquered yet another musical category.
That success should come as no surprise, since Charlie Daniels is indeed the Same Ol’ Me. Or as he likes to say, "I’m still doing what I’ve been doing for the last twenty years. I’m still writing songs, still making records and playing shows. It’s who I am and where I’ve been and where I intend to stay."
Chronology
1936: Charles E. Daniels born October 28th in Wilmington, North Carolina
Early 40’s: Charlie bounces between North Carolina and Georgia, goes coon and deer-hunting with his father, and writes his first story: a ghost story about a wooley swamp.
Circa 1953: Charlie has a bluegrass band and writes his first song. "The first thing I wrote that was recorded was in the late 50’s but it was nothing really big."
1959: Charlie has by now been in several rock and roll and R&B groups. The longest stretch is with the Jaguars (1959-1967). They record an instrumental single in Fort Worth, Texas. It’s called "Jaguar."
Early 60’s: Charlie raised on country, a fan of bluegrass, and an adept rock and roll singer and guitarist, discovers jazz on a visit to Washington, D.C. The Jaguars begin to play Louis Prima shuffles, "Mack the Knife," and "some real jazzy stuff."
1964: Back to country and rock. Daniels co-writes "It Hurts Me," and it’s recorded by Elvis Presley and put on the flip side of "Kissin’ Cousins."
1967: Daniels is invited by producer Bob Johnston, who’s joined CBS Records in Nashville, to try Music City. He agrees. "I was playing a lot clubs, and I wanted to get off the road."
He begins work as a session player. After being told by producers that he plays too loud, he joins Johnston on Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline. "It was the first time I felt at home in Nashville. You experience a lot of freedom from Dylan. He liked what I did, and I was very much into what he was doing."
Charlie and his fiddle go on to other sessions and other stars, among them Ringo Starr and Marty Robbins.
1969: Charlie tries his hand as a producer, and when Johnston gets overloaded with work, he suggests Daniels to the Youngbloods. He produces Elephant Mountain and Ride the Wind, the latter recorded live at a rock festival in Louisiana and at the Fillmores East and West.
1970: Daniels cuts his first solo album, Charlie Daniels (Capitol Records). He forms the first Charlie Daniels Band and joins the first wave of Southern rock bands.
The CDB joins Kama Sutra Records and records Te John Grease and Wolfman, named after the band members nicknames. "Grease" was keyboard player Joel Digregorio, still with the CDB. Daniels was "just Charlie. Or, on occasion, ‘the Fat Boy.’"
1972: Their next album, Honey in the Rock, includes "Uneasy Rider," a talking bluegrass number which becomes a hit the following year, reaching #9 in Billboard in August 1973.
1974: The CDB issues Way Down Yonder, which will be reissued in 1977 by Epic as Whiskey.
Recording Fire on the Mountain, including "The South’s Gonna Do It Again," which hits the top 30, and "Long Haired Country Boy," which peaks at #56. Daniels decides to record several songs live in concert and chooses an auditorium in Nashville. In a nod to the Volunteer State, the CDB calls the concert the Volunteer Jam and invites friends from the Allman Brothers Band, the Marshall Tucker Band, and others to join them. "We had such a good time, we decided we should do this once in a while."
"Once in a while" becomes almost every year. Before its first run ends in 198, the jams are broadcast nationally and internationally (by the Voice of America); guests range the world of music and include Willie Nelson, Ted Nugent, Ray Price, Roy Acuff, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Crystal Gayle, James Brown, Emmylou Harris, Amy Grant, George Thorogood, Kris Kristofferson, Little Richard, Tammy Wynette, and Boxcar Willie, along with Alabama, Black Oak Arkansas, the Dirt Band, the Oak Ridge Boys, and in 1986, a reunion of the Allmans.
1975: CDB issues the Night Rider album.
A second Volunteer Jam in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, will result in an album, Volunteer Jam.
1976: With the album, Saddle Tramp, the CDB joins Epic Records.
Daniels aligns himself with presidential candidate Jimmy Carter. "I didn’t think he had a chance. When I was asked about doing something for him, he was ‘Jimmy Who?’ But he called me one night. I read some clips about him, and I felt good about him. We’d come out of a catastrophic political time...Carter personified honesty and goodness." When "Jimmy Who?" becomes President Carter, the CDB are among performers at his inauguration.
1977: The CDB issues two albums, High Lonesome and Midnight Wind.
1978: More Volunteer Jams result in a two-record set, Volunteer Jam III and IV.
1979: Million Mile Reflections yields "Devil Went Down to Georgia," which reaches #3 and for which Daniels wins the Grammy for Best Country Vocal.
1980: The CDB appears in the film, Urban Cowboy ; another Jam bring another VJ (VI) album. CDB’s Full Moon includes "in America," Daniels’ response to the Iran hostage crisis and the renewed patriotism it ignites. The record reaches #11 in Billboard. "We’d just come through the sixties and the backlash of Watergate and Vietnam," says Charlie. "I got the feeling that patriotism was almost dead. But then they took the hostages. I travel a lot, and everywhere I went, people were saying, ‘How dare that S.O.B. take our people! We oughta go over there...’ I never thought I’d see somebody standing up and saying, ‘Damn, we’re America, man. How dare they do that!"
1981: Yet another VJ and album (VII)
1982: In the Windows album, the CDB’s version of Dan Daley’s "Still in Saigon" reaches #22.
1983: The CDB issues a compilation, The Charlie Daniels Band-A Decade of Hits.
1985: Me and the Boys album is released.
1987: The Volunteer Jams have continued non-stop since 1977, but a combination of business and financial difficulties -- along with the time and energy required of the CDB staff--take their toll, and the 13th will be the last for a few years.
The CDB releases its Powder Keg album.
1988: Homesick Heroes is issued out of CBS/Nashville and results in a top 10 record on the country charts: "Boogie Woogie Fiddle Country Blues." 1990: Simple Man is issued and rises to #2 on the country charts. The album is ignited by the title single, in which a simple man ("with simple attitudes," Daniels explains) calls for the lynching of drug-dealers and slow deaths by way of gators and snakes for murders, child abusers and rapists. The song gets Daniels onto numerous talk show, where he’s asked to explain himself. He wrote the song, he says, "out of frustration." He’s read about a scandalous case in which a child was killed by her stepfather. "I know how I feel about it; I know what I’d like to do. Some of it’s kind of tongue-in-cheek; it’s a knee-jerk reaction. I don’t really want to take people out and leave them in the swamps... But violent crimes--that’s what that song’s about."
Daniels is also the subject of a long-form music video, Charlie Daniels: Homefolks and Highways.
The CDB released its first holiday album, Christmas Time Down South.
1991: Renegade is released, and Daniels announces the return of the Volunteer Jam, in May in Nashville. "We took a three and a half year look at it an d feel that we’re ready to do it again," says Daniels. As always, the VJ will provide a stage for a wide mix of music, including B.B. King, Steppenwolf, Tanya Tucker, and, of course, the Charlie Daniels Band.
1992: Charlie Daniels signs new record deal with Liberty Records. Daniels says, "I have been a long time admirer of Jimmy Bowen. I like his style; we both kind of came to Nashville as renegades...Jimmy runs a different kind of record company - an energetic record company..... Jimmy wants the Charlie Daniels Band to sound like us and be what we are. That means an awful lot to us." Bowen says, "Charlie Daniels is a trend setter and an innovator. We at Liberty are proud to have him recording for us and look forward to a long association."
1993: Liberty Records releases the first Charlie Daniels album in April, titled, America, I Believe In You, and commences on a tour. Dickies workwear, out of Ft. Worth, Texas signs Daniels as a involvement as a sponsor of the 1993 tour.
1994: Charlie Daniels releases his first Christian album on Sparrow Records, titled, The Door. Produced by Ron Griffin, the project centers around material written by Charlie and the Band and includes a co-written song with Grammy Award winner Steven Curtis Chapman. "Sunday Morning," the first single release to Christian Country radio takes the #1 slot on the Positive Country chart. A video is released for the single "Two Out Of Three," and is voted Video of the Year for the Christian Country Music Association. Charlie and Chris LeDoux celebrate Christmas, cowboy-style, through song and story at Charlie’s home, Twin Pines Ranch.
1995: Charlie Daniels is named Cashbox Magazines’s Best Positive Christian Country Performance by a Secular Artist for 1994. He receives a Grammy nomination for his Christian album, The Door and inks another contract to host a nationwide talent search television show. A tour is set with Charlie, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Travis Tritt.....the versatility continues!
Discover What Traders Are Watching
Explore small cap ideas before they hit the headlines.
