R.I.P. Charlie Daniels

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Mister Tee
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Re: R.I.P. Charlie Daniels

Post by Mister Tee »

There aren't many entertainers who pivoted politically to such a degree. Uneasy Rider was a totally pro-counterculture song. A decade later, he was in far right field.

Screw all that. I loved The Devil Went Down to Georgia. Bon voyage, Charlie.
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Re: R.I.P. Charlie Daniels

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dws1982 wrote:He definitely became pretty far-right in his later years, but if nothing else, he deserves a shout-out for "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", one of the classics that fully merits its status as a classic. It's an all-time great country song in my opinion--an all-time great song in any genre of popular music, I would say--and nothing else he did ever came close.
"Uneasy Rider" is the real classic, IMO. And it's a good thing he doesn't have a statue.
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R.I.P. Charlie Daniels

Post by dws1982 »

He definitely became pretty far-right in his later years, but if nothing else, he deserves a shout-out for "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", one of the classics that fully merits its status as a classic. It's an all-time great country song in my opinion--an all-time great song in any genre of popular music, I would say--and nothing else he did ever came close.

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NASHVILLE, TN — Charlie Daniels, often called the South's "favorite redneck fiddle player" and best known for 1979's "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," has died at age 83.

The Country Music Hall of Famer's publicist said Daniels died of a stroke Monday at a hospital in Hermitage, Tennessee. It was his second stroke since 2010. Doctors gave him a pacemaker in 2013, but Daniels continued to perform, delighting audiences with his virtuoso performances.

Daniels influenced country music for more than 60 years, starting his career as a session musician for the likes of Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Leonard Cohen, Marty Robbins, Claude King, Flatt & Scruggs, Pete Seeger and Al Kooper before The Charlie Daniels Band's breakout hit, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia."

The song, with its smoking violin licks and growling lyrics, earned Daniels the only Grammy Award of his career. But it established Daniels, topping the country chart and earning Daniels the Country Music Association's musician of the year award in the 1970s.

It was also a huge crossover hit, landing at No. 3 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart behind The Knack's "My Sharona" and Earth Wind and Fire's "After the Love Has Gone." Daniels and his band performed the song in the 1980 film "Urban Cowboy," giving it even more notoriety and helping fuel a nationwide appreciation for country music.

Daniels was a controversial figure in Nashville in the early days of his career, celebrating marijuana with "Long Haired Country Boy" long before states started legalizing cannabis, and ridiculing rednecks with "Uneasy Rider.

He softened his verses in the 1990s. In "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," Satan became a "son of a gun" instead of a "son of a bitch." In "Long Haired Country Boy," he originally sang of getting "stoned in the morning" and "drunk in the afternoon." In the sanitized version, he sang: "I get up in the morning. I get down in the afternoon."

"I guess I've mellowed in my old age," he said in 1998.

The in-your-face lyrics remained in other songs, including 1980's "In America," where he told the country's enemies to "go straight to hell," and 1990's "Simple Man," in which he sang of lynching drug dealers and using child abusers as alligator bait

He joined the epitome of Nashville's music establishment, the Grand Ole Opry, in 2008. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.

"To be able to be a member and to have my name linked with my heroes is some pretty heady stuff for a guy that loves music and loves the Grand Ole Opry as much as I do," he said at the time.

The Country Music Association said in a tweet Monday that it was "heartbroken to learn of the passing of one of Country's Music's legendary musicians."

Sarah Trahern, the chief executive of the CMA, said in a statement that few artistshave touched so many different generations as Daniels.

"Today, our community has lost an innovator and advocate of Country Music. Both Charlie and [his wife] Hazel had become dear friends of mine over the last several years, and I was privileged to be able to celebrate Charlie's induction into the Opry as well as tell him that he was going to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame," she said.

Daniels was also deeply religious, earning Dove Awards for his spiritual recordings. He also as a patriotic American who used his voice to elevate those of U.S. veterans in The Journey Home Project, which he and his manager established in 2014. Known for his conservative beliefs, he accepted the First Amendment Center/Americana Music Association "Spirit of Americana" Free Speech Award in 2006.

Daniels and his band toured relentlessly, performing as many as 250 shows a year, and was scheduled to perform with The Marshall Tucker Band at the Rialto Square Theater on Sept. 11.

"I have never played those notes perfectly. I've never sung every song perfectly. I'm in competition to be better tonight than I was last night and to be better tomorrow than tonight," he said of the exhaustive schedule in 1998.

A native of Wilmington, North Carolina, Daniels is survived by his wife, Hazel, and son, Charlie Daniels Jr.
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