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Daniels sang-spoke his way through his biggest song, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” in 1979, but first embraced that style six years earlier with “Uneasy Rider.” At its core it’s a novelty song, with Daniels in the role of a long-haired hippie (not the long-haired country boy that was to come a year later) […]
Daniels put a Southern-fried spin on Faust’s deal with Mephistopheles for what would become his signature song. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” tells the story of a behind-on-his-collections demon who tries to win an easy soul by challenging a simple country boy named Johnny to a fiddle contest. Up for grabs? A fiddle of […]
Usually more closely associated with uptempo rock numbers, Daniels scored himself a winning ballad with “Mississippi,” from 1979’s Million Mile Reflections. The follow-up single to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” it peaked just inside the Top 20 on country radio. With a lush string section reminiscent of Glen Campbell’s sweetly orchestrated country-pop chestnuts, “Mississippi” […]
Daniels drew on the geography of his Southern upbringing to supply the vivid imagery for the chilling narrative “The Legend of Wooley Swamp,” the opening track of the CDB’s 1980 album Full Moon. “I come from the coast of North Carolina, and we’re loaded down with swamps,” he told Rolling Stone in 2015. “I’m familiar […]
If there’s a song that manages to embody the complicated duality of Charlie Daniels, it’s “The South’s Gonna Do It” (popularly known as “The South’s Gonna Do It Again”) from 1974’s Fire on the Mountain. On the one hand, it’s a scorching country-rock tune that makes plenty of space for some flashy fiddle and sizzling electric […]
Of all the songs in the Charlie Daniels canon, few evoke the jam-band side of Southern rock quite like this track off 1976’s Saddle Tramp. A Daniels solo composition, “Sweet Louisiana” pairs some slippery slide guitar with CDB keyboardist Taz DiGregorio’s barroom piano for a euphoric result. The live version off 1978’s Volunteer Jam III […]
This has to be the conflicted-and-then-some Daniels’ most successful attempt to straddle our culture-war battle lines. “Long Haired Country Boy” finds Daniels believing Jesus walked on water but cursing the TV preachers who condemn rock & roll. Like any good “Okie From Muskogee,” he loves getting drunk, but he also has hippie hair and you […]
An outlier in a catalog more often associated with good-ole-white-boy anthems and Southern gothic story-songs, this 1985 Top 10 country hit is a dancing-all-over-your-troubles rave-up. It launches with an electric guitar part that, uh, tinkers with the one in Kenny Loggins’ “Footloose,” but Daniels quickly commandeers the lick for himself. The hurtling rhythm is roots-rock […]
Written by New York folksinger Dan Daley, “Still in Saigon” tells the conflicted tale of a Vietnam War veteran suffering from the lingering effects of combat and trying to figure out where he fits in “normal” life. Unlike “In America,” it doesn’t lean toward the jingoistic. Instead, the drum-heavy song offers a stark, unflinching look […]
Daniels preaches American perseverance and unity among the “cowboys, hippies, rebels, and yanks” in this patriotic-to-the-hilt anthem off Full Moon. More rock than country and with most of the Southern grit polished off, the slick “In America” was made with a larger audience in mind — it found it too, nearly cracking the Top 10 […]