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Charlie Daniels: No pressure, no stopping
By John Benson
Nearly 35 years have passed since Charlie Daniels took country music to the mainstream with his career- defining song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
In some ways, the fiddle player is just as popular today as he was back in the day.
A few years ago he appeared in a popular Geico commercial. And most recently, he not only joined Brad Paisley on stage at the 2013 CMA Music Festival but he wrote a song for the AMC show “Hell on Wheels.”
Born in Wilmington, N.C., Daniels was raised on gospel, local bluegrass bands, rhythm & blues and country music from the radio.
During Daniels’ 50-year career, he has scored hits on the rock, country, pop and Christian charts.
Sitting on his mantel are a wide array of awards from the Country Music Association (CMA), Academy of Country Music (ACM), TNN/Music City News Awards, and the Gospel Music Association (GMA).
Today, Daniels, 76, is still going strong touring his catalog all summer long.
This includes a Wednesday show at the Sharon Speedway. The Vindicator talked to Daniels about his past, present and, yes, future.
Q. What’s new in Charlie Daniels’ world?
A. We’re working on touring basically, more than anything else. We’ll be doing that until the middle of December. At some time between now and hopefully the middle of next year, I hope to get some recording done. It’s just a matter of having the time to do it.
Q. Considering your massive catalog, at this point in your career how important is it to release new material?
A. It’s important if I have something new to do. If I write some stuff I’m happy with. That’s what I’m predicated on nowadays. I’m not beholden to do an album every year like I used to be when I was on major labels. It was something I had to get into, get the songs written and jump on it. Now when I get something I like and I feel I want to put out there, I go in the studio and do it. So it’s not a pressure sort of thing. And I have my own studio so that simplifies it a lot. I don’t have to go to Nashville at 3 a.m. to finish something up. We leave our studio set up with our instruments.
Q. OK, so do you have anything new you’re currently working on?
A. We’ve always got stuff in the hopper. I have a lot of ways to jump. I just can’t decide which direction I want to go right now. We’ve never done a totally acoustic album. We cut some music for [TV show] “Hell on Wheels” a while back. When we recorded it, we thought it was pretty nice and maybe we ought to do some of this. So we’re thinking about doing an acoustic album. It might be a nice little change for us from playing electric guitars and drums and banging.
Q. So what does it say about Charlie Daniels that Brad Paisley and “Hell on Wheels” people are reaching out to you?
A. I don’t know. My idea is just the music. It’s always been the music. That’s what it’s about. That’s what we are, a musical group that has kind of never kept up with the times because that had never particularly been my thing. But we’ve always been able to come out with something that kind of seems to transcend the times. Like “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” has kind of transcended about three generations now. Kids still like it. But I really don’t know. Like I just did something on Justin Moore’s new record. They just call and if it’s something I have the time for and want to do, I’ll do it.
Q. Considering you’re 76 years old and still playing 90 shows a year, how long can you keep this up?
A. As long as God gives me the health and people want to hear me, I’ll be out here knocking it.